Double Whammy (23 page)

Staring obediently at Lake Pontchartrain, the three men never saw Decker pull out the crowbar. With both hands he swung as hard as he could, a batter's arc. The iron blade pinged off the top of their skulls one by one, as if Decker were playing a human xylophone. The robbers fell in a wailing cross-eyed heap.

Decker had expected less noise and more blood. As the adrenaline ebbed, he looked down and wondered if he had hit them more than once. He didn't think so.

Now it was definitely time to go; the flat tire was Hertz's problem. Decker quickly loaded his stuff into the Cordoba. The key was in the ignition. A blue oily pistol lay on the front seat. He tossed it out the window on his way to the airport.

The first person R. J. Decker called when he got back to Miami was Lou Zicutto. Lou was branch claims manager of the mammoth insurance company where Decker worked part-time as an investigator. Lou was a spindly little twit, maybe a hundred twenty pounds, but he had a huge florid head, which he shaved every day. As a result he looked very much like a Tootsie Pop with lips. Despite his appearance, Lou Zicutto was treated respectfully by all employees and coworkers, who steadfastly believed that he was a member of the Mafia who could have them snuffed with a single phone call. Lou himself did nothing to discourage this idea, even though it wasn't true. Except for the fancy stationery, Decker himself didn't see much difference between the mob and an insurance company, anyway.

“Where ya been?” Lou Zicutto asked. “I left a jillion messages.” Lou had a raspy cabdriver voice, and he was always sucking on menthol cough drops.

“I've been out of town on a case,” Decker said. He could hear Lou slurping away, working the lozenges around his teeth.

“We got Núñez this week, remember?”

Núñez was a big fraud trial the company was prosecuting. Núñez was a stockbroker who stole his own yacht and tried to scuttle it off Bimini for the insurance. Decker had shot some pictures and done surveillance; he was scheduled to testify for the company.

“You're my star witness,” Lou said.

“I can't make it, Lou, not this week.”

“What the hell you mean?”

Decker said, “I've got a conflict.”

“No shit you got a conflict. You got a big fucking conflict with me, you don't show up.” The cough drops were clacking furiously. “Two million bucks this creep is trying to rip us for.”

“You got my pictures, the tapes, the reports—” Decker said.

“Your smiling face is what the lawyers want,” Lou Zicutto said. “You be there, Mr. Cameraman.” Then he hung up.

The second person Decker tried to call was Catherine. The first time, the line was busy. He tried again two minutes later and a man answered. It sounded like James, the chiropractor; he answered the phone the way doctors do, not with a civil hello but with a “Yes?” Like it was a pain in the ass to have to speak to another human being.

Decker hung up the phone, opened a beer, and put a Bob Seger album on the stereo. He wondered what Catherine's new house looked like, whether she had one of these sunken marble tubs she'd always wanted. A vision of Catherine in a bubble bath suddenly swept over Decker, and his chest started to throb.

 

He was half-asleep on the sofa when the phone rang. The machine answered on the third ring. Decker sat up when he heard Al Garcίa's voice.

“Call me as soon as you get in.”

Garcia was a Metro police detective and an old friend. Except he didn't sound so friendly on the machine; he sounded awfully damn professional. Decker was a little worried. He drank two cups of black instant coffee before calling back.

“Hey, Sarge, what's up?”

Garcia said, “You at the trailer?”

“No, I'm in the penthouse of the Coconut Grove Hotel. They're having a Morgan Fairchild lookalike contest and I'm the judge for the swimsuit competition.”

Normally Garcia would have donated some appropriately lewd counterpunchline, but today all he offered was a polite chuckle.

“We need to talk,” the detective said mildly. “See you in about thirty.”

Garcia was sitting on something, that much was certain. Decker shaved and put on a fresh shirt. He could easily guess what must have happened. A Louisiana cop probably had found those three dirtbags that Decker had clobbered along the interstate. They would have sworn that this scoundrel from Miami had flagged them down and robbed them, of course. A tracer on the Hertz car would have yielded Decker's name and address, and from then on it was only a matter of professional courtesy. Al Garcίa was probably bringing a bench warrant from St. Charles Parish.

Decker was not especially eager to return, or be returned, to Louisiana. He figured he could beat the phony assault rap from the highway robbers, but what if the Lockhart case broke open in the meantime? Decker didn't want to be around if Skink got arrested.

Skink was the big problem. If Decker hadn't enlisted the mad hermit into the case, Dickie Lockhart would still be alive. On the other hand, it was probably Lockhart who had arranged the murders of Robert Clinch and then Ott Pickney. Decker didn't know exactly what to do next; it was a goddamn mess. He had come to like Skink and he hated the thought of him going to the gas chamber over a greedy sleazoid such as Lockhart, but murder was murder. As he straightened up the trailer—a week's worth of moldy laundry, mainly—Decker toyed with the idea of telling Garcia the whole story; it was so profoundly weird that even a Miami cop might be sympathetic. But Decker decided to hold off, for the moment. There appeared to be a good chance that Skink might never be found, or even identified as a suspect. Decker also understood that Skink might see absolutely nothing wrong in what he did, and would merely appear one day to take full credit for the deed. This was always a possibility when dealing with the chronically unraveled.

The news from Louisiana was relatively sparse. In the two days Decker had been back in Florida, the local newspapers had run only a couple of four-paragraph wire stories about Dickie Lockhart's murder at the bass tournament—robbery believed to be the motive; no prints, no suspects; services to be held in Harney County. The stories probably would have gotten better play had it not been for the biannual mass murder in Oklahoma; this time it was twelve motorists shot by a disgruntled toll-booth operator who was fed up with people not having exact change.

After trying Catherine, Decker had made three attempts to reach Dennis Gault. Various disinterested secretaries had reported that the sugarcane baron was on long distance, in a conference, or out of town. Decker had not left his name or a message. What he had wanted to tell Gault was that the case was over (obviously) and that he was pocketing twenty grand of the advance for time and expenses. Gault would bitch and argue, but not too much. Not if he had any brains.

Al Garcίa showed up right on time. Decker heard the car door slam and waited for a knock. Then he heard another car pull up the gravel drive, and another. He looked out the window and couldn't believe it: Al's unmarked Chrysler, plus two green-and-whites—a whole damn posse for a lousy agg assault. Then a terrible thought occurred to him: What if it were something more serious? What if one of those Louisiana dirtbags had actually died? That would explain the committee.

The cops were out of their squad cars, having a huddle in front of Decker's trailer. Garcίa's cigarette bobbed up and down as he talked to the uniformed officers.

“Shit,” Decker said. The neighbors would be absolutely thrilled; this was good for a year's worth of gossip. Where were the pit bulls when you needed them?

Decker figured the best way to handle the scene was to stroll outside and say hello, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. He was two steps from opening the door when something the approximate consistency of granite crashed down on the base of his neck, and he fell headlong through a dizzy galaxy of white noise and blinding pinwheels.

 

When he awoke, Decker felt like somebody had screwed his skull on crookedly. He opened his eyes and the world was red.

“Don't fucking move.”

A man had him from behind, around the neck. It was a military hold, unbreakable. One good squeeze and Decker would pass out again. A large gritty hand was clapped over his mouth. The man's chin dug into Decker's right shoulder, and his breath whistled warmly in Decker's ear.

Even when Decker's head cleared, the red didn't go away. The intruder had dragged him into the darkroom, turned on the photo light, and locked the door. From somewhere, remotely, Decker heard Al Garcίa calling his name. It sounded like the detective was outside the trailer, shouting in through a window. Probably didn't have a search warrant, Decker thought; that was just like Garcίa, everything by the bloody book. Decker hoped that Al would take a chance and pop the lock on the front door. If that happened, Decker was ready to make some serious noise.

Decker's abductor must have sensed something, because he brutally tightened his hold. Instantly Decker felt bug-eyed and queasy. His arms began to tingle and he let out an involuntary groan.

“Ssshhh,” the man said.

Forced to suck air through his nose, Decker couldn't help but notice that the man smelled. Not a stink, exactly, but a powerful musk, not altogether unpleasant. Decker tuned out Garcίa's muffled shouts, closed his eyes, and concentrated. The smell was deep swamp and animal, sweet pine tinged with carrion. Mixed in were fainter traces of black bog mud and dried sweat and old smoke. Not tobacco smoke, either, but the woodsy fume of campfires. Suddenly Decker felt foolish. He abandoned all thought of a struggle and relaxed in the intruder's bearlike grip.

The voice in his ear whispered, “Nice going, Miami.”

 

R. J. Decker was right. Al Garcia didn't have a search warrant. What he had, stuffed in an inside pocket of his J. C. Penney suit jacket, was a bench warrant for Decker's arrest, which had been Federal Expressed that morning all the way from New Orleans. The warrant was as literate and comprehensible as could be expected, but it did not give Al Garcίa the right to bust down the door to Decker's trailer.

“Why the hell not?” asked one of the uniformed cops.

“No PC,” Garcίa snapped. PC was probable cause.

“He's hiding in the can, I bet.”

“Not Decker,” Garcίa said.

“I don't want to wait around,” the other cop said.

“Oh, you got big plans, Billy?” Garcίa said. “Late to the fucking opera maybe?”

The cop turned away.

Garcίa grumbled. “I don't want to wait either,” he said. He was tired of hollering through Decker's window and he was also pissed off. He had driven all the way out here as a favor, and regretted it. He hated trailer parks; trailer parks were the reason God invented tornadoes. Garcίa could have sent only the green-and-whites, but Decker was a friend and this was serious business. Garcίa wanted to hear his side of it, because what the Louisiana people had told him so far was simply not believable.

“You want me to disable his vehicle?” asked the uniformed cop named Billy.

“What are you talking about?”

“Flatten the tires, so he can't get away.”

Garcίa shook his head. “No, that won't be necessary.” The standards at the police academy had gone to hell, that much was obvious. Anybody with an eighteen-inch neck could get a badge these days.

“He said he'd be here, right?” the other cop asked.

“Yeah,” Garcίa mumbled, “that's what he said.”

So where was he? Why hadn't he taken his own car? Garcίa was more miffed than curious.

The cop named Billy said, “Suppose the jalousies on the back door suddenly fell out? Suppose we could crawl right in?”

“Suppose you go sit under that palm tree and play with yourself,” Garcia said.

Christ, what a day. It began when the Hialeah grave robbers struck again, swiping seven human skulls in a predawn raid on a city cemetery. At first Garcίa had refused to answer the call on the grounds that it wasn't really a murder, since the victims of the crime were already dead. One of them in particular had been dead since before Al Garcίa was born, so he didn't think it was practical, or fair, that he should have to reinvestigate. Everybody in the office had agreed that technically it wasn't a homicide; more likely petty larceny. What could a crumbly old skull be worth on the street? they had asked. Fifteen, twenty bucks, tops. Unfortunately, it developed that one of the rudely mutilated cadavers belonged to the uncle of a Miami city commissioner, so the case had hastily been elevated to a priority status and all detectives were admonished to keep their sick senses of humor to themselves.

About noon Garcίa had to drop the head case when a real murder happened. A Bahamian crack freak had carved up his male roommate, skinned him out like a mackerel, and tried to sell the fillets to a wholesale seafood market on Bird Road. It was one of those cases so bent as to be threatened by the sheer weight of law-enforcement bureaucracy—the crime scene had been crawling not just with policemen, but with deputy coroners, assistant prosecutors, immigration officers, even an inspector from the USDA. By the time the mess was cleaned up, Garcίa's bum shoulder was throbbing angrily. Pure, hundred-percent stress.

He had spotted the express packet from New Orleans when he got back to the office. A perfectly shitty ending to a shitty day. Now R. J. Decker had made like a rabbit and Garcίa was stuck in a cracker-box trailer park trying to decide if he should leave these moron patrolmen to wait with the warrant. He was reasonably sure that, left unsupervised, they would gladly shoot Decker or at least beat the hell out of him, just to make up for all the aggravation.