Double Whammy (41 page)

At dusk the anglers returned to the boat ramp to find banners streaming, canned country music blaring, and an elaborate rectangular stage rising—a pink pulpit at one end, the bass scoreboard at the other. The whole stage was bathed by hot kliegs while the OCN cameramen conducted their lighting checks. Over the pulpit hung a red-lettered banner that said: “JESUS IN YOUR LIVING ROOM-LIVE AT FIVE!” And over the scoreboard hung a blue-lettered banner that said: “Lunker Lakes Presents the Dickie Lockhart Memorial Bass Blasters Classic.” Every possible camera angle was cluttered with the signs and logos of the various sponsors who had put up the big prize money.

Once all the bass boats had returned to the dock, the Reverend Charles Weeb ambled centerstage with a cordless microphone.

“Greeting, sportsmen!”

The tired anglers grumbled halfheartedly.

“Understand it was tough fishing out there today, but don't you worry!” shouted Charlie Weeb. “The Lord tells me tomorrow's gonna be one hell of a day!”

The PA system amplified the preacher's enthusiasm, and the fishermen smiled and applauded, though not energetically.

“Yes, sir,” Charlie Weeb said, “I talked to the Lord this afternoon, and the Lord said: Tomorrow will be good. Tomorrow the hawgs will be hungry!' ”

Duke Puffin shouted, “Did he say to use buzzbaits or rubber worms?”

The bass fishermen roared, and Reverend Weeb grinned appreciatively. Anything to loosen the jerks up.

“As you know,” he said, “tonight is barbecue night at Lunker Lakes. Ribs, chicken, Okeechobee catfish, and all the beer you can drink!”

The free-food announcement drew the first sincere applause of the evening.

“So,” Reverend Weeb continued, “I got two air-conditioned buses ready to take y'all to the clubhouse. Have a good time tonight, get plenty of rest, and tomorrow you put some big numbers on that bass board, because the whole country'll be watching!”

Eagerly the anglers filed onto the buses. Jim Tile and Al Garcίa made a point of sitting in the very front. No one spoke a word to them.

As soon as the buses pulled away, Weeb tossed the microphone to an OCN technician, grabbed the young hydrologist backstage, and said: “It's here, I hope.”

“Yes, sir, just give the word.”

To the grips Weeb yelled: “Turn those kliegs around! Light the ramp—hurry up, asshole, while we're still young!”

Out of the settling darkness a gleaming steel tanker truck appeared. Although it looked like an ordinary oil-company truck, it was not. The driver backed cautiously down the slick boat ramp, and three feet from water's edge he braked the tanker with a gaseous hiss.

“Nice park job,” the hydrologist said.

The driver hopped out waving a clipboard.

“Two thousand fresh basserinos,” he said. “Who signs for these?”

 

After the barbecue Jim Tile and Al Garcia drove the loaner car back to the lodge, where they got the bad news.

The raid had failed.

The Broward SWAT team had swept with lethal certainty into Room 1412 of the Coral Springs Holiday Inn and brusquely arrested one Mr. Juan Gómez, suspected kidnapper. Unfortunately he turned out to be a genuine Juan Gómez, computer software salesman. Furthermore, the young lady he had been diddling in his motel room turned out not to be the missing Catherine Stuckameyer, but rather the nineteen-year-old daughter of the founder of Floppy World, one of Juan Gómez's biggest retail clients.

By the time the confusion was sorted out and the SWAT team returned to the Holiday Inn, the other Juan Gómez, the one whose real name was Thomas Curl, had fled his room for parts unknown. Evidence technicians spent hours analyzing the Gaines Burger particles.

Al Garcίa had arranged the raid without telling R. J. Decker, who had fiercely rejected the idea of a police rescue attempt. He had insisted on handling Thomas Curl himself because Catherine's life was at stake, so Jim Tile and Al Garcia had backed off and pretended to go along with it. As soon as Decker left Harney, Garcia got on the phone to his lieutenant in Miami, who got on the phone to the Broward sheriffs office. There was a delay of several hours in the police bureaucracy, mainly because no Catherine Stuckameyer had officially been reported missing and the authorities suspected it was just another lonely rich wife skipping out. By the time the SWAT team moved, and found the right motel room, it was too late.

“They fucked it up,” Garcίa said, slamming down the phone. “Can you believe it, now they're pissed off at me! Some pinhead
gringo
captain's saying I made 'em look bad, says there's still no evidence of a kidnap. Fucking GI Joes with their greasepaint and their M-16s hit the wrong damn room, it's not my fault.”

“Meanwhile,” Jim Tile said, “we've lost Curl, Decker's ex, and even Decker himself.”

“So the hotshot gets his way after all. It's his ball game now.” Garcia threw down his bass cap and cursed. “What the hell else can we do?”

“Go fishing,” the trooper said. “That's all.”

 

It was half-past midnight when someone knocked on the door of Dennis Gault's room. He couldn't imagine who it might be. He had elected not to stay at the Lunker Lakes Lodge with the others because all the parties would be raucous and distracting, and because the other anglers would ignore him as always. Besides, there was sawdust all over the carpets, and the walls reeked of fresh paint; obviously the place had been slapped together in about two weeks, just for the tournament.

So Gault had taken a suite at the Everglades Hilton, where he always stayed in Fort Lauderdale. Only Lanie, his secretaries, and a few lady friends knew where to find him. Which was why he was puzzled by the midnight visitor.

He listened at the door. From the other side came the sound of a man's labored breathing and a faint buzzing noise. “Who is it?”

“Me, Mr. Gault.”

He recognized the voice. Angrily Gault opened the door, but what he saw stole his breath away. “Mother of Jesus!”

“Hey, chief,” said Thomas Curl, “nice pajamas.” He swayed in and crashed down into an armchair.

“Uh, Tom—”

“What's the matter, chief?”

Gault stared numbly. What could he say? Curl looked like death on a bad day. His eyes were swollen slits, his face streaked with purple. Sweat glistened on his gray forehead and a chowder-white ooze flecked the corners of his lips.

“What happened to you, Tom?”

“Mrs. Decker's safe in the trunk, don't worry.” Curl wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. “Say, chief, those the shiniest damn pajamas I ever saw.”

Dennis Gault's gaze fixed on Curl's right arm. “What . . . what the fuck is that?” he stammered.

“Lucas is his name,” Curl said. “He good boy.”

“Oh, Christ.” Now Gault realized where the buzzing sound had come from. From the flies swarming around the dog head.

“I's raised around puppies,” Curl said, “mostly mutts.”

Gault said, “It's not good for you to be here.”

“But I got a few hours to kill.”

“Before you meet Decker?”

“Yep.” Curl spotted a decanter of brandy on a sideboard. Mechanically Gault handed it to him. Curl drew three hard swallows from the bottle. His eyes glowed after he put it down. “I'll need a bass boat,” he said, smacking his lips.

Gault scribbled a phone number on a napkin. “Here, this guy's got a Starcraft.”

“Anything'll do.”

“You all right?” Gault asked.

“I'll be fine. Clear this shit up once and for all.” Curl noticed Gault's fishing gear laid out meticulously on the carpet. “Nice tackle, chief. Looks straight out of the catalog.”

“Tom, you'd better go. I've got to be up early tomorrow.”

“I ain't been sleepin much, myself. Lucas, he always wants to play.”

Dennis Gault could scarcely breathe, the stink was so vile. “Call me day after tomorrow. I'll have a little something for you.”

“Real good.”

“One more thing, Tom, it's very important: everything's set for tonight, right? With Decker, I mean.”

“Don't you worry.”

Gault said, “You can handle it alone?”

“It's my rightful obligation.”

At the door, Thomas Curl drunkenly thrust out his right hand. “Put her there, chief.” Gault shook the rotted thing without daring to look.

“Well, tight lines!” said Curl, with a sloppy but spirited sailor's salute.

“Thank you, Tom,” said Dennis Gault. He dosed the door, dumped the brandy, then bolted into a scalding shower.

The phone calls started as soon as they turned in.

When Al Garcia answered, the voice on the other end said: “Why don't you go back to Miami, spic-face?”

When Jim Tile answered, the message was: “Don't show your lips on the lake, nigger.”

After the fourth call, Garcia turned on the light and sat up in bed. “It's bad enough they give us the worst damn room in the place, and now this.”

“Nice view of the dumpster, though,” Jim Tile said. When he swung his bare brown legs out from under the covers, García noticed the bandage over Culver Rundell's bullet hole.

“It's nothing, just a through-and-through,” the trooper said.

“One of these bass nuts?”

Jim Tile nodded.

“Well, shit,” García said, “maybe we oughta take the phone calls more seriously.”

“They're just trying to scare us.”

The phone started ringing again. Jim Tile watched it for a full minute before picking up.

“You're gator bait, spook,” the caller drawled.

The trooper hung up. His jaw was set and his eyes were hard. “I'm beginning to take this personally.”

“You and me both.” García grabbed his pants off the chair and dug around for the cigarette lighter. When the phone rang again, the detective said, “My turn.”

Another Southern voice: “Lucky for you, grease floats.”

Garda slammed down the receiver and said, “You'd think one of us would have the brains to pull the plug out of the wall.”

“No,” said Jim Tile. He was worried about Skink, and Decker. One of them might need to get through.

“I can't imagine these jerks are actually worried about us winning, not after seeing the boat,” García said. “Wonder what they're so damn scared of.”

“The sight of us,” Jim Tile said. He lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. García lit a cigarette and thumbed through a Lunker Lakes sales brochure that some lady had given him at the barbecue.

It was half-past two when somebody outside fired a rifle through their window and ran.

Angrily Jim Tile picked up the phone and started dialing.

As he shook the broken glass out of his blanket, Al Garda asked, “So who you calling,
chico
, the Fish and Game?”

“I think it's important to make an impression,” the trooper said. “Don't you?”

 

To get on the dike, Eddie Spurling had to drive to the west end of Road 84, then zig north up U.S. 27 to the Sawgrass Fish Camp. Here the dike was accessible, but wide enough for only one vehicle; at three in the morning Eddie didn't anticipate oncoming traffic. He drove the Wagoneer at a crawl through a crystal darkness, insects whorling out of the swamp to cloud the headlights. Every so often he had to brake as the high-beams froze some animal, ruby-eyed, on the rutted track—rabbits, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, even a fat old female otter. Eddie marveled at so much wildlife, so close to the big city.

It took an hour to make the full circuit back to where the flood levee abutted Lunker Lake Number Seven. When he reached the designated spot, Eddie Spurling turned off the engine, killed the lights, rolled down his window, and gazed off to the west. The Everglades night was glorious and immense, the sweep of the sky unlike anything he'd seen anywhere in the South; here the galaxy seemed to spill straight into the shimmering swamp.

When Eddie looked east he saw blocked and broken landscape, the harsh aura of downtown lights, the pale linear scar of the nascent superhighway and its three interchanges, built especially for Charlie Weeb's development. There was nothing beautiful about it, and Eddie turned away. He put on his cap, snapped his down vest, and stepped out of the truck into the gentle hum of the marsh.

Water glistened on both sides of the dike. Under a thin fog, Lunker Lake Number Seven lay as flat and dead as a cistern; by contrast, the small pool on the Everglades side was dimpled with darting minnows and waterbugs. The pocket was lushly fringed with cattails and sawgrass and crisp round lily pads as big as pizzas. Something else floated in the pool—a plastic Clorox bottle, tied to a rope.

Eddie Spurting noticed how out of place it looked; obscene, really, like litter. The whole idea of it made him mad—Weeb and his damn Alabama imports. Eddie carefully made his way down the slope of the dike, his boots sliding in the loose dirt. At the edge of the pool he found a long stick, which he used to snag the floating bleach bottle.

He got hold of the rope and pulled it hand over hand. The fish trap was unexpectedly heavy; leaden almost. Must've got tangled in the hydrilla weed, Eddie thought.

When the cage finally broke the surface, he dropped the stick and grabbed the mesh with his fingers. Then he pulled it to shore.

Eddie shone his flashlight in the cage and said, “My God!” He couldn't believe the size of it—a coppery-black bass of grotesque proportions, so huge it could've been a deep-sea grouper. It looked thirty pounds. The hawg glared at Eddie and thrashed furiously in its wire prison. Eddie could only stare, awestruck. He thought: This is impossible.