Double Whammy

Satisfied, Decker capped the lens, closed up the camera, and locked it in the glove compartment of Al Garcia's car. Then he got the bolt-cutters out of the trunk and snuck up to the supply shed, where he went to work on the padlock.

The blast-off for the Dickie Lockhart Memorial Bass Blasters Classic was set for six-thirty, but the anglers arrived very early to put their boats in the water and test their gear and collect free goodies from tackle reps up and down the dock. The fishermen knew that whoever won this tournament might never have to wet a line again, not just because of the tremendous purse but because of the product endorsements to follow. The bass lure that took first prize in the Lockhart undoubtedly would be the hottest item in freshwater bait shops for a year. There was no logic to this fad, since bass will eat just about anything (including their own young), but the tackle companies did everything in their power to encourage manic buying. Before the opening gun they loaded down the contestants with free plugs, jigs, spinners, and of course rubber worms, displayed in giant plastic vats like so much hellish purple pasta.

The morning was cool and clear; there was talk it might hit eighty by midafternoon. Matronly volunteers from The First Pentecostal Church of Exemptive Redemption handed out Bible tracts and served hot biscuits and coffee, though many contestants were too tense to eat or pray.

At six sharp a burgundy Rolls-Royce Corniche pulled up to the ramp at Lunker Lake Number One. Dennis and Lanie Gault got out. Lanie was dressed in a red timber jacket, skintight Gore-Tex dungarees, and black riding boots. She basked in the stares from the other contestants and dug heartily into a bag of hot croissants.

With an air of supreme confidence, Dennis Gault uncranked his sparkling seventeen-foot Ranger bass boat off the trailer into the water. One by one, he meticulously stowed his fishing rods, then his toolbox, then his immense tacklebox. Hunkering into the cockpit of the boat, he checked the gauges—water temperature, trim tilt, tabs, tachometer, fuel, batteries, oil pressure. He punched a button on his sonic fish-finder and the screen blinked a bright green digital good-morning. The big Johnson outboard turned over on the first try, purring like a tiger cub. While the engine warmed up, Dennis Gault stood at the wheel and casually smoothed the creases of his sky-blue jumpsuit. He squirted Windex on the lenses of his amber Polaroids and wiped them with a dark blue bandanna. Next he slipped on his monogrammed weather vest, and tucked a five-ounce squirt bottle of Happy Gland into the pocket. In accordance with prevailing bass fashion, he spun his cap so that the bill was at his back; that way the wind wouldn't tear it off his head at fifty miles an hour.

Dennis Gault had expected to hear the usual cracks about the Rolls and what a pompous ass he was, but for once the other bass anglers left him alone. In fact, Gault was so absorbed in his own pretournament ritual that he almost missed the highlight of the morning.

It started as a pinprick on the eastern horizon, but it came faster than the sunrise; a strange pulsing light. The bass fishermen clustered on the dock to watch. They figured one of the big bait companies was pulling a stunt for a new commercial. Some stunt it was, too.

Soon the sky over Lunker Lakes throbbed in piercing aquamarine. On a forty-foot screen mounted behind the stage, the face of Reverend Charles Weeb appeared for the morning benediction; it was a taped message (for Charlie Weeb seldom rose before ten), but none of the contestants was in the mood to hear what the Old Testament said about fishing. They were riveted on what was slowly rolling toward them down the road.

It was a convoy of police cars.

Highway-patrol cruisers, to be exact; sixteen of them, their flashing blue lights slicing up the darkness. Dead last in the procession was a garbage truck with a rowboat hooked to the bumper.

Dennis Gault did not like the looks of things. He wondered if the cops had come to arrest somebody, possibly even him. He shot a worried glance at Lanie, who shrugged and shook her head.

The first eight troopers peeled off to one side of the boat ramp and parked bumper-to-bumper; the last eight parked in similar formation on the other side, forming a broad V-shaped alley for Al Garcia and Jim Tile in the garbage truck.

Each of the state troopers got out and stood by his car. They wore seriously neutral expressions, and showed no reaction to the OCN Minicams filming their arrival. To a man, the troopers were young, ramrod-straight, clean-cut, muscular, and heavily armed. They were some of Jim Tile's best friends on the force, and they were white, which definitely made an impression.

The old wooden skiff was lowered into the lake without incident.