Double Whammy

"Hey, Rage, where you at?"

"In a motel outside New Orleans."

"Hmmm, sounds romantic."

"Very," Decker said. "My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit. For dinner he's fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we're taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen. Don't you wish you were here?"

"I could fly in tomorrow, get a hotel in the Quarter."

"Don't be a tease, Catherine."

"Oh, Decker." She was stretching, waking up, probably kicking off the covers. He could tell all that over the phone. "I had to get up early and take James to the airport," she said.

"Where to now?"

"San Francisco."

"And of course he didn't want you to come along."

"That's not true," Catherine said. 'Those conventions are a bore, and besides, I've got plans of my own. What are you doing out in the bayous?"

"Rethinking Darwin," Decker said. "Some of these folks didn't evolve from apes; it was the other way around."

"You should have gotten a nice room downtown."

"That's not what I meant," Decker said. "The fish people, I'm talking about."

"Take notes," Catherine said, "it sounds like it'll make a terrific movie. Attack of the Fish People.Now, be honest, Rage, wouldn't you rather be shooting pictures of golfers?"

Decker said, "I'd better go."

"That's it?"

"I've got a lot to tell you, but not over the phone."

"It's all right," Catherine said. "Anytime you want to talk." He wished she'd been serious about flying up to New Orleans, though it was a nutty scheme. She would have been safer in San Francisco with her chiropractor.

"I'll call you when I get back," Decker said.

"Take care," Catherine said. "Slurp an oyster for me."

At dusk Skink was ready to roll. Shower cap, weathersuit, mosquito netting, lamps, flippers, regulator, scuba tank, dive knife, spear-gun and, purely for show, a couple of cheap spinning rods. R. J. Decker was afraid the johnboat would sink under the weight. He decided there was no point in bringing the cameras at night; a strobe would be useless at long distance. If his theory was correct, Dickie Lockhart wouldn't be anywhere near the lake anyway.

They made sure they were alone at the dock before loading the boat and shoving off. It was a chilly night, and a northern breeze stung Decker's cheeks and nose. At the throttle, Skink seemed perfectly warm and serene behind his sunglasses. He seemed to know where he was going. He followed the concrete ribbon of 1-55, which was sunk into the marshlands on enormous concrete pilings. The highway pilings were round and smooth, as big as sequoias but out of place; the cars that raced overhead intruded harshly on the foggy peace of the bayous. After twenty minutes Skink cut off the motor.

"I prefer oars," Skink said, but there were none in the boat. "You can hear more with oars," he remarked.

R. J. Decker noticed what he was talking about. Across the water, bouncing off the pilings, came the sound of men's voices; pieces of conversation, deep bursts of laughter, carried by the wind.

"Let's drift for a while," Skink suggested. He picked up one of the fishing poles and made a few idle casts. Darkness had settled in and the lake was gray. Skink cocked his head, listening for clues from the other boat.

"I think I see them," Decker said. A fuzzy pinprick of white light, rocking.

"They've got a Coleman lit," Skink said. "Two hundred yards away, at least."

"They sound a helluva lot closer," Decker said.

"Just a trick of the night."

After a few minutes the light went out. Skink and Decker heard the ignition sounds of a big engine. It was probably a bass boat. Swiftly Skink hand-cranked the outboard and aimed the johnboat toward the other craft. Legs wide, he stood up as he steered, though Decker couldn't imagine how he could safely navigate around the highway pilings, not to mention the submerged stumps and brush-piles that mined the lakeshore. Every so often Skink would cut the outboard and listen to make sure the other boat was still moving; as long as their engine was running, they'd never know they were being followed. Sitting on two hundred horses, you can't hear yourself think.

After a few minutes the other boat stopped and the Coleman lantern flickered on again. The men's voices were faint and more distant than before.

"We'll never get close," Skink muttered, "unless we walk it."