Lucky You (24 page)

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” she told him.

Nothing could have puzzled Shiner more.

They waited until the kid and the waitress were asleep before checking the
Reel Luv.
The lottery tickets were safe in the console. Bodean Gazzer returned the precious condom to his wallet. Chub rolled up the other ticket, the stolen one, and slipped it into an empty bullet chamber in the .357. He laughed dopily at his own cleverness.

“Bang bang,” he said.

Bode was buoyed by the sight of Chub in camouflage, even if it wasn’t a tailored fit. At least they were finally dressed like an honest-to-God militia; Bode, Chub, Amber and Shiner.

Shiner, God Almighty …

They’d lucked out again. Thanks to the heavy weather, nobody seemed to have heard the kid’s reckless shooting or the girl’s scream. No planes or boats had come out to the island to investigate. The group’s secret position seemed safe, for now.

Bode said to Chub: “The dumb fuckup, he’s gonna get us killed.”

“No shit.”

“I say we cut him loose.”

“You got my vote.”

They agreed Shiner had outlived his usefulness to the White Clarion Aryans. While he’d faithfully backed up their story for the Lotto scam and delivered Amber to Jewfish Creek as ordered, he had become a security risk. It was only a matter of time before he’d blow away one of them by mistake.

“Maybe even the girl,” Chub said, though in truth he was more worried about Shiner putting the moves on Amber than shooting her. Not that she’d ever sleep with a zit-faced skinhead, but she did seem awful protective of the kid. Chub didn’t go for that one bit.

He said, “We kick him out, he’s like to rat on us. How ‘bout we kill him.”

Bode flatly said no. “I’ll never shoot no Christian white man, I can help it.”

“Then let’s pay the fucker off.”

“How much?”

“I dunno. A grand?” Glue fumes always made Chub generous.

Bode Gazzer said, “You gotta be jokin.’ “

A thousand dollars wouldn’t put a ding in the $28 million, but it was still too much money for a half-wit. Especially since Bode still suspected Shiner as a possible leak in the organization. What if the kid was working undercover for the Black Tide? What if the nutball shooting sprees were an act and he was actually using the guns to signal the Negroes? Bode had no proof, but the doubts nagged at him like an itch.

He said, “How about this: A thousand bucks, less what it costs for a new quarter panel on my pickup. On account a the bullet holes he made.”

“Fair by me. Tell him he gets his money soon as we get ours,” Chub said, “long as he keeps his trap shut.”

The decision was made to inform Shiner of his expulsion first thing in the morning. Chub would transport him by boat to the Overseas Highway, where he could hitch a ride up to Homestead and retrieve his car.

“Meanwhiles I can pick up s’more beer,” Chub said.

“Cigarets, too. And ice.” And A1 sauce for my scrambly eggs.”

Bode Gazzer said, “I better make a list.”

“You do that now.”

Chub took out the grocery bag containing the tube of marine adhesive. He squeezed out a moist curlicue and offered a hit to Bode, who declined. Chub buried his face in the bag and luxuriantly sucked in the vapors.

Bode said, “Easy.”

Chub whooped. He had a rubber patch stuck on one eye and a rotting crab claw poking through one hand, and still he felt fucking wonderful. He wasn’t the least tiny bit worried about the Black Tide or NATO or the Tri-fucking-Lateral Commission, no siree. Nobody was gonna find ‘em out here on this faraway island, not even the trickiest niggers. It was OK to get wasted tonight because him and Bode was white and free and well-armed, and best of all they was goddamn m-millionaires.

“You imagine?” Chub wheezed with glee.

Bode refrained from reminding him that the lottery proceeds were to be used strictly for militia building. There would be a better time for that conversation.

“Little Amber,” Chub was saying. “You shoulda seed her face when I tole her about the money. All of a sudden she wants to go for a walk in the woods tomorrow, just her and me.”

“Aw, shit,” Bode said. He should’ve seen it coming. “What all did you tell her?”

“Only that I’s worth fourteen million dollars. You might say it changed her opinion a me.”

So would a bath, Bode thought.

“That look she give me,” Chub went on dreamily, “like she could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.”

“Careful what you say to her. Understand?”

With a hiccup Chub thrust the paper bag to his face.

“Knock that shit off!” Bode said. “Now listen: Pussy’s fine, but there’s a time and a place. Right now we’re in a battle for the heart and soul of America!”

Chub made a noise like a tire going flat. “Hilton Head,” he rasped euphorically.

“What?”

“I wanna buy Amber and me a condo up at Hilton Head. That’s a island, too, and it beats the hell outta
this
one.”

“You serious?”

But later, after Chub had nodded off, Bode Gazzer caught himself warming to his partner’s fantasy. Strolling a sunny Carolina beach with a half-naked Hooters girl on your arm sounded much more appealing than sharing a frigid concrete pillbox with a bunch of hairy white guys in Idaho.

Bode couldn’t help wondering what Amber’s attitude toward him might be if she knew that he, too, was about to become a tycoon.

22

When JoLayne Lucks woke up, Tom Krome was sighting the shotgun across his kneecaps. That’s when she realized the screaming wasn’t part of a dream.

“What do you see?” she asked in a low voice. “Honey, don’t forget the safety.”

“It’s off.” He squinted down the barrel, waiting. “Did you hear the shots?”

“How many?”

“Five or six. Like a machine gun.”

JoLayne wondered if the rednecks shot the waitress. Or possibly they shot each other while fighting
over
the waitress.

As long as the waitress didn’t shoot
them.
Not until I get my Lotto ticket back, JoLayne thought.

Tom said, “Listen!”

His shoulders tightened; he moved his finger on the trigger.

JoLayne heard it, too—in the woods, something running.

“Wait, it’s small.” She touched Tom’s elbow. “Don’t fire.”

The rustling got closer, changed direction. Krome followed the noise with the barrel of the Remington. The movement came to a halt behind an ancient buttonwood trunk.

JoLayne grabbed the flashlight and crawled out of the makeshift blanket. She said, “Don’t you go shooting me by accident. I blend in pretty good with the night.”

There was no stopping her. Tom lowered the gun and watched her sneak up to the tree. She was met by an unearthly, high-pitched chittering that descended to a low snarl. Tom got goose bumps.

He heard JoLayne saying: “Now hush and behave.” As if talking to a child.

She came back holding a runty-looking raccoon. There was a smear of blood on the breast of her sweatshirt; one of the animal’s front paws had been grazed by a bullet.

“Assholes,” said JoLayne. With the flashlight she showed Tom what had happened. When she touched the coon, it growled and bared its teeth. Krome believed the animal was well-equipped to rip open his throat.

He said, “JoLayne—”

“Could you get me the first-aid kit?”

She’d bought a ten-dollar cheapo at the grocery store before renting the boat.

“You’re going to get bit,” Tom said. “We’re
both
going to get bit.”

“She’s just frightened, that’s all. She’ll settle down.”

“She?”

“Could you find the bandages, please?”

They worked on the raccoon’s leg until nearly daybreak. They both got bit.

JoLayne beamed when the animal scurried away, feisty and muttering. As Tom dressed a punctured thumb, he said, “What if she gave us rabies?”

“Then we find ourselves somebody to chew on,” JoLayne replied. “I know just the guys.”

They tried to light another fire but the rain swept in, harder than before, though not as chilly. Huddling beneath the boat canvas, they worked to keep the food and the shotgun shells dry. Soon after the downfall stopped, the damp blue-gray darkness faded to light. JoLayne lay down and did two hundred crunches, Tom holding her ankles. The eastern rim of sky went pink and gold, ahead of the sun. They snacked on corn chips and granola bars—everything tasted salty. In the dawn they moved the Whaler out of the mangroves to a spit of open shore, for an easier getaway. From camp they gathered what they needed and began making their way to the other end of the island.

When Mary Andrea Finley Krome stepped off the plane, she thought she was at the wrong airport. There were no news photographers, no TV lights, no reporters. She was greeted only by a brisk, sharp-featured man with prematurely graying hair. He introduced himself as the managing editor of
The Register.

Mary Andrea said, “Where’s everybody else?”

“Who?”

“The reporters. I was expecting a throng.”

The managing editor said, “Consider me a throng of one.”

He picked up Mary Andrea’s bag. She followed him outside to the car.

“We’re going to the newspaper office?”

“That’s right.”

“Will the media be there?” Mary Andrea, peevishly twirling her rosary beads.

“Mrs. Krome, we
are
the media.”

“You know what I mean. Television.”

The managing editor informed Mary Andrea that the interest in her husband’s tragic death was somewhat less avid than anticipated.

She said, “I don’t understand. A journalist gets burned to smithereens—”

“Tell me about it.”

The managing editor drove at excessive speed with one hand on the wheel. With the other he poked irritably at the radio buttons, switching between classical music stations. Mary Andrea wished he’d settle on something.

“I know it’s made the papers,” she persisted, “all the way out to Montana.”

“Oh yes. Even television,” said the managing editor, “briefly.”

“What happened?”

“I would describe the public reaction,” he said, “as a mild but fleeting curiosity.”

Mary Andrea was floored. A despondency settled upon her; it might have been mistaken for authentic grief, although not by those aware of Mary Andrea’s background as an actress.

The managing editor said: “Don’t take it personally. It’s been a humbling experience for all of us.”

“But they should make Tom a hero,” she protested.

The managing editor explained that the job of newspaper reporter no longer carried the stature it had in the days of Watergate. The nineties had brought a boom in celebrity journalism, a decline in serious investigative reporting and a deliberate “softening of the product” by publishers. The result, he said, was that daily papers seldom caused a ripple in their communities, and people paid less and less attention to them.

“So your husband’s death,” said the managing editor, “didn’t exactly generate an uproar.”

Gloomily Mary Andrea stared out the car window. If only Tom had made it to
The New York Times
or
The Washington Post,
then you’d have seen a damn uproar.

“Was he working on something big?” she asked hopefully.

“Not at all. That’s part of the problem—it was just a routine feature story.”

“About what?”

“Some woman who won the lottery.”

“And for that he got blown up?”

“The police are skeptical. And as I said, that’s part of our problem. It’s far from certain Tom was killed in the line of duty. It could have been a robbery, it could have been … something more personal.”

Mary Andrea gave him a sour look. “Don’t tell me he was doing somebody’s wife.”

“Just a rumor, Mrs. Krome. But I’m afraid it was enough to spook Ted Koppel.”

“Shit,” Mary Andrea said. She would’ve gargled battery acid to get on
Nightline.

The managing editor went on: “We gave it our best shot, but they wanted it to be a mob hit or some cocaine kingpin’s revenge for a frontpage expose. They were disappointed to find out Tom was just a feature writer. And after the adultery rumor, well, they quit returning our calls.”

Mary Andrea slumped against the door. It was like skidding into a bad dream. That the media had already lost interest in Tom Krome’s murder meant vastly reduced exposure for his bereft wife—and a wasted plane fare, Mary Andrea thought bitterly. Worse, she’d put herself in position to be humiliated if the fatal “mystery blaze” was traced to a jealous husband instead of a vengeful drug lord.

Damn you, Tom, she thought. This is my career on the line.

“How’s the hotel?” she asked glumly.

“We got you a nonsmoking room, like you requested.” Now the managing editor was chewing on a toothpick.

“And there’s a gym with a StairMaster?”

He said: “No gym. No StairMaster. Sorry.”

“Oh, that’s great.”

“It’s a Hojo’s, Mrs. Krome. We put up everybody at the Hojo’s.”

After a ten-minute sulk, Mary Andrea announced she’d changed her mind; she wished to return to the airport immediately. She said she was too grief-stricken to appear at the newspaper to accept the writing award Tom had won.

“What’s it called again—the ‘Emilio’?”

“Amelia,” said the managing editor, “and it’s quite a big deal. Tom’s the first journalist to win it posthumously. It would mean a lot if you could be there in his place.”

Mary Andrea sniffed. “Mean a lot to who?”

“Me. The staff. His colleagues.” The managing editor rolled the toothpick with his tongue. “And possibly your future.”

“Come on, you just told me—”

“We’ve got a press conference scheduled.”

Mary Andrea Finley Krome drilled him with a stare. “A
real
press conference?”

“The TV folks will be there, if that’s what you mean.”

“How do you know for sure?”

“Because it’s a safe story.”

“Safe
^?
”

“Fluff. Human interest,” the managing editor explained. “They don’t want to get into the murky details of the murder, but they’re thrilled to do twenty seconds on a pretty young widow receiving a plaque for her slain husband.”

“I see.”

“And I’d be less than frank,” the managing editor added, “if I didn’t admit my paper could use the publicity, too. This is a big award, and we don’t win all that many.”

“When you say TV, are we talking network?”

“Affiliates, sure. CBS, ABC and Fox.”

“Oh. Fox, too?” Mary Andrea, thinking: I’ll definitely need a new dress, something shorter.

“Will you do it?” the managing editor asked.

“I suppose I could pull myself together,” she said.

Thinking: Twenty seconds of airtime, my ass.

Katie Battenkill made a list of things for which she had forgiven Arthur, or overlooked, because he was a judge and being married to a judge was important. The inventory included his annoying table manners, his curtness to her friends and relatives, his disrespect for her religion, his violent jealousy, his cheap and repeated adulteries, his habit of premature ejaculation and of course his rancid choice of cologne.

These Katie weighed against the benefits of being Mrs. Arthur Battenkill Jr., which included a fine late-model car, a large house, invitations to all society events, an annual trip to Bermuda with the local bar association, and the occasional extravagant gift, such as the diamond pendant Katie was now admiring in the vanity mirror.

She hadn’t thought of herself as a shallow or materialistic woman, but the possibility dawned upon her. Art was quite the unrepentant sinner, yet for eight years Katie had put up with it. She’d spent little time trying to change him, but allowed herself to be intimidated by his caustic tongue and mollified by presents. Ignoring what he did became easier than arguing about it. Katie told herself it wasn’t a completely loveless marriage, inasmuch as she honestly loved being the wife of a circuit court judge; it was Arthur himself for whom she had no deep feelings.

Many Sundays she’d gone to church and asked God what to do, and at no time had He specifically counseled her to start an illicit affair with an itinerant newspaperman. But that’s what had happened. It had caught Katie Battenkill totally by surprise and left her powerless to resist—like one of her uncontrollable cravings for Godiva chocolate, only a hundred times stronger. The moment she’d laid eyes on Tom Krome, she knew what would happen …

She was in a walkathon for attention-deficit children when all of a sudden this good-looking guy came jogging down James Street in the opposite direction, weaving through the phalanx of T-shirted marchers. As he approached Katie, he slowed his pace just enough to smile and press a five-dollar bill in her palm. For the kids, he’d said, and kept running. And Katie, to her astonishment, immediately turned and ran after him.

Tom Krome was the first man she’d ever seduced, if that’s what you call a hummer in the front seat.

Now, looking back on those wild and guilt-ridden weeks, Katie understood the purpose. Everything happens for a reason—a divine force had brought Tommy jogging into her life. God was trying to tell her something: that there were good men out there, decent and caring men whom Katie could trust. And while He probably didn’t intend for her to have torrid reckless sex with the first one she met, Katie hoped He would understand.

The important thing was that Tom Krome made her realize she could get by without Arthur, the lying snake. All she needed was some self-confidence, a reordering of priorities and the courage to be honest about the empty relationship with her husband. There hadn’t been enough time to fall in love with Tommy, but she certainly
liked
him better than she liked Arthur. The way Tom had apologized for forgetting to call that night from Grange—Katie couldn’t remember hearing Arthur say he was sorry for anything. Tom Krome wasn’t special or outstanding; he was just a kind, affectionate guy. That’s all it took. The fact that Katie Battenkill was so easily drawn astray portended a dim future for the marriage. She decided she had to get out.

Katie recalled a line from an Easter sermon: “To tolerate sin is to abet it, and to share in the sinning.” She thought of Arthur’s many sins, including Dana, Willow and others whose names she never knew. That was bad enough, the adultery, but now the judge had commissioned an arson and a man was dead.