Double Whammy (43 page)

“Not lying—
dramatizing.
There's a big difference.” Deacon Johnson folded his arms indignantly. “We run a thoroughly Christian enterprise at OCN.”

“Several of the patients became quite upset when you were here before.”

“I certainly meant no harm.”

“They've discussed violence,” said the other doctor, apparently a psychiatrist.

“Violence?” said Deacon Johnson.

“That's why we can't let you back inside.”

“But there was one, Corporal Clement. He expressed an interest in appearing with Reverend Weeb today.”

The two doctors traded glances.

“Clement,” Deacon Johnson repeated, spelling out the name. “The fellow with the trick knees.”

The psychiatrist said, “I'm afraid Corporal Clement has been moved inpatient to the sixth floor.”

“It appears he got into the pharmacy last night,” the other doctor explained.

“He won't be available for television appearances,” the psychiatrist added. “Please go now, Mr. Johnson, before we call for Security.”

Deacon Johnson got back in the limo and sulked.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

“You know this town?”

“Born and raised,” the driver said.

“Good. Find me some burns.”

Charlie Weeb would be royally ticked off; he'd specifically said no street people, it was too risky. Lofty standards were fine and dandy, but Deacon Johnson was running out of time. The healing was only hours away.

The limousine driver took him to the dissolute stretch of Fort Lauderdale beach known as the Strip, but there all the bums had bleached hair and great tans. “Too healthy-looking,” Deacon Johnson decided.

“There's a soup kitchen down Sunrise Boulevard,” the driver said.

“Let's give it a try.”

Deacon Johnson saw that the driver was right about the soup kitchen: wall-to-wall winos; sallow, toothless, oily-haired vagabonds, the hardest of the hard-core. Some were so haggard that no makeup artist possibly could have rendered them presentable in time for the show. Worse, most of the men were too hung-over to comprehend Deacon Johnson's offer; the money they understood just fine, it was the part about dressing up and rehearsing that seemed to sail over their heads.

“It's television, for Christ's sake,” Deacon Johnson implored.

The men just grinned and scratched themselves.

In desperation, Deacon Johnson selected a skinny bum named Clu, who was in a wheelchair. The driver lifted Clu into the back seat of the limo and folded the wheelchair into the trunk.

As they rode back to Lunker Lakes, Deacon Johnson said: “Are you sure you can rise up?”

“You bet.”

“On command?”

“You bet.”

Clu wore a mischievous smile that made Deacon Johnson wonder. “So what's wrong with your legs?” he asked.

“Not a thing,” Clu replied.

“Then why the wheelchair?”

“I got it on a trade,” Clu said. “Three cans of Stemo and a wool sock. Pretty good deal, I'd say.”

“Indeed,” Deacon Johnson said. “And how long ago was this?”

“Nineteen and eighty-one,” said Clu, still smirking.

“And you've been in the chair ever since?”

“Every minute,” Clu said. “No need to get up.”

Deacon Johnson leaned forward and told the limo driver to pull over.

“Get out,” he said to Clu.

“What for?”

“It's just a test,” Deacon Johnson said. “Get out and walk around the car.”

When the driver opened the door, Clu tumbled facedown onto the pavement. The driver reached down to help him, but Deacon Johnson shook his finger.

He said, “Can you rise up, son?”

Clu tried with all his might until he was pink in the face, but his skinny legs would not work. “I don't believe this,” he whined.

“Just as I thought,” said Deacon Johnson stiffly.

On the ground Clu continued to grunt and squirm. “Let me work on this a minute,” he pleaded.

“Give him back the damn wheelchair,” Deacon Johnson snapped at the driver, “and let's go.”

 

Just when he was certain that the grand TV mega-healing would have to be called off, or at least scaled back to a sheep or a cat, Deacon Johnson spotted the blind man.

The man was alone on a bus bench outside the entrance to Lunker Lakes; beneath the big cedar billboard, in fact, directly under the second L. That he would be sitting right there at such a crucial moment seemed like a heavenly miracle, except that Deacon Johnson didn't believe in miracles. Plain old dumb luck was more like it. He told the limo driver to stop.

The blind man did not have a guide dog or a white cane, so Deacon Johnson was hopeful that they could do business.

He walked up to him and said hello. The man didn't move one bit, just stared straight ahead. Deacon Johnson could see nothing but his own natty reflection in the dark glasses.

“May I ask,” Deacon Johnson said, “are you blind?”

“I suppose,” the man said.

“May I ask how blind?”

“Depends what you mean.”

“Can you see what that billboard says?” Deacon Johnson pointed to a big Toyota sign a quarter-mile down the road.

The man said, “Not hardly.”

Deacon Johnson held a hand in front of the man's face. “Can you see that?”

The man nodded yes.

“Very good.” Thank God, Deacon Johnson thought. For coaching purposes, partly blind was perfect. As a telegenic bonus, the man appeared sickly but not morbidly sunken, like some of the bums at the soup kitchen.

Deacon Johnson introduced himself and said, “Have you heard of the Outdoor Christian Network?”

“Yes,” the blind man said.

“Then you've heard of the Reverend Charles Weeb, how he heals people on national television?”

“I watch no television.”

“Yes, I understand, but at least have you
heard
of Reverend Weeb's healings? The reason I ask, he's having one today. Right here, inside this gate.”

“A healing.”

“On live satellite television,” Deacon Johnson said. “Would you be interested?”

The man toyed with his beard.

“For five hundred dollars,” Deacon Johnson said.

“And would I be healed?”

“Let me say, Reverend Weeb gets excellent results. With the Lord's help, of course.” Deacon Johnson circled the blind man and assessed his camera presence. “I think the Lord would probably like us to shave you,” he said. “And possibly cut your hair—the braid could be a distraction.”

The blind man raised a middle digit in front of Deacon Johnson's face. “Can you see that?” he said.

Deacon Johnson chuckled weakly. “I underestimated you, sir. Let's make it a thousand dollars.”

“For a thousand bucks I take a shower,” the blind man said, “that's all.”

When the man stood up he towered over Deacon Johnson. He pulled on a flowered plastic cap and smoothed it flat over his skull. Then, with thick callused fingers, he pinched Deacon Johnson's elbow and held on.

“Lead the way,” the blind man said.

 

The instant the other bass boats roared away, Al García felt sure that he and Jim Tile would be drowned, that the roiling wakes would swamp the wooden skiff and it would sink upside-down, trapping them both in a cold underwater pocket.

This did not happen. The skiff proved not only stable but also dry. It was, however, maddeningly slow—made even slower by the sloshing heft of the Igloo cooler, which was filled with fresh Lake Jesup water especially for Queenie. That, added to the considerable weight of the two men, the tackle, the gas tank, the lunchboxes, the anchor, and the bait (several pounds of frozen Harney County shiners, Queenie's favorite) was almost too much for the tired little six-horse Mercury to push.

García puttered down the canal on a straight course for Lunker Lake Number Seven. With one hand he steered the engine. With the other he idly trolled a fishing line baited with a misshapen jangling monstrosity of a lure. “Looks like an elephant IUD,” García had told the perky but unappreciative sales rep who'd given it to him on the dock. “Maybe one of Cher's earrings.”

It was a long slow ride, and the rhythmic drone of the outboard eventually brought on drowsiness. García was half-dozing when something jolted his hands; he opened his eyes to see the tip of the fishing rod quiver and dip. Remembering what Skink had taught him, he jerked twice, solidly, and a stubborn tug answered at the end of the line. Without much effort the detective reeled in his catch, a feisty black fish no more than twelve inches long.

Jim Tile said, “I believe that's a baby bass.”

“I'll be damned,” said Al Garcia. “Throw him in the cooler.”

“What for?”

“So we can show the governor we got one fair and square.”

“It's awfully small,” Jim Tile remarked, releasing the bass into the Igloo.

“A fish is a fish,” the detective said. “Come on, Jimbo, get in the goddamn tournament spirit.”

Then the engine quit; coughed twice, spit blue smoke, and died. Al García removed the cowling and tinkered fruitlessly for ten minutes, then traded places so the trooper could give it a try.

Jim Tile repeatedly pulled the starter cord, but the Mercury showed no sign of life. After the tenth try, he sat down and said, “Damn.”

The wooden skiff hung motionless in the canal, not another bass boat in sight.

“We got a long ways to go,” García said.

On a hunch, Jim Tile disengaged the fuel line and sniffed the plug.

“Something's wrong,” he said.

García winced. “Don't tell me we're out of gas.”

Jim Tile hoisted the heavy aluminum fuel tank and unscrewed the lid. He peered inside, then put his nose to the hole.

“Plenty of gas,” he said dismally, “only somebody's pissed in it.”

The night had taken a toll on both of them.

Catherine felt gritty and cramped from being curled in the trunk of the car. Her knees were scuffed and her hair smelled like tire rubber from using the spare as a pillow. She had cried herself to sleep, and now, in the white glare of morning, the sight of Thomas Curl's pistol made her want to cry again. Thinking of Decker helped to hold back the tears.

Curl himself had deteriorated more than Catherine had thought possible, short of coma or death. He could no longer move his right arm at all; the muscle was as black and dead as the dog head that hung from it. Gunk seeped from Curl's eyes and nose, and overnight his tongue had bloomed swollen from his mouth, like some exotic scarlet fruit. On the boat he practically ignored Catherine, but murmured constantly to the rictal dog while stroking its petrified muzzle. By now Catherine was used to everything, even the smell.

Thomas Curl had been drinking ferociously since before dawn, and she surmised that this alone had kept the pain of infection from consuming him. He drove the boat slowly, steering with his knees and squinting against the sun. They passed several fishermen on the canal, but apparently none could see the pistol poking Catherine's left breast. If they noticed the pit bull's head, they didn't let on.

“I'm a rich man, Lucas,” Thomas Curl said to the dog. “I got enough money for ten of these speedboats.”

Catherine said, “Tom, we're almost there.” She felt the muzzle of the gun dig harder.

“Lucas, boy, we're almost there,” Thomas Curl said.

With this announcement he threw himself against the throttle and the Starcraft shot forward, plowing aimlessly through a stand of thick sawgrass. Catherine let out a cry as the serrated stalks raked her cheeks, drawing blood. The boat broke out of the matted grass, leapt the water, and climbed a mudbank. The prop stuck hard, and there they sat.

“This is the place,” Thomas Curl declared.

“Not quite,” Catherine said.

“He'll find us, don't you worry,” Curl said. “He's got a nose for your little pussy, I bet.”

“Cute,” Catherine said. “You ought to work for Hallmark, writing valentines.”

She used the hem of her skirt to dab the cuts on her face. Half-staggering, Curl got himself out of the boat. The pistol was still in his good hand.

“Don't bother with the leash,” he said to Catherine.

“Right,” she said. There was no leash, of course. She climbed out of the beached Starcraft and instantly cursed Thomas Curl for not letting her wear any shoes.

While she stooped to pick the nettles from her feet, Curl cocked his head and cupped an ear with his gun hand. “What is it?” he said excitedly.

“What is what?” Catherine asked, but he wasn't speaking to her.

“What is it, boy?”

Somewhere in the deep rotting bog of Thomas Curl's brain, his dog was barking. Curl dropped to a crouch and lowered his voice.

“Lucas hears something comin',” he said.

Catherine heard it too. Her heart raced when she spotted R. J. Decker, hands in his pockets, walking along the bank of the canal.

She waved and tried to shout, but nothing came out. Decker waved back and grinned, the way he always did when he hadn't seen her for a while. Grinned like nothing was wrong, like no gangrenous madman was jabbing a loaded pistol into Catherine's nipple while shouting at a severed dog head on his arm: “Heel, boy, heel!”

“Easy, Tom,” said R. J. Decker.

“Shut up, fuckhead.”