Double Whammy

R. J. Decker found Pickney in the Sentinel'snewsroom, such as it was. There were three typewriters, five desks, and four telephones. Ott was lounging at the coffee machine; nothing had changed.

He grinned when Decker walked in. "R.J.! God Almighty, what brings you here? Your car break down or what?"

Decker smiled and shook Ott's hand. He noticed that Ott was wearing baggy brown trousers and a blue Banlon shirt. Probably the last Banlon shirt in America. How could you not like a guy who wasn't ashamed to dress like this?

"You look great," Decker said.

"And I feel great, R.J., I really do. Hey, I know it's not exactly the big city, but I had my fill of that, didn't I?" Ott was talking a little too loudly. "We got out just in time, R.J., you and me. That paper would have killed both of us one way or another."

"It tried."

"Yeah, boy," Ott said. "Sandy, get over here! I want you to meet somebody." A wrenlike man with thick eyeglasses walked over and nodded cautiously at Decker. "R.J., this is Sandy Kilpatrick, my editor. Sandy, this is R. J. Decker. R.J. and I worked together down in the Magic City. I wrote the prose, he took the snapshots. We covered that big voodoo murder together, remember, R.J.?"

Decker remembered. He remembered it wasn't exactly a big voodoo murder. Some redneck mechanic in Hialeah had killed his wife by sticking her with pins; safety pins, hundreds of them. The mechanic had read something about voodoo in Argosymagazine and had totally confused the rituals. He loaded his wife up on Barbancourt rum and started pricking away until she bled to death. Then he pretended to come home from work and find her dead. He blamed the crime on a Haitian couple down the street, claiming they had put a hex on his house and Oldsmobile. The cops didn't go for this and the redneck mechanic wound up on Death Row.

As Ott was reinventing this story, Sandy Kilpatrick stared at R. J. Decker the way visitors from Miami got stared at in this part of Florida. Like they were trouble. Kilpatrick obviously had heard Ott's voodoo-murder story about four hundred times and soon started to shrink away.

"Nice meeting you," Decker said.

Kilpatrick nodded again as he slipped out of the office.

"Good kid," Ott Pickney said avuncularly. "He's learning."

Decker helped himself to a cup of coffee. His legs were stiff from the long drive.

"What the hell brings you here?" Ott asked amiably.

"Fish," Decker said.

"Didn't know you were a basser."

"I thought I'd give it a try," Decker said. "They say Harney's a real hotspot for the big ones."

"Lunkers," Ott said.

Decker looked at him quizzically.

"In these parts, they're not big ones,they're lunkers," Ott explained. "The most mammoth bass in the hemisphere."

"Hawgs," Decker said, remembering one of Dennis Gaulfs phrases.

"Sure, you got it!"

"Where's the best place to try, this time of year?"

Ott Pickney sat down at his desk. "Boy, R.J., I really can't help you much. The man to see is Jamie Belliroso, our sports guy."

"Where can I find him?"

"Maui," Ott Pickney said.

Jamie Belliroso, it turned out, was one of a vanishing breed of sportswriters who would accept any junket tossed their way, as long as gourmet food and extensive travel were involved. This month it was a marlin-fishing extravaganza in Hawaii, sponsored by a company that manufactured polyethylene fish baits. Jamie Belliroso's air fare, room, and board would all be paid for with the quiet understanding that the name of the bait company would be mentioned a mere eight or ten times in his feature article, and that the name of the company would be spelled correctly—which, in Belliroso's case, was never a sure thing. In the meantime, the blue marlin were striking and Jamie was enjoying the hell out of Maui.

"When will he be back?" Decker asked.

"Who knows," Ott said. "From Hawaii he's off to Christmas Island for bonefish."

Decker said, "Anyone else who could help me? Someone mentioned a guide named Dickie Lockhart."

Ott laughed. "A guide?My friend, Dickie's not a guide, he's a god. A big-time bass pro. The biggest."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he wouldn't be seen in the same boat with a greenhorn putz like you. Besides, Dickie doesn't hire out."

Decker decided not to mention Dennis Gaulf's grave allegations. Ott was obviously a huge fan of Dickie Lockhart's. Decker wondered if the whole town was as starstruck.

"There's a couple good guides work out on the lake," Ott suggested. "Think they're up to two hundred dollars a day."

The world has gone mad, Decker thought. "That's too rich for my blood," he said to Ott.

"Yeah, it's steep all right, but they don't give the tourist much choice. See, they got a union."

"A union?" It was all too much.

"The Lake Jesup Bass Captains Union. They keep the charter rates fixed, I'm afraid."

"Christ, Ott, I came here to catch a fish and you're telling me the lake's locked up by the fucking Izaak Walton division of the Teamsters. What a swell little town you've got here."