Double Whammy

Gault snorted. "He and the fish. You mean like a date?"

Lanie let him think about it. Dennis Gault didn't take a long time.

"He's going to plant the bass at Lunker Lakes," he said, "so his friends can win the tournament."

"That's what I figured."

"Not a bad day's work, even if you've got to split the prize money three ways."

"Instead of just two," Lanie said.

"What?"

"You and me, half and half," she said, "if you win with Skink's fish."

Dennis Gault had to laugh. She was something, his sister. If she were a man, she'd have steel ones.

"Deal?" Lanie said.

"Sure, fifty-fifty." Gault really didn't give a damn about the money anyway.

"I'm not riding in it," Al Garcia said.

"It's all I could find, with a trailer hitch," Jim Tile explained.

Garcia said, "It's a fucking garbage truck, Jim. An eleven-ton diesel garbage truck!"

"It's perfect," Skink said. "It's you."

He had strapped the wooden skiff to the secondhand trailer; even with the outboard engine it was a light load. He one-handed the tongue of the trailer and snapped it down on the ball of the hitch.

Garcia stared in dismay. The peeling old boat was bad enough by itself, but hitched to the rump of a garbage truck it looked like a flea-market special. "Gypsies wouldn't ride in this fucking caravan," the detective said. "What happened to your cousin's lawn truck?"

"Axle broke," said Jim Tile.

"Then let's rent a regular pickup."

"No time," Skink said.

"Then let's all ride with you," Garcia said.

"No way," Skink said. "We can't be seen together down there. From this moment on, you don't know me, I don't know you. Bass is the name of the game, no socializing. It's just you and Jim Tile, brothers. That's all."

Garcia said, "What if something happens—how do we reach you?"

"I'll be aware. You got the map?"

"Yep." To demonstrate, Garcia patted a trouser pocket.

"Good. Now, remember, get one of those big Igloos."

"I know, the sixty-gallon job."

"Right. And an aquarium pump."

Jim Tile said, "We've got it all written down."

Skink smiled tiredly. "So you do." He tucked his ropy gray braid down the back of his weather jacket. The trooper had advised him to do this to reduce his chances of getting pulled over for no reason on the Turnpike; long hair was a magnet for cops.

As Skink climbed into the truck, he said, "Decker make his phone call?"

"Yeah," Jim Tile said, "he's already gone."

"God, that's the one thing I'm worried about," Skink said. "I really like that boy." He pulled the raincap tight on his skull. He lifted the sunglasses just enough to fit a finger underneath, working the owl eye back into its socket.

"How you feeling?" Jim Tile asked.

"Better and better. Thanks for asking. And you, Senor Smartass Cuban, remember—"

"I'll be gentle with her, governor, don't worry."

"—because if she dies, I'll have to kill somebody." With that Skink started the ignition, and the truck jostled down the dirt cattle path toward the Mormon Trail.

Tied upright in the flatbed was the big plastic garbage pail, crisscrossed with ropes and elastic bungy cords. Fastened crudely to the top of the pail was a battery-powered pump, obviously rebuilt, from which sprouted clear life-giving tubes. Inside the plastic container was precisely thirty gallons of Lake Jesup's purest, and in that agitated but freshly oxygenated water was the fish called Queenie, flaring her fins, jawing silent fulminations. The hugest largemouth bass in all the world.

After they checked in at the motel, Thomas Curl told Catherine to take off her clothes. She got as far as her bra and panties and said that was it.

"I want you nekked," Curl said, brandishing the pistol. 'That way you won't run off."

Catherine said, "It's too cold."

Curl got a thin woolen blanket from the closet and threw it at her. "Now," he said.

Catherine fingered the blanket. "Awfully scratchy," she complained.

Thomas Curl cocked the pistol. He didn't aim it directly at her, but pointed it up, drawn back over his left shoulder, gunslinger-style. "Strip," he said.

Reluctantly she did as she was told. The fact that Thomas Curl's minimal brain was racked by infection weighed heavily in Catherine's decision. Anyone else she would have tried to talk out of it, but this was not a well person; he had become febrile, rambling, alternately manic and torpid. He had given up all attempts to prize the dead dog head from his arm. It was his friend now.

Thomas Curl watched intently as Catherine wrapped herself twice around in the blanket and sat down at the head of her bed.

"You got the nicest tits," he said.

"Bet you say that to all your kidnap victims."

"I think I might like to poke you."

"Some other night," said Catherine.