Lucky You (32 page)

“In the lobby.”

“I just came through the lobby. I didn’t see any cameras.”

“We’ve got ten minutes,” the managing editor said. “They’ll be here, don’t worry.”

Mary Andrea asked, “Is there a place where I can be alone?”

The managing editor glanced helplessly around the newsroom, which offered all the privacy of a bus depot.

“My office,” he suggested, unenthusiastically, and headed downstairs for a Danish. When he returned, he was intercepted by an assistant city editor.

“Guess what Mrs. Krome is doing in there.”

“Weeping uncontrollably?”

“No, she’s—”

“Doubled over with grief?”

“Get serious.”

“Rifling through the desk. That’s my bet.”

“No, she’s rehearsing,” the assistant city editor reported. “Rehearsing her lines.”

“Perfect,” said the managing editor.

When they got to the lobby, crews from three local television stations were waiting, including the promised Fox affiliate. A still photographer from
The Register
arrived (properly sullen about the assignment), boosting the media contingent to four.

“Not exactly a throng,” Mary Andrea griped.

The managing editor smiled coldly. “It is, by our modest standards.”

Soon the room filled with other editors, reporters and clerks, most of whom didn’t know Tom Krome very well but had been forced to attend by their supervisors. There were even clusters from Circulation and Advertising—easy to spot, because they dressed so much more neatly than the newsroom gang. Also among the audience were curious civilians who had come to
The Register
to take out classified ads, drop off pithy letters to the editor or cancel their subscriptions because of the paper’s shameless left- or right-wing bias.

One person missing from the award ceremony was the publisher himself, who hadn’t been especially shattered by the news of Tom Krome’s probable incineration. Krome once had written a snarky article about a restricted country club to which the publisher and his four golfing sons belonged. After the story appeared, the membership of the country club had voted to spare the sons but expel the publisher for not firing Tom Krome and publicly apologizing for exposing all of them to scorn and ridicule (Krome had described the club as “blindingly white and Protestant, except for the caddies”).

The managing editor would have loved to use that line (and a dozen other zingers) in his tribute to Krome, but he knew better. He had a pension and stock options to consider. So instead, when the TV lights came on, he limited himself to a few innocuous remarks, gamely attempting to invest the first-place Amelia with significance and possibly even prestige. The managing editor of course invoked the namesake memory of the late Ms. Lloyd, noting with inflated irony that she, too, had been cut down midcareer in the line of journalistic duty. Here several reporters exchanged doubtful glances, for the prevailing gossip held that Tom Krome’s death was in no way connected to his job and was in fact the result of imprudent dating habits. Fueling the skepticism was the conspicuous absence of Krome’s own editor, Sinclair, who normally wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to snake credit for a writer’s good work. Obviously something was screwy, or Sinclair would have been in the lobby, buoyantly awaiting his turn at the lectern.

The managing editor was aware of the rumors about Tom’s death, yet he’d made up his mind to venture out on this limb. One reason was his strong belief that local authorities were too incompetent to sort out the true facts (whatever they were) about the fatal blaze at Krome’s house. And in the absence of competing explanations, the managing editor was willing to promote his newspaper’s first Amelia as a posthumous homage to a fallen star. If, come spring, Krome’s tenuous martyrdom still hadn’t been shot down in a hail of embarrassing personal revelations, the managing editor might just try to float it past a Pulitzer committee. And why the hell not?

“My regret—
our
regret,” he said in conclusion, “is that Tom couldn’t be here to celebrate this moment. But all of us here at
The Register
will remember him today and always with pride and admiration. His dedication, his spirit, his commitment to journalism, lives on in this newsroom … “

Inwardly the managing editor cringed as he spoke, for the words came out corny and canned. It was a tough audience, and he expected to hear a muffled wisecrack or a groan. Quickly he pushed on to the main event.

“Now I’d like to introduce someone very special—Tom’s wife, Mary Andrea, who came a very long way to be with us and share some memories.”

The applause was respectful and possibly heartfelt, the most vigorous burst erupting (out of gung-ho reflex) from the crisp-shirted advertising reps. Slightly more reserved was the newsroom crew, although the managing editor snapped his head around upon hearing a crude wolf whistle; one of the sportswriters, it turned out. (Later, when confronted, the kid would claim to have been unaware of the occasion’s solemnity. Bearing late-breaking news of a major hockey trade, he’d been hurrying through
The Register’s
lobby toward the elevator when he had spotted Mary Andrea Finley Krome at the podium and was overcome by her rocking good looks.)

As she stepped to the microphone, the managing editor presented her with the standard slab of lacquered pine, adorned by a cheap gold-plated plaque. An appalling etching of the late Amelia J. Lloyd, full-cheeked and chipper, was featured on the award, which Mary Andrea enfolded as if it were a Renoir.

“My husband … ,” she said, followed by a perfect pause.

“My husband would be so proud.”

A second burst of applause swept the lobby. Mary Andrea acknowledged it by hugging the Amelia to her breasts.

“My Tom,” she began, “was not an easy man to know. During the last few years, he threw himself into his work so single-mindedly that, I’m sad to say, it pushed us apart … “

By the time Mary Andrea got to their imaginary backstage reunion in Grand Rapids (which, she’d decided at the last moment, sounded more romantic than Lansing), the place was in sniffles. The TV cameras kept rolling; two of the crews even reloaded with fresh batteries. Mary Andrea felt triumphant.

Twenty seconds, my ass, she thought, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief provided by the managing editor.

Most surprising: Mary Andrea’s tears, which had begun as well-practiced stage weeping, had bloomed into the real deal. Talking about Tom in front of so many people made her truly grief-stricken for the first time since she’d learned about the fire. Even though she was largely fictionalizing their relationship—inventing anecdotes, intimacies and confidences never shared—the act nonetheless thawed Mary Andrea’s heart. Tom was, after all, a pretty good guy. Confused (like all men) but decent at the core. It was a pity he hadn’t been more adaptable. A damn pity, she thought, blinking away the teardrops.

One person who remained unmoved during the ceremony was the managing editor of
The Register.
The other was Tom Krome’s lawyer, Dick Turnquist, who politely waited until Mary Andrea was finished speaking before he edged through the well-wishers and served her with the court summons.

“We finally meet,” he said.

And Mary Andrea, being somewhat caught up in her own performance, assumed he was a fan from the theater who wanted an autograph.

“You’re so kind,” she said, “but I don’t have a pen.”

“You don’t need a pen. You need a lawyer.”

“What?” Mary Andrea, staring in bafflement and dismay at the documents in her hand. “Is this some kind of sick joke? My husband’s dead!”

“No, he’s not. Not in the slightest. But I’ll pass along all the nice things you said about him today. He’ll appreciate it.” Turnquist spun and walked away.

The managing editor stood frozen by what he’d overheard. Among the onlookers there was a stir, then a bang caused by lacquered pine hitting terrazzo. The managing editor whirled to see his prized Amelia on the lobby floor, where the nonwidow Krome had hurled it. Only inches away: a discarded rosary, coiled like a baby rattler.

The last conscious act of Bodean Gazzer’s life was brushing his teeth with WD-40.

In a survivalist tract he’d once read about the unsung versatility of the popular spray lubricant, and now (while exsanguinating) he felt an irrational urge to brighten his smile. Chub pawed through the gear and found the familiar blue-and-yellow can, which he brought to Bode’s side, along with a small brush designed for cleaning pistols. Chub knelt in the blood-crusted sand and tucked a camouflage bedroll under his partner’s neck.

“Do my molars, wouldya?” Groggily Bode Gazzer opened his mouth and pointed.

“Jesus Willy,” Chub said, but he aimed the nozzle at Bode’s brown-stained chompers and sprayed. What the hell, he thought. The fucker’s dying.

Bode brushed in a listless mechanical way. He spoke from the uncluttered side of his mouth: “You believe this shit? We just lost twenty-eight million bucks to a Negro terrorist and a damn waitress! They got us, brother. NATO and the Tri-Lateral Negroes and the damn com’nists … You believe it?”

Chub was in a blinding misery, his bandaged shoulder afire. “You know … you know what
I don’t
believe?” he said. “I don’t believe you still won’t say ‘nigger’ after all she done to us. Goddamn, Bode, I wonder ‘bout you!”

“Aw, well.” Bodean Gazzer’s eyelids drooped to half-staff. One hand flopped apologetically, splatting in a puddle of blood. His face was as pallid as a slab offish.

“She shot you. She
shot
you, man.” Chub hunched over him. “I wanna hear you say it. ‘Nigger.’ Before you go and croak, I want you to act like a upright God-fearin’ member of the white master race and say that HI word just once. Kin you do that for me? For the late, great White Clarion Aryans?” Chub laughed berserkly against the pain.

“Come on, you stubborn little prick. Say it: N-i-g-e-r.”

But Bodean James Gazzer was done talking. He died with the gun brush in his cheeks. His final breath was a soft necrotic whistle of WD-40 fumes.

Chub caught a slight buzz from it, or so he imagined. He snatched up the aerosol can, struggled to his feet and staggered into the mangroves to mourn.

28

The pilgrims were restless. They wanted Turtle Boy.

Sinclair wouldn’t come out until he had a deal. Shiner’s mother sat beside him on the sofa; the two of them holding hands tautly, as if they were on an airplane in turbulence.

 
The mayor, Jerry Wicks, had rushed to Demencio’s house after hearing about the trouble. Trish prepared coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Shiner’s mother declined the pancakes in favor of an omelette.

Demencio was in no mood to negotiate, but the crazy fools had him pinned. Something had gone awry with the food-dye formula and his fiberglass Madonna had begun to weep oily brown tears. Hastily he’d hauled the statue indoors and shut down the visitation. Now there were forty-odd Christian tourists milling in the yard, halfheartedly snapping photos of baby turtles in the moat. Sales of the “holy water” had gone flat-line.

“Lemme get this straight.” Demencio paced the living room. “You want thirty percent of the daily collection
and
thirty percent of the concessions? That ain’t gonna happen. Forget about it.”

Sinclair, still numb and loopy from his revelations, had been taking his cues from Shiner’s mother. She pressed a smudged cheek against his shoulder.

“We told you,” she said to Demencio, “we’d settle for twenty percent of the concessions.”

“What’s this ‘we’ shit?”

“But only if you find a place for Marva,” Sinclair interjected. Marva was the name of Shiner’s mother.

“A new shrine,” Sinclair went on, brushing a clod of lettuce from his forelock, “to replace the one that was paved.”

He hardly recognized his own voice, a trillion light-years beyond his prior life. The newsroom and all its petty travails might as well have been on Pluto.

Demencio sagged into his favorite TV chair. “You people got some goddamn nerve. This is
my
business here. We built it up by ourselves, all these years, me and Trish. And now you just waltz in and try to take over … “

Shiner’s mother pointed out that Demencio’s pilgrim traffic had tripled, thanks to Sinclair’s mystical turtle handling. “Plus I got my own loyal clientele,” she said. “They’ll be here sure as the sun shines, buying up your T-shirts and sodey pops and angel food snacks. You two’ll make out like bandits if only you got the brains to go along.”

Trish started to say something, but Demencio cut her off. “I don’t need you people, that’s the point. You need
me.”

“Really?” Shiner’s mother, with a smirk. “You got a Virgin Mary leakin’ Quaker State out her eyeballs. Who needs who? is my question.”

Demencio said, “Go to hell.” But the loony witch had a point.

Even in his blissfully detached state, Sinclair wouldn’t budge off the numbers. He knew a little something about business—his father ran a gourmet cheese shop in Boston, and there were plenty of times he’d had to play hardball with those blockhead wholesalers back in Wisconsin.

“May I suggest something?” Mayor Jerry Wicks, playing mediator. The manager of the Holiday Inn, fearing a dip in the bus-tour trade, had implored him to intervene. “I’ve got an idea,” said the mayor. “What if … Marva, let me ask: What would you need in the way of facilities?”

“For what?”

“Another manifestation.”

Shiner’s mother crinkled her brow. “Geez, I don’t know. You mean another Jesus?”

“I think that’s the ticket,” the mayor said. “Demencio’s already got dibs on the Mother Mary. The turtle boy—may I call you Turtle Boy?—he’s got the apostles. That leaves a slot wide open for the Christ child.”

Shiner’s mother wagged a bony finger. “No, not the baby Jesus. The growed-up one is what I favor.”

“Fine,” said the mayor. “My point is, this place would make a helluva shrine, would it not? Talk about having all your bases covered!” He cocked his chin toward Demencio. “Come on. You gotta admit.”

Demencio felt Trish’s hand on his shoulder. He knew what she was thinking:
This could be big.
If they did it right, they’d be the number one stop on the whole Grange bus tour.

Nonetheless, Demencio felt impelled to say: “I don’t want no stains on my driveway. Or the sidewalks, neither.”

“Fair enough.”

“And I won’t give up no more than fifteen percent on the collections.”

Sinclair looked at Shiner’s mother, who smiled in approval. “That we can live with,” she said.

They gathered at the dining table to brainstorm a new Christ shrine. “Wherever He appears, that’s where it is,” Shiner’s mother explained, raising her palms. “And maybe He won’t appear at all, not after what happened out on the highway—them heathens from the road department.”

Ever the optimist, Mayor Jerry Wicks said: “I bet if you went outside and started praying real hard … Well, I just have a feeling.”

Shiner’s mother squeezed Sinclair’s arm. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do. Get down on my knees and pray.”

“Not in my driveway,” Demencio said curtly.

“I heard you the first time, OK? Geez.”

Trish said: “Who needs more coffee?”

From where he sat, Demencio had a clear view of the scene out front. The crowd was thinning, the pilgrims bored to tears. This was bad. The mayor noticed, too. He and Demencio exchanged apprehensive glances. Unspoken was the fact that Grange’s meager economy had come to rely on the seasonal Christian tourist trade. The town couldn’t afford a downturn, couldn’t afford to lose any of its prime attractions. Around Florida there was growing competition for the pilgrim dollar, some of it Disney-slick and high-tech. Not a week went by when the TV didn’t report a new religious sighting or miracle healing. Most recently, a purported three-story likeness of the Virgin Mary had appeared on the wall of a mortgage company in Clearwater—nothing but sprinkler rust, yet three hundred thousand people came to see. They sang and wept and left cash offerings, wrapped in handkerchiefs and diapers.

Offerings, at a mortgage company!

Demencio didn’t need Jerry Wicks to tell him it was no time to slack off. Demencio knew what was out there, knew it was vital to keep pace with the market.

“Wait’ll you see,” he told the mayor, “when I got my Mary cryin’ blood. You just wait.”

The telephone rang. Demencio went to take it in the bedroom, where it was quiet. When he came out, his expression was dour. Shiner’s mother asked what was wrong.

“You said you were gonna pray? Well, go to it.” Demencio waved an arm. “Pray like crazy, Marva, because we’ll need a new miracle, ASAP. Any new Jesus’ll do just fine.”

Jerry Wicks sat forward, planting his elbows on the table. “What happened?”

“That was JoLayne on the phone. She’s coming home,” Demencio reported cheerlessly. “She’s on her way home to pick up her cooters.”

Sinclair went pale. Shiner’s mother stroked his forehead and told him not to worry, everything was going to be all right.

They bought some new clothes and went to the best restaurant in Tallahassee. Tom Krome ordered steaks and a bottle of champagne and a plate of Apalachicola oysters. He told JoLayne Lucks she looked fantastic, which she did. She’d picked out a long dress, slinky and forest green, with spaghetti straps. He went for simple slate-gray slacks, a plain blue blazer and a white oxford shirt, no necktie.

The lottery check was in JoLayne’s handbag: five hundred and sixty thousand dollars, after Uncle Sam’s cut. It was the first of twenty annual payments on JoLayne’s share of the big jackpot.

Tom leaned across the table and kissed her. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a starchy old white couple staring from another table, so he kissed JoLayne again; longer this time. Then he lifted his glass: “To Simmons Wood.”

“To Simmons Wood,” said JoLayne, too quietly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Tom, it’s not enough. I did the math.”

“How do you figure?”

“The other offer is three million even, with twenty percent down. I promised Clara Markham I could do better, but I don’t think I can. Twenty percent of three million is six hundred grand—I’m still short, Tom.”

He told her not to sweat it. “Worse comes to worse, get a loan for the difference. There isn’t a bank in Florida that wouldn’t he thrilled to get your business.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“JoLayne, you just won fourteen million bucks.”

“I’m still black, Mr. Krome. That’d make a difference.”

But after thinking about it, she realized he was probably right about the loan. Black, white or polka-dotted, she was still a tycoon, and bankers adored tycoons. A financing package with a fat down payment could be put together, a very tasty counteroffer. The Simmons family would be drooling all over their foie gras, and the union boys from Chicago would have to look elsewhere for a spot to erect their ticky-tacky shopping mall.

JoLayne attacked her Caesar salad and said to Tom Krome: “You’re right. I’ve decided to be positive.”

“Good, because we’re on a roll.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

They’d returned the overdue Boston Whaler with a minimum of uproar, blunting the old dock rat’s ire by pleasantly agreeing to forfeit the deposit. After grabbing a cab down to the boat ramp, they’d retrieved Tom’s Honda and sped directly to Miami International Airport, where they lucked into a nonstop to Tallahassee. By the time they arrived, the state lottery office had closed for the day. They’d gotten a room at the Sheraton, hopped in the shower and collapsed in exhaustion across the king-sized bed. Dinner was cocktail crackers and Hershey’s kisses from the minibar. They’d both been too tired to make love and had fallen asleep laughing about it, and trying not to think of Pearl Key.

When the Lotto bureau opened the next morning, JoLayne and Tom were waiting at the door with the ticket. A clerk thought she was joking when she matter-of-factly remarked it had been hidden inside a non-lubricated condom. The paperwork took about an hour, then a photographer from the publicity office made some pictures of JoLayne holding a blown-up facsimile of the flamingo-adorned check. Tom was pleased they’d avoided TV and newspaper coverage by showing up unannounced. By the time a press release was issued, they’d be back in Grange.

“This is all going to work out,” he assured JoLayne, pouring more champagne. “I promise.”

“What about you and me?”

“Absolutely.”

JoLayne studied him. “Absolutely, Tom?”

“Oh brother. Here it comes.” Krome set down his glass.

She said, “I think you deserve some of the money.”

“Why?”

“For everything. Quitting your job to stay with me. Risking your neck. Stopping me from doing something crazy out there.”

“Anything else?”

“I’d feel so much better,” she said, “giving you something.”

Tom tapped a fork on the tablecloth. “Boy, that guilt—it’s a killer. I sympathize.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No, I’m right. If I won’t take the money, it’ll make it harder for you to dump me later. You’ll feel so awful you’ll keep putting it off, stringing me along, probably for months and months—”

“Eat your salad,” JoLayne said.

“But if I
do
take a cut, then you won’t feel so lousy saying goodbye. You can tell yourself you didn’t use me, didn’t take advantage of a hopelessly smitten sap and then cut him loose. You can tell yourself you were fair about it, even decent.”

“Are you finished?” JoLayne inwardly ached at the truth of what he said. She definitely was looking for an escape clause, in case the romance didn’t work. She was looking for a way to live with herself if someday she had to break up with him, after all he’d done for her.

Tom said, “I don’t want the damn money. You understand?
Nada.
Not a penny.”

“I believe you.”

“Finally.”

“But just for the record, I’ve got no plans to ‘dump’ you.” JoLayne kicked off a shoe and slipped her bare foot in Tom’s lap, under the table.

Tom’s eyes widened. “Oh,
that’s
fighting fair.”

“I’ve had a bad run with men. I guess I’m conditioned to expect the worst.”

“Understood,” he said. “And just for the record, you should feel free to string me along. Drag it out as long as you can stand to, because I’ll take every minute with you that I can get.”

“You’re pretty polished at this guilt business.”

“Oh, I’m a pro,” Tom said, “one of the best. So here’s the deal: Give us six months together. If you’re not happy, I’ll go quietly. No wailing, no racking sobs. The only thing it’ll cost you is a plane ticket to Alaska.”

JoLayne steepled her hands. “Hmmm. I suppose you’ll insist on first class.”

“You bet your ass. Up front with the hot towelettes and sorbets, that’s me. Deal?”

“OK. Deal.”

They shook. The waiter came with the steaks, big T-bones done rare. Tom waited for JoLayne to take the first bite.

“Delicious,” she reported.

“Whew.”

“Hey, I just thought of something. What if you dump
me?”

Tom Krome grinned. “You just thought of that?”