Double Whammy (18 page)

Skink snored away and Decker felt alone. He felt like calling Catherine. He found a pay phone outside the lobby of the Quality Court. She answered on the fifth ring, and sounded like she'd been sleeping.

“Did I wake you?”

“Hey, Rage, where you at?”

“In a motel outside New Orleans.”

“Hmmm, sounds romantic.”

“Very,” Decker said. “My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit. For dinner he's fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we're taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen. Don't you wish you were here?”

“I could fly in tomorrow, get a hotel in the Quarter.”

“Don't be a tease, Catherine.”

“Oh, Decker.” She was stretching, waking up, probably kicking off the covers. He could tell all that over the phone. “I had to get up early and take James to the airport,” she said.

“Where to now?”

“San Francisco.”

“And of course he didn't want you to come along.”

“That's not true,” Catherine said. “Those conventions are a bore, and besides, I've got plans of my own. What are you doing out in the bayous?”

“Rethinking Darwin,” Decker said. “Some of these folks didn't evolve from apes; it was the other way around.”

“You should have gotten a nice room downtown.”

“That's not what I meant,” Decker said. “The fish people, I'm talking about.”

“Take notes,” Catherine said, “it sounds like it'll make a terrific movie.
Attack of the Fish People.
Now, be honest, Rage, wouldn't you rather be shooting pictures of golfers?”

Decker said, “I'd better go.”

“That's it?”

“I've got a lot to tell you, but not over the phone.”

“It's all right,” Catherine said. “Anytime you want to talk.” He wished she'd been serious about flying up to New Orleans, though it was a nutty scheme. She would have been safer in San Francisco with her chiropractor.

“I'll call you when I get back,” Decker said.

“Take care,” Catherine said. “Slurp an oyster for me.”

 

At dusk Skink was ready to roll. Shower cap, weathersuit, mosquito netting, lamps, flippers, regulator, scuba tank, dive knife, speargun and, purely for show, a couple of cheap spinning rods. R. J. Decker was afraid the johnboat would sink under the weight. He decided there was no point in bringing the cameras at night; a strobe would be useless at long distance. If his theory was correct, Dickie Lockhart wouldn't be anywhere near the lake anyway.

They made sure they were alone at the dock before loading the boat and shoving off. It was a chilly night, and a northern breeze stung Decker's cheeks and nose. At the throttle, Skink seemed perfectly warm and serene behind his sunglasses. He seemed to know where he was going. He followed the concrete ribbon of I-55, which was sunk into the marshlands on enormous concrete pilings. The highway pilings were round and smooth, as big as sequoias but out of place; the cars that raced overhead intruded harshly on the foggy peace of the bayous. After twenty minutes Skink cut off the motor.

“I prefer oars,” Skink said, but there were none in the boat. “You can hear more with oars,” he remarked.

R. J. Decker noticed what he was talking about. Across the water, bouncing off the pilings, came the sound of men's voices; pieces of conversation, deep bursts of laughter, carried by the wind.

“Let's drift for a while,” Skink suggested. He picked up one of the fishing poles and made a few idle casts. Darkness had settled in and the lake was gray. Skink cocked his head, listening for clues from the other boat.

“I think I see them,” Decker said. A fuzzy pinprick of white light, rocking.

“They've got a Coleman lit,” Skink said. “Two hundred yards away, at least.”

“They sound a helluva lot closer,” Decker said.

“Just a trick of the night.”

After a few minutes the light went out. Skink and Decker heard the ignition sounds of a big engine. It was probably a bass boat. Swiftly Skink hand-cranked the outboard and aimed the johnboat toward the other craft. Legs wide, he stood up as he steered, though Decker couldn't imagine how he could safely navigate around the highway pilings, not to mention the submerged stumps and brushpiles that mined the lakeshore. Every so often Skink would cut the outboard and listen to make sure the other boat was still moving; as long as their engine was running, they'd never know they were being followed. Sitting on two hundred horses, you can't hear yourself think.

After a few minutes the other boat stopped and the Coleman lantern flickered on again. The men's voices were faint and more distant than before.

“We'll never get close,” Skink muttered, “unless we walk it.”

Fortuitously the wind pushed the johnboat into a stand of lily pads. Hand over hand, Skink used the roots to pull them to shore, where Decker tied the boat to a sturdy limb. He grabbed a flashlight and hopped out after Skink. They followed a ragged course along the shoreline for probably four hundred yards, taking tentative spongy steps and using the flashlight sparingly. They passed through a trailer park with particular stealth, not wishing to be mistaken for bears and blasted to oblivion. Far removed from his native territory, Skink's nocturnal instincts remained sound; his path brought them out of the bogs within thirty yards of where the bass boat floated.

The lantern illuminated two men, not the Rundell brothers. “Local boys,” Skink whispered. “Makes sense. Need someone who knows the water.” The anglers were not casting their fishing lines; rather, they seemed to be studying the water. The deck of the boat bristled with rods, each with a line out. In the penumbra a half-dozen red floats were visible bobbing around the sides of the boat. “Livebaiters,” Skink explained. “My guess is worms.”

R. J. Decker said, “It could be anybody out for a night on the lake.”

“No,” Skink said, “these boys are out to load the boat.”

And they were. Every so often one of the poles would bend and flutter, and a bass would splash out in the pads. Quickly one of the men would snatch the rig and reel in the fish as fast as he could. The bass were quickly unhooked and put in a livewell under a hatch in the stem.

This methodical fish-collecting went on for two hours, during which Skink said little and scarcely moved a muscle. Decker's legs were cramping from sitting on his haunches, but it was impossible to stand up and stretch without being seen. Mercifully, as the wind stiffened and the temperature dropped, the two poachers finally called it quits. They reeled in the worms, stored the rods, cranked the big engine, and motored slowly—confoundingly so—up the southeastern shore of the lake. The boat stayed unusually close to the elevated highway, maneuvering in and out of the pilings; occasionally the lantern light flickered across the faces of the two men as they leaned over the gunwales, peering at something which neither Decker nor Skink could see.

Of course it was Skink who led the way back to the johnboat. By the time they got there, the marsh was empty and silent; the other men had finished their business and roared away.

Skink stripped down to his underwear and began fitting his considerable bulk into a wetsuit.

“I was afraid of this,” Decker said. Pitch black, fifty degrees, and this madman was going in. Decker couldn't wait to see the look on the game warden's face.

“Can you drive the boat?” Skink asked.

“I think I can handle it.”

“Take me along the pilings, the same way our buddies went.”

Decker said, “I wouldn't dive in this soup.”

“Who's asking you to? Come on, let's move.”

They motored down the lake to the poachers' bass hole. Skink strapped on a yellow scuba tank, adjusted his headlamp, and slipped over the side. He fitted a nylon rope around his waist and tied it to the transom of the boat. One sharp tug was a signal to stop, two meant reverse, and three tugs meant trouble. “In that case do your best to haul me in,” Skink advised. “If you can't manage, then get the hell out of here, I'm gator chow.”

Decker steered the boat anxiously, monitoring Skink's progress by the bubbles surfacing in the foamy wake. He wondered what the fish and turtles must think, confronted in their inky element by such a hoary gurgling beast. The engine's throttle was set as low as it would go, so the johnboat moved at a crawl; Skink was a heavy load to tow.

When he found what he was searching for, Skink tugged so hard that the rope nearly pulled the stern under. Immediately Decker shifted to neutral so the propeller wouldn't be spinning perilously when Skink came up.

He burst to the surface like a happy porpoise. He held a wire cage, three feet by three. Inside the trap were four healthy largemouth bass, which flapped helplessly against the mesh as Skink hoisted their manmade cell into the bow. He turned off the regulator, spit out the mouthpiece, and tore off his mask.

“Jackpot!” he said breathlessly. “Lookit here.”

Hanging from the fish cage was an eight-foot length of heavy monofilament line, transparent from more than a few feet away. Skink had cut one end with his dive knife. “They tied it to a willow branch—you'd never see it unless you knew where to look,” he said. “Get the wirecutters, Miami.”

Decker clipped the hinges off the fish cage. Skink reached in and took out the bass one by one, gently releasing each fish back into the lake. It was an oddly tender moment; Skink's grin was as warm as the glow from the lantern. After the bass were freed, he returned the empty cage to the water and tied it to the same dry bough.

Decker had to admit that it was an ingenious cheat. Salt the lake with pre-caught fish and scoop them out on tournament day. Dennis Gault was right: these boys would do anything to win. The more he thought about it, the more disgusted Decker got. The poachers had corrupted this beautiful place, polluted its smoky mystery. He couldn't wait to see their faces when they discovered what had happened, couldn't wait to take their pictures.

Probing the waters around the highway pilings, Decker and Skink located three more submerged cages, each stocked with the freshly caught bass. They counted eleven fish in all, four in the final trap; lifting the largest by its lower lip, Skink estimated its weight at nine and a half pounds. “This bruiser would have bought dirty Dickie first place,” he gloated.
“Adiós,
old girl.” And he let the fish go.

That left two smaller bass flopping in the mesh, their underslung jaws snapping in mute protest while starved burgundy gills flared in agitation.

“Sorry, fellas,” Skink said. “You're the bait.” With a pair of bluntnosed pliers he carefully clipped the first two spines of the dorsal fin on each bass.

“What're you doing?” R. J. Decker asked.

“Marking them,” Skink replied, “that's all.”

With the fish still trapped, he securely rewired the door of the cage and eased it below the surface. He made sure it was tied securely to the concrete beam where Dickie Lockhart would be looking for it. By that time, of course, the bass champion would be in a state of desperate panic, wondering not only who was sabotaging his secret fish cages but also how in the world he would ever win the tournament now.

The day the Cajun Invitational Bass Classic was to begin, Dennis Gault was hundreds of miles away in Miami. Though it nettled him to miss the competition, strategy dictated that he sit out the tournament. He wanted Dickie Lockhart to feel safe and secure, knowing his archenemy wasn't around to spy on him. He wanted Dickie and his gang to let their guard down.

Gault spent most of the morning in a surly mood, barking at secretaries and hanging up on commodity brokers who wanted the scoop on the new cane crop. In the morning paper he checked the weather in New Orleans and was elated to see that it was windy and cold; this meant rugged fishing. R. J. Decker called briefly to say things were going well, but offered no details. The other thing he didn't offer was an apology for smashing Dennis Gault's nose. Gault was miffed at Decker's icy attitude but thrilled by the idea that the drama finally had begun. Gault's hatred for Dickie Lockhart consumed him, and he would not rest until the man was not just broken but scandalized.

The cheating was only part of it; Gault would have rigged some bass tournaments himself, had he found trustworthy conspirators. The more virulent seed of Dennis Gault's resentment was knowing that a dumb hick like Dickie was part of the bass brotherhood—the Good Old Boy that Gault himself could never be. Dickie was the champ, the TV personality, the world-famous outdoorsman; he could scarcely balance a checkbook or tie a Windsor, but he knew Curt Gowdy personally. In a man's world, that counted for plenty.

Losing to Lockhart in a bass tournament was bad enough, but watching impotently while the asshole outsmarted everybody else was intolerable. Dennis Gault's venom toward Dickie and his crowd spilled from a deep well. It was the way they looked at him when he showed up for the tournaments; he was the outsider, the dilettante with the money. Their eyes said: You don't belong on this lake, mister, you belong on a golf course. He was constantly referred to as The Rich Guy from Miami. Coral Gables would have been fine, but
Miami
. He might as well have dropped in from Bolivia as far as the other bassers were concerned. To a man they were rural Deep Southerners, with names like Jerry and Larry, Chet and Greg, Jeb and Jimmy. When they talked it was bubba-this and brother-that, between spits of chaw. When Dennis Gault opened his mouth and all that get-me-my-broker stuff came out, the bassers looked at him as if he were a peeling leper.