Double Whammy (32 page)

Decker said, “We're driving into town for some burgers. Meet you back here in about an hour.”

“Fine,” Skink said.

“You'll be waiting, right?”

“Most likely.”

A hunching ursine shape in the darkness, Skink gathered kindling as they drove away.

Waiting in a line of cars at the Burger King drive-through, Garcίa said to Decker, “So the bottom line is, these Gomers are murdering each other over fish.”

“It's money too, Al. Prizes, endorsements, TV contracts. Fishing's just the sizzle. And not all these guys are dumb peckerwoods.”

The detective chuckled. “Guess not. They tricked your ass, didn't they?”

“Nicely,” Decker said. On the trip he had told Garcίa about Dennis Gault, the photographs, Dickie Lockhart, and Lanie. The part about Lanie was not Decker's favorite. “All I can figure,” he said, “is she remembered my name from that fashion shoot in Sanibel. Probably read about the Bennett case too—it made all the papers.” The Sun's unsparing headline had read: “STAFF PHOTOG CONVICTED IN BEATING OF PREP FOOTBALL STAR.”

Garcίa said, “Gault must've creamed when his sister suggested you for the mark. Big ex-con photographer with a bad temper, down on his luck.”

“Made to order,” Decker agreed glumly.

“What about the pictures of Lockhart cheating? New Orleans sent Xerox copies, but still they look pretty good.”

Decker said, “They've got to be tricked up.”

“Just so you know, I served a warrant on your trailer. Took every single roll from your camera bag—had our lab soup the film.”

“And?”

“Garbage. Surveillance stuff for that insurance case, that's all. No fish pictures, R.J.”

There you had it. Lanie had probably swiped the good stuff out of his bag at the motel in Hammond. Her brother would've had no trouble finding a good lab man to doctor the prints. Decker said, “Jesus, Al, what the hell do I do now?”

“Well, in my official capacity as a sworn law-enforcement officer of the state of Florida, I'd advise you to turn yourself in, agree to the extradition, and trust your fate to the justice system. As a friend, I'd advise you to stay the fuck out of Louisiana until we get you some alibi witnesses.”

“We?”
Decker was surprised. “Al, you'll get in all kinds of trouble if they find out you're helping me. You're probably already in the jackpot for taking a duty car out of Dade County.”

Garcia smiled. “Didn't I tell you? I went on sick leave two days ago. Indefinite—doctor says my damn shoulder's out of whack again. The lieutenant wasn't thrilled, but what's he gonna do? Half the guys retire they get a lousy hangnail. Me, I get popped point-blank with a sawed-off and I only miss twenty-three days. They can't bitch about a week here and there for therapy.”

“Sick leave,” Decker mused. “That explains your unusually charming disposition.”

“Don't be a smartass. Right now I'm the only friend you got.”

“Not quite,” Decker said.

According to Ozzie Rundell, Thomas Curl's Uncle Shawn lived just outside of Orlando. He ran a moldy roadside tourist trap called Sheeba's African Jungle Safari, located about four miles west of the Disney World entrance on U.S. 92. Ozzie had offered to draw a map, but Jim Tile said no thanks, he didn't need directions.

The broken-down zoo wasn't hard to find. In the six years since Shawn Curl had purchased the place from Leroy and Sheeba Bamwell, the once-exotic menagerie had shrunk to its current cheerless census of one emaciated lion, two balding llamas, three goats, a blind boa constrictor, and seventeen uncontrollably nasty raccoons. A big red billboard on U.S. 92 promised a “DELIGHTFUL CHILDREN'S PETTING zoo,” but in actuality there was nothing at Sheeba's to pet; not safely, anyway. Shawn Curl's insurance company had summarily canceled his policy after the ninth infectious raccoon bite, so Shawn Curl had put up a twelve-foot hurricane fence to keep the tourists away from the animals. The only consistent money-making enterprise at the African Jungle Safari was the booth with plastic palm trees where, for $3.75, tourists could be photographed draping the blind boa constrictor around their necks. Since snakes have no eyelids, the tourists didn't know that the boa constrictor was blind. They were also unaware that, except for a tiny space where the feeding tube fit, the big snake's mouth had been expertly stitched shut with a Singer sewing machine. In these litigious times, Shawn Curl wasn't taking any more chances.

He didn't know what to think when the musclebound black state trooper walked into the gift shop; Shawn Curl had never seen a black trooper in Orlando before. He noticed that the man walked with a slight limp, and thought probably he had been hired for just that reason—to fill some stupid minority handicap quota. Shawn Curl decided he'd better be civil, or else the big spade might snitch on him to the Fish and Game Department for the way the wild animals were being treated.

“What ken we do you for, officer?”

Jim Tile stood at the counter eyeing a display of bootleg Mickey Mouse dolls. Each stuffed Mickey had a Confederate flag poking out of its paw. Jim Tile picked up one of the Mickeys and turned it over.

“‘Made in Thailand,' ” he read aloud.

Shawn Curl coughed nervously.

“Nine-fifty for one of these?” the trooper asked.

Shawn Curl said, “Not for you. For you, half-price.”

“A discount,” Jim Tile said.

“For all peace officers, yessir. That's our standard discount.”

Jim Tile put the mouse doll back on the counter and said, “Does Disney know you're selling this crap?”

Shawn Curl worked his jaw sideways. “Far as I know it's all legal, officer.”

Jim Tile looked around the gift shop. “They could sue you for everything,” he said, “such as it is.”

“Hey, I ain't dune nuthin' nobody else ain't dune.”

After scanning the shelves—cluttered with painted coconut heads, rubber alligators, chipped conch shells, bathtub sharks, and other made-for-Florida rubbish—Jim Tile's disapproving brown eyes settled again on the bogus Mickey Mouse doll. “The Disney people,” he said, “they won't go for this. That rebel flag is enough to get their lawyers all excited.”

Exasperated, Shawn Curl puffed out his cheeks. “Who sent you here, anyway?”

“I'm looking for young Thomas.”

“He ain't here.”

The trooper said, “Tell me where I can find him.”

“S'pose you got a warrant.”

“What I got,” said Jim Tile, “is his uncle. By the balls.”

A family of tourists walked in, the kids darting underfoot while the mother eyed the merchandise uneasily. The father peered tentatively at the zoo grounds through a window behind the cash register. Jim Tile guessed they wouldn't stay long. They didn't. “Raccoons, that's all,” the father had reported back to his wife. “We've got zillions of raccoons back in Michigan.”

When they were alone again, Jim Tile said, “Shawn, give me your nephew's address in New Orleans. Right now.”

“I'll give it to you,” Shawn Curl said, scribbling on the back of a postcard, “but he ain't there.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Last time he come through he was on his way to Miami.”

“When was that?”

“Few days ago,” said Shawn Curl.

“Where's he staying?”

“Some big hotel.”

“You're a big help, Shawn. I guess I'll have to call Disney headquarters after all.”

Shawn Curl didn't like that word.
Headquarters
. In a sulky voice he said, “The hotel is the Grand Biscayne Something. I don't remember the whole name.”

“Why was Thomas going down to Miami?”

“Business, he said.”

“What business is he in?”

Shawn Curl shrugged. “Promotion is what he calls it.”

Jim Tile said, “I couldn't help but notice that big Oldsmobile out front, the blue Niney-Eight. It looks brand-new.”

Warily Shawn Curl looked at the trooper. “No, I had it awhile.”

“Still got the sticker in the window,” Jim Tile remarked, “and the paper license tag from the dealer.”

“So?”

“Did Thomas give you that new car?”

Shawn Curl drew a deep breath. What was the world coming to, that a nigger could talk to him like this? “Maybe he did give it to me,” Shawn Curl said. “There's no law 'ginst it.”

“No, there isn't,” Jim Tile said. He thanked Shawn Curl for his time, and walked toward the door. “By the way,” the trooper said, “that lion's humping one of your llamas.”

“Shit,” said Shawn Curl, scrambling to find his pitchfork.

 

The three boys went to the high-school basketball game but they didn't stay long. Kyle, the one with the phony driver's license, had three six-packs in the trunk, along with his stepfather's .22-caliber rifle. Jeff and Cole, both of whom were on the verge of flunking out anyway, cared even less about high-school basketball than Kyle. The game was just their excuse to get out of the house, something to tell the parents. The teenagers left before the first half was over. Kyle drove to the usual spot, a county dumpsite miles west of the city, and there they gulped down the six-packs while plinking bottles, soda cans, and the occasional hapless rat. Once the beer and ammunition were used up, there was only one thing left to do. Jeff and Cole called it “bum-bashing,” though it was Kyle, the biggest one, who claimed to have invented both the phrase and the sport. That's what everyone at the high school said, anyway: It must have been Kyle's idea.

Every winter transients flock to Florida as sure as the tourists and turkey buzzards. Their numbers are not so great, but often they are more visible; sleeping in the parks and public libraries, panhandling the street corners. The weather is so mild that there is almost no outdoor place that a bum would find uninhabitable in southern Florida. Paradise is how many of them would describe it. Some towns address the problem with less tolerance than others (Palm Beach, for example, where loitering is treated the same as ax-murder), but usually the bums get by with little fear of incarceration. The reason is simple, and in it lies another prime attraction for the nation's wandering winos: there is no room for them in South Florida's jails because the jails already are too crowded with dangerous criminals.

Beginning in late December, then, the transients start appearing on the streets. Rootless, solitary, and unwelcome, they are ideal victims for the randomly violent. Kyle and his high-school friends discovered this the very first time. On a five-dollar bet from Cole, Kyle slugged a wino under a bridge. The boys ran away, but nothing happened. Of course the transient never reported the attack—the local cops would have laughed in his face. A week later the teenagers tried it again when they discovered an old longhair sleeping on a golf course in Boca Raton. This time Jeff and Cole pitched in, while Kyle added a few whacks with his stepfather's four-iron. This time when they ran away, the kids were laughing.

Soon bum-bashing became part of the weekly recreation; a thrill, something to do. The boys were easily bored and not all that popular at school, shunned by the jocks, dopers, and surfers alike. So whenever Kyle could get the car and swipe some beer money, Jeff and Cole were raring to go. Shooting the rifle always seemed to put them in the right mood.

As soon as they left the dump they started scouting for bums to bash. It was Jeff who spotted the guy curled up beneath the Turnpike overpass. Kyle drove by once, turned the car around, and drove past again. This time he parked fifty yards down the road. The three teenagers got out and walked back. Kyle liked the way it was shaping up—a dark stretch of highway with practically no traffic.

Skink was nearly asleep, stretched out halfway up the concrete embankment and faced away from the road. He heard someone coming, but assumed it was only Decker and the Cuban detective. As the men got closer, their footsteps did not alarm Skink nearly so much as their whispering. He was turning over to take a look just as Kyle ran up and kicked him brutally in the head.

Skink rolled down the embankment and lay still, facedown on the flat ground.

“Hey, Mr. Hobo,” said Kyle, “sorry I busted your shades.” He held up the broken sungiasses for the others to see.

Jeff and Cole each took a turn kicking Skink in the ribs. “I like his outfit,” Jeff said. He was a bony kid with volcanic pustular acne. “This'd be great for hunting,” he said, fingering the rainsuit.

“Then take it,” Kyle said.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Cole said, “even though it's about ten sizes too big.”