Double Whammy

But R. J. Decker couldn't stop; he couldn't even hear. Al Garcia's voice echoed under the bridge but not a word reached Decker's ears. All that registered in his consciousness was the sight of a face and the need to punish it. Decker was working mechanically, his knuckles raw and bloody and numb. He stopped punching only when heavy damp arms encircled his chest and lifted him in the air, as if he were weightless, and suspended him there for what seemed like a very long time. Coming down, unwinding finally, the first thing Decker could hear was the furious sound of his own breathing. The second thing, from the beast with the big arms, was a tired voice that said, "Okay, Miami, I'm impressed."

Skink slipped unconscious in the back seat. His head sagged against R. J. Decker's shoulder and the breath rattled deep in his ribs. Decker felt warm drops seeping through his shirt.

"He's lost that eye," Al Garcia said grimly, chewing on a cigarette as he drove.

Decker had seen it too. Skink's left eye was a jellied mess—Kyle, the big kid, had been wearing Texas roach-stomper boots. A whitish fluid oozed down Skink's cheek.

"He needs a doctor," Decker said.

So did the teenage thugs, Garcia thought, but they would live—no thanks to Decker. Barehanded he would have killed them all if Skink hadn't stopped him. Garcia felt certain that the kids wouldn't tell the police about the beating—Jeff, the acne twerp, was the type to spill the beans and the others knew it. Together they'd invent some melodramatic story of what had happened under the bridge, something that would play well at school. Garcia was pretty sure two of them would spend the rest of the semester in the hospital, anyway.

Decker felt exhausted and depressed. His arms ached and his knuckles stung. He touched Skink's face and felt a crust of blood on the big man's beard.

"Maybe I ought to give up," Decker said.

"Don't be a moron."

"Once we get him to a doctor, you drop me off on the highway and haul ass back to Dade County. Nobody'll know a thing."

"Fuck you," Garcia said.

"Al, it's not worth it."

"Speak for yourself." It was Skink. He raised his head and wiped his face with the sleeve of his rainsuit. With a forefinger he probed his broken eye socket and said, "Great."

"There's a hospital near the St. Lucie exit," Garcia said.

Skink said, "Naw, just keep driving."

"I'm sorry, captain," Decker said. "We shouldn't have left you alone."

"Alone is how I like it." He slid over to the corner of the back seat. His face sank into the shadow.

Garcia pulled off the Turnpike at Fort Pierce and stopped at a Pic 'n' Pay convenience store. Decker got out to make a phone call. While he was gone Skink stirred again and straightened up. In the washhouse light his face looked pulpy and lopsided; Garcia could tell he was in agony.

He said, "Hang in there, Governor."

Skink stared at him. "What, you lifted some fingerprints?"

Garcia nodded. "From a brass doorknob. That night at the chiropractor's house. Got a solid match from the FBI on an ancient missing-persons case."

"A closed case," Skink said.

"A famous case."

Skink gazed out the window of the car.

"Who else knows?" he said.

"Nobody but me and some G-7 clerk at the Hoover Building."

"I see."

Garcia said, "For what it's worth, I don't like quitters, Mr. Tyree, but I suspect you had your reasons."

"I'll make no goddamn apologies," Skink said. After a pause he added: "Don't tell Decker."

"No reason to," said Al Garcia.

Decker came back with hot coffee and Danish. Skink said he wasn't hungry. "Keep your eyes out, though," he added when they were back on the road.

"I got you something." Decker handed him a brown bag.

Skink opened it and grinned what was left of his TV smile.

Inside the bag was a new pair of black sunglasses.

Just before midnight he suddenly groaned and passed out again. Decker tore up his own shirt for a compress bandage and wrapped the bad eye. He held Skink's head in his lap and told Garcia to drive faster.

Minutes after they crossed the county line into Harney, a highway-patrol car appeared in the rearview mirror and practically glued itself to the Chrysler's bumper.

"Oh hell," Al Garcia said.

But R. J. Decker was feeling much better.

Deacon Johnson was proud of himself. He had gone down to the welfare office near the Superdome and found a nine-year-old blond girl who was double-jointed at the elbows. When she popped her bony arms out they looked magnificently grotesque, an effect that would be amplified dramatically by Charlie Weeb s television cameras. Deacon Johnson asked the girl's mother if he could rent her daughter for a couple of days and the mother said sure, for a hundred bucks—but no funny business. Deacon Johnson said don't worry, ma'am, this is a wholesome Christian enterprise, and led the little girl to his limousine.

At the downtown production studios of the Outdoor Christian Network, Deacon Johnson took the little girl, whose name was Darla, to meet the famous Reverend Charles Weeb.