Double Whammy

Decker was pushing the old Plymouth beyond its natural limits of speed and maneuverability. It was one of those nights on the boulevard—every other car was either a Cadillac or a junker, and nobody was going over thirty. Decker was leaving most of his tread on the asphalt, and running every stoplight. The rearview was clear, but he knew it wouldn't take long for the cops to radio for backup.

"You might want to try another road," Skink suggested.

"You're a big help," Decker said, watching a bus loom ahead. He took a right on Thirty-fifth Street and braked the car so hard he could smell burnt metal. "Get going," he said to Skink.

"Are you crazy?"

"Get out!"

"Youget out," Skink said. "You're the dumb shit they're after."

Impatiently Decker jammed the gearshift into park. "Look, all they got me for is agg assault and, after this, a misdemeanor resisting. Meanwhile you're looking at murder-one if they put it all together."

With a plastic crunch Skink turned in his seat. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Dickie Lockhart."

Skink cackled. "You think Ikilled him?"

"It crossed my mind, yeah."

Skink laughed some more, and punched the dashboard. He thought the whole thing was hilarious. He was hooting and howling and kicking his feet, and all Decker wanted to do was push him out of the car and get going.

"You really don't know what happened, do you?" Skink asked, after settling down.

Decker killed the headlights and shrank down in the driver's seat. He was a nervous wreck, couldn't take his eyes off the mirrors. "What don't I know?" he said to Skink.

"What the goddamn warrant says, you don't even know. Jim Tile got a copy, airmail. He read it to me first thing this morning and you should hear what it says, Miami. Says you murdered Dickie Lockhart."

"Me?"

"That's what it says."

Decker heard the first siren and went cold.

Skink said, "You got set up, buddy, set up so good it's almost a thing of beauty. The girl was bait."

"Go on," Decker said thickly. He was trying to remember Lanie's story, trying to remember some of the holes.

"Don't even think about turning yourself in," Skink said. "Garcia may be your pal but he's no magician. Now please let's get the hell out of here while we still can. I'll tell you the rest as we go."

They ditched the Plymouth back at the trailer park and took a bus to the airport, where Decker rented a white Thunderbird from Avis. Skink did not approve; he said they needed a four-by-four truck, something on the order of a Bronco, but the Avis people only had cars.

Sticking in the heavy traffic, they drove around Little Havana for two hours while Decker quizzed Skink about what had happened at Lake Maurepas.

"Who whacked Lockhart?" he asked.

"I don't know that," Skink said. "This is what I do know, mostly from Jim Tile and a few phone calls. While you were banging Gault's sister, somebody clubbed Dickie to death. First thing the next morning, Gault himself flies to New Orleans to offer the cops a sworn statement. He tells them an ex-con photographer named Decker was trying to blackmail Dickie over the bass cheating. Says you approached him with some photographs and wanted a hundred K—he even had a note in your handwriting to that effect."

"Jesus," Decker groaned. It was the note he had written the night Gault had fought with him—the note raising his fee to one hundred thousand dollars.

Skink went on: "Gault tells the cops that he told you to fuck off, so then you went to Lockhart. At first Dickie paid you—thirty grand in all, Gault says—"

"Cute," Decker muttered. Thirty had been his advance on the case.

"—but then Dickie gets tired of paying and says no more. You go to New Orleans to confront him, threaten to expose him at the big tournament. There's an argument, a fight ... you can script the rest. The cops already have."

"And my alibi witness is the real killer's sister."

"Lanie wasted no time giving an affidavit," Skink said. "A very helpful lady. She says you poked her, drove her back to New Orleans, and dropped her at a hotel. Says you told her you had to go see Dickie on some business."

"I can pick 'em," Decker said mordantly.

Skink fidgeted in the car; his expression had grown strained. The press of the traffic, the din of the streets, bothered him. "Almost forgot," he said. "They got the blackmail photographs too."

"What photographs?"

"Of Dickie pulling the fish cages," Skink replied. "Beats me, too. You're the expert, figure it out."

Decker was astounded. "They got actual pictures?"

"That's what the DA says. Very sharp black-and-whites of Dickie doing the deed."

"But who took 'em?"

"The DA says you did. They traced an empty box of film to a wholesale shipment of Kodak that went to the photo lab at the newspaper. The newspaper says it was part of the batch you swiped on your way out the door."

"I see." Skink was right: it was almost a thing of beauty.

Skink said, "Are you missing any film?"

"I don't know."

"The junk we shot in Louisiana, where's that?"

"Still in my camera bag," Decker said, "I guess."