Double Whammy (20 page)

Decker said, “It's not just Clinch that bothers me, it's the other two.”

Skink propped his chin in his hands. He was doing his best to appear sympathetic. “Look at it like this: the creep I killed probably killed your pal the Armadillo.”

“Is that how you look at it?”

“I
don't
look at it,” Skink said, “period.”

“He shot at us first,” Decker said, almost talking to himself.

“Right.”

“But we should have gone to the cops.”

“Don't be a jackass. You want your fucking name in the papers? Not me,” Skink said. “I got no appetite for fame.”

Decker had been dying to ask. “What exactly did you do,” he said to Skink, “before this?”

“Before this?” Skink plucked off his shades. “I made mistakes.”

“Something about you does look familiar,” Decker said. “Something about the mouth.”

“Used to leave it open a lot,” Skink said.

“I think it's the teeth,” Decker was saying.

Skink's forest-green eyes sparkled. “Ah, the teeth.” He grinned, quite naturally.

But R. J. Decker couldn't make the connection. The brief governorship of Clinton Tyree had occurred before Decker's newspaper days and before he paid much attention to statewide politics. Besides, the face now smiling at him from beneath the flowered bathcap was so snarled and seamed that the governor's closest friends might have had trouble recognizing him.

“What's the story?” Decker asked earnestly. “Are you wanted somewhere?”

“Not wanted,” Skink said. “Lost.”

But before Decker could press for more, Skink raised a fishy brown finger to his lips. Another boat was coming.

 

Coming fast, and from the opposite direction. Skink motioned to Decker and they shrank to the deck of the narrow johnboat. The sound of the other outboard stopped abruptly, and Decker heard men's voices behind them. The voices seemed very close, but he was afraid to get up and look.

“You have a talk with that fuckin' guy tonight!” said one man.

“I said I would, didn't I?” Another voice.

“Find out if he was followed or what.”

“He woulda said somethin'.”

“Mebbe. Mebbe he's just bean a smardass. Ever thoughta that?”

“I'll talk to him. Christ, was it the third piling or the fourth?”

“The fourth,” said the first voice. “See, there's the line.”

The fishermen had spotted the submerged trap. Decker carefully lifted himself from the bottom of the johnboat and inched toward the camera in the bow. Skink nodded and motioned that it was safe to move. The poachers' voices bounced back and forth off the concrete under 1-55.

“'Least the fuckers didn't find this one.”

“Pull it up quick.”

Decker studied the two men through the camera. They had their backs toward him. Under the caps one looked blondish and one had thick black hair, like Dickie Lockhart's. Both seemed like large men, though it was difficult to tell how much of the bulk was winter clothing. The bass boat itself was silver and blue, with an unreadable name in fancy script along the side. Decker kept the camera trained on the fishermen. His forefinger squeezed the shutter button while his thumb levered the rewind. He had snapped six frames and still the men had not turned around.

It was maddening. Decker could see that they had the fish cage out of the water. “They won't turn around,” he whispered to Skink. “I haven't got the picture yet.”

From the back of the boat Skink acknowledged with a grunt. He flipped his sunglasses down. “Get ready,” he said.

Then he screamed, a piercing feral cry that made Decker shiver. The unhuman quavering echo jolted both fishermen and caused them to drop the wire cage with a commotion. Clutching their precious captive bass, they wheeled to face a screeching bobcat, or maybe even a panther, but instead saw only the empty mocking glades. Swiftly, Decker fired away. His camera captured every detail of bewilderment in the two men's faces, including the bolt of fear in their eyes.

Two men who definitely were not Dickie Lockhart.

“So what now?”

“Eat,” Skink said through a mouthful of fried catfish. They sat at a corner table in Middendorf's. No one seemed to notice their camouflage suits.

Decker said, “Wait till Gault hears we tailed the wrong guys.”

Skink had momentarily turned his attention to a bowl of drippy coleslaw. “Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe they work for Lockhart.”

Decker had considered that possibility. Perhaps Dickie was too cautious to pull the fish traps himself. All he'd have to do was recruit some pals for the deed, and rendezvous later on the lake to pick up the purloined bass. Some of those boys would do anything Dickie Lockhart told them, as long as he promised to put them on TV.

The other possible explanation of what had happened that morning made just as much sense: R. J. Decker had simply photographed the wrong gang of cheaters.

Either way, the faces on film were not the ones Dennis Gault wanted to see.

“You know damn well Dickie's got the tournament rigged.”

“Of course,” Skink said. “But there's a billion places to hide the bass around here. Bayous far as the eye can see. Shit, he could sink the traps out on Pontchartrain and we'd grow old lookin' in that soup.”

“So we staked out the obvious place,” Decker said gloomily.

“And got ourselves some obvious assholes.” Skink signaled a waitress for more catfish. “It'll all work out, Miami. Go to the weigh-in, see what happens. And eat your goddamn hush puppies, all right? Worse comes to worst, I'll just shoot the motherfucker.”

“Pardon?”

“Lockhart,” Skink said.

“Come on.” Decker vainly searched Skink's face for some sign that he was joking.

“Gault would love it,” Skink said. “Damn, I got a mouthful of bones here. How hard is it to properly fillet a fish? Doesn't take a fucking surgeon, does it?” A waitress warily approached the table but Decker motioned her away.

“We're not killing Dickie,” he whispered to Skink.

“I've been thinking about it,” Skink said, not lowering his voice even a little. “Who gives a shit if Lockhart croaks? His sponsors? The network? Big deal.” Skink paused to chew.

“I'll get the damn photograph,” Decker said.

“Be lots easier just to shoot his ass. Fella I know in Thibodaux, he'd lend me a deer rifle.”

“No!” Decker snapped, but he saw that the idea had already lodged itself like a tick, somewhere behind those infernal sunglasses. “It's crazy,” Decker said. “You mention it again and I'm gone, captain.”

“Oh, relax,” Skink said.

“I mean it!”

Skink reached over and speared a hush puppy from Decker's plate. “I warned you,” he said playfully. “You had your chance.”

 

The bass boats were as haphazard in their return as they had been regimented in departure. The weigh-in was set for four-thirty, and the fishermen cut wild vectors across Lake Maurepas to beat the deadline. They came from all directions; wide open seemed to be the only speed they knew. The ramp at Pass Manchac was bustling with spectators, sponsors, and even a local television crew. A monumental glass aquarium—a grudging concession to conservationists—had been erected near the scoreboard, ostensibly to keep the caught bass alive so they could be freed later. As the catches were brought in, the fish were weighed, measured, and photographed by a Louisiana state biologist. Then they were dropped into the greenish tank, where most of them promptly turned belly-up and expired in deep shock.

The all-important weight totals went up on the big scoreboard. The angler with the biggest fish would receive ten thousand dollars; heaviest stringer was twenty grand, plus a new bass boat, a vacation trailer, and a Dodge Ram four-by-four, which would most likely be traded back for cash.

Decker waited alone because Skink had gone back to the motel. He had mumbled something about not wanting to bump into the Rundell brothers—and there they were, slurping beer by the gas pumps. Ozzie was such a pitiable dolt, yet it was he who'd driven the getaway truck from the scene of Ott Pickney's murder. Decker played with the idea of sneaking up to Ozzie and whispering something terrifying into his ear, just to get a reaction. A fatal angina attack, maybe.

But Decker decided to keep a safe distance, on the off-chance Culver might remember him from the bait shop.

The ritual of the weigh-in—the handshakes, the hushed gathering around the scales, the posting of the results—held Decker's attention at first, but after a while his thoughts drifted back to Skink. It occurred to him that Skink was starting to unravel, or maybe just finishing the process, and that for all his backwoods savvy the man might become a serious liability. Decker wished Jim Tile were around to settle Skink down, or at least advise Decker how to handle him.

A burst of applause sprang from around the stage and the rest of the crowd rose on tiptoes, straining to see. A lean, tan, and apparently well-known fisherman was parading a stringer of three immense bass the way a triumphant boxer brandishes the championship belt. The scorer climbed a stepladder and wrote “21-7” in chalk next to the name of Ed Spurling. By four pounds he had become the new leader of the Cajun Invitational Bass Classic.

Grinning handsomely, Fast Eddie Spurling slipped the fat fish into the gigantic aquarium and clasped his hands over his head. Reflexively, and without purpose, Decker snapped a few pictures.

The cheaters in the green boat arrived ten minutes before the deadline. They wore no smiles for the fans. Only four bass hung on their stringer, including the two wan specimens that Skink had marked the previous night in the fish trap. Decker got off four frames before the cheaters slung their catch onto the scale and trudged off in a sulk. “Eight-fourteen,” the weighmaster droned through a megaphone. Tenth place, Decker noted; it wasn't Lockhart, but it still felt good.

Dickie's boat was the last one to reach the dock. The crowd rustled and shifted; some of the other anglers craned their necks and muttered nervously, but a few pretended not to notice the champ's arrival. Ed Spurting popped a Budweiser and turned his back on the scene. He was talking to a bigshot from the Stren line company.

Dickie Lockhart pulled off his goggles, smoothed his jumpsuit, and ran a comb through his unnaturally shiny hair. All this, before bounding out of the boat. “Hey,” he said when a fan called out his name. “How you? Hey there! Nice to see ya,” as he threaded through the spectators. A crew from
Fish Fever
filmed the victory march.

Dickie's driver, a local boy, remained on his knees in the back of the bass boat, trying to grab the fish out of the livewell. He seemed to be taking a long time. Eventually even Ed Spurling turned to watch.

There were five bass in all, very nice ones. Decker figured the smallest to be four pounds; the biggest was simply grotesque. It had the color of burnt moss and the shape of an old stump. The eyes bulged. The mouth was as wide as a milkpail.

Dickie Lockhart's helper carried the stringer of fish through the murmuring throng to the weighmaster, who dumped them in a plastic laundry basket. The hawg went on the scale first: twelve pounds, seven ounces. When the weight flashed on the official Rolex digital readout, a few in the crowd whistled and clapped.

Ten grand, Decker thought, just like that. He snapped a picture of Dickie cleaning his sunglasses with a bandanna.

The entire stringer went next. “Thirty-oh-nine,” the weighmaster bellowed. “We've got us a winner!”

Decker noticed that the applause was neither unanimous nor ebullient, save for the beer-drooling Rundells, Dickie's most loyal worshipers.

“Polygraph!” a basser from Reserve shouted angrily.

“Put him on the box,” yelled another, one of Ed Spurling's people.

Dickie Lockhart ignored them. He grabbed each end of the stringer and lifted the bass for the benefit of the photographers. True-life pictures, he knew, were the essence of product-endorsement advertisements in outdoor magazines. Each of Dickie's many sponsors desired a special shot of their star and the prizewinning catch, and Lockhart effusively obliged. By the time he had finished posing and deposited the big fish into the tank, the bass were so dead that they sank like stones. The scorer chalked “30-9” next to Dickie's name on the big board.

R. J. Decker's camera ran out of film, but he didn't bother to reload. It was all a waste of time.

The weighmaster handed Lockhart two checks and three sets of keys.

“Just what I need,” the TV star joked, “another damn boat.”

R. J. Decker couldn't wait to get out, and he pushed the rental car, an anemic four-cylinder compact, as fast as it would go. On Route 51 a gleaming Jeep Wagoneer passed him doing ninety, minimum. The driver looked like Ed Spurling. The passenger had startling straw-blond hair and wore a salmon jogging suit. They both seemed preoccupied.

 

At the motel the skinny young desk clerk flagged Decker into the lobby.

“I gave the key to your lady friend,” he said with a wink. “Didn't think you'd mind.”

“Of course not,” Decker said. Catherine—she'd come after all. He almost ran to the room.

The moment he opened the door Decker realized that Skink could no longer be counted among the sane; he had vaulted the gap from eccentric to sociopath.

Lanie Gault was tied up on the floor.

Not just tied up but tightly wrapped—wound like a mummy from shoulders to ankles in eighty-pound monofilament fishing line.