Carl Hiaasen - Double Whammy

by Double Whammy [lit]

  "Mebbe. Mebbe he's just bean a smardass. Ever thoughta that?"

  "I'll talk to him. Christ, was it the third piling or the fourth?"

  "The fourth," said the first voice. "See, there's the line."

  The fishermen had spotted the submerged trap. Decker carefully lifted himself from the bottom of the johnboat and inched toward the camera in the bow. Skink nodded and motioned that it was safe to move. The poachers' voices bounced back and forth off the concrete under 1-55.

  " 'Least the fuckers didn't find this one."

  "Pull it up quick."

  Decker studied the two men through the camera. They had their backs toward him. Under the caps one looked blondish and one had thick black hair, like Dickie Lockhart's. Both seemed like large men, though it was difficult to tell how much of the bulk was winter clothing. The bass boat itself was silver and blue, with an unreadable name in fancy script along the side. Decker kept the camera trained on the fishermen. His forefinger squeezed the shutter button while his thumb levered the rewind. He had snapped six frames and still the men had not turned around.

  It was maddening. Decker could see that they had the fish cage out of the water. 'They won't turn around," he whispered to Skink. "I haven't got the picture yet."

  From the back of the boat Skink acknowledged with a grunt. He flipped his sunglasses down. "Get ready," he said.

  Then he screamed, a piercing feral cry that made Decker shiver. The unhuman quavering echo jolted both fishermen and caused them to drop the wire cage with a commotion. Clutching their precious captive bass, they wheeled to face a screeching bobcat, or maybe even a panther, but instead saw only the empty mocking glades. Swiftly, Decker fired away. His camera captured every detail of bewilderment in the two men's faces, including the bolt of fear in their eyes.

  Two men who definitely were not Dickie Lockhart.

  "So what now?"

  "Eat," Skink said through a mouthful of fried catfish. They sat at a corner table in Middendorf's. No one seemed to notice their camouflage suits.

  Decker said, "Wait till Gault hears we tailed the wrong guys."

  Skink had momentarily turned his attention to a bowl of drippy coleslaw. "Maybe not," he said. "Maybe they work for Lockhart."

  Decker had considered that possibility. Perhaps Dickie was too cautious to pull the fish traps himself. All he'd have to do was recruit some pals for the deed, and rendezvous later on the lake to pick up the purloined bass. Some of those boys would do anything Dickie Lockhart told them, as long as he promised to put them on TV.

  The other possible explanation of what had happened that morning made just as much sense: R. J. Decker had simply photographed the wrong gang of cheaters.

  Either way, the faces on film were not the ones Dennis Gault wanted to see.

  "You know damn well Dickie's got the tournament rigged."

  "Of course," Skink said. "But there's a billion places to hide the bass around here. Bayous far as the eye can see. Shit, he could sink the traps out on Pontchartrain and we'd grow old lookin' in that soup."

  "So we staked out the obvious place," Decker said gloomily.

  "And got ourselves some obvious assholes." Skink signaled a waitress for more catfish. "It'll all work out, Miami. Go to the weigh-in, see what happens. And eat your goddamn hush puppies, all right? Worse comes to worst, I'll just shoot the motherfucker."

  "Pardon?"

  "Lockhart," Skink said.

  "Come on." Decker vainly searched Skink's face for some sign that he was joking.

  "Gault would love it," Skink said. "Damn, I got a mouthful of bones here. How hard is it to properly fillet a fish? Doesn't take a fucking surgeon, does it?" A waitress warily approached the table but Decker motioned her away.

  "We're not killing Dickie," he whispered to Skink.

  "I've been thinking about it," Skink said, not lowering his voice even a little. "Who gives a shit if Lockhart croaks? His sponsors? The network? Big deal." Skink paused to chew.

  "I'll get the damn photograph," Decker said.

  "Be lots easier just to shoot his ass. Fella I know in Thibodaux, he'd lend me a deer rifle."

  "No!" Decker snapped, but he saw that the idea had already lodged itself like a tick, somewhere behind those infernal sunglasses. "It's crazy," Decker said. "You mention it again and I'm gone, captain."

  "Oh, relax," Skink said.

  "I mean it!"

  Skink reached over and speared a hush puppy from Decker's plate. "I warned you," he said playfully. "You had your chance."

  The bass boats were as haphazard in their return as they had been regimented in departure. The weigh-in was set for four-thirty, and the fishermen cut wild vectors across Lake Maurepas to beat the deadline. They came from all directions; wide open seemed to be the only speed they knew. The ramp at Pass Manchac was bustling with spectators, sponsors, and even a local television crew. A monumental glass aquarium—a grudging concession to conservationists—had been erected near the scoreboard, ostensibly to keep the caught bass alive so they could be freed later. As the catches were brought in, the fish were weighed, measured, and photographed by a Louisiana state biologist. Then they were dropped into the greenish tank, where most of them promptly turned belly-up and expired in deep shock.

  The all-important weight totals went up on the big scoreboard. The angler with the biggest fish would receive ten thousand dollars; heaviest stringer was twenty grand, plus a new bass boat, a vacation trailer, and a Dodge Ram four-by-four, which would most likely be traded back for cash.

  Decker waited alone because Skink had gone back to the motel. He had mumbled something about not wanting to bump into the Rundell brothers—and there they were, slurping beer by the gas pumps. Ozzie was such a pitiable dolt, yet it was he who'd driven the getaway truck from the scene of Ott Pickney's murder. Decker played with the idea of sneaking up to Ozzie and whispering something terrifying into his ear, just to get a reaction. A fatal angina attack, maybe.

  But Decker decided to keep a safe distance, on the off-chance Culver might remember him from the bait shop.

  The ritual of the weigh-in—the handshakes, the hushed gathering around the scales, the posting of the results—held Decker's attention at first, but after a while his thoughts drifted back to Skink. It occurred to him that Skink was starting to unravel, or maybe just finishing the process, and that for all his backwoods savvy the man might become a serious liability. Decker wished Jim Tile were around to settle Skink down, or at least advise Decker how to handle him.

  A burst of applause sprang from around the stage and the rest of the crowd rose on tiptoes, straining to see. A lean, tan, and apparently well-known fisherman was parading a stringer of three immense bass the way a triumphant boxer brandishes the championship belt. The scorer climbed a stepladder and wrote "21-7" in chalk next to the name of Ed Spurling. By four pounds he had become the new leader of the Cajun Invitational Bass Classic.

  Grinning handsomely, Fast Eddie Spurling slipped the fat fish into the gigantic aquarium and clasped his hands over his head. Reflexively, and without purpose, Decker snapped a few pictures.

  The cheaters in the green boat arrived ten minutes before the deadline. They wore no smiles for the fans. Only four bass hung on their stringer, including the two wan specimens that Skink had marked the previous night in the fish trap. Decker got off four frames before the cheaters slung their catch onto the scale and trudged off in a sulk. "Eight-fourteen," the weighmaster droned through a megaphone. Tenth place, Decker noted; it wasn't Lockhart, but it still felt good.

  Dickie's boat was the last one to reach the dock. The crowd rustled and shifted; some of the other anglers craned their necks and muttered nervously, but a few pretended not to notice the champ's arrival. Ed Spurling popped a Budweiser and turned his back on the scene. He was talking to a bigshot from the Stren line company.

  Dickie Lockhart pulled off his goggles, smoothed his jumpsuit, and ran a comb through his unnaturally shiny hair. All this, before boun
ding out of the boat. "Hey," he said when a fan called out his name. "How you? Hey there! Nice to see ya," as he threaded through the spectators. A crew from Fish Fever filmed the victory march.

  Dickie's driver, a local boy, remained on his knees in the back of the bass boat, trying to grab the fish out of the livewell. He seemed to be taking a long time. Eventually even Ed Spurling turned to watch.

  There were five bass in all, very nice ones. Decker figured the smallest to be four pounds; the biggest was simply grotesque. It had the color of burnt moss and the shape of an old stump. The eyes bulged. The mouth was as wide as a milkpail.

  Dickie Lockhart's helper carried the stringer of fish through the murmuring throng to the weighmaster, who dumped them in a plastic laundry basket. The hawg went on the scale first: twelve pounds, seven ounces. When the weight flashed on the official Rolex digital readout, a few in the crowd whistled and clapped.

  Ten grand, Decker thought, just like that. He snapped a picture of Dickie cleaning his sunglasses with a bandanna.

  The entire stringer went next. "Thirty-oh-nine," the weighmaster bellowed. "We've got us a winner!"

  Decker noticed that the applause was neither unanimous nor ebullient, save for the beer-drooling Rundells, Dickie's most loyal worshipers.

  "Polygraph!" a basser from Reserve shouted angrily.

  "Put him on the box," yelled another, one of Ed Spurling's people.

  Dickie Lockhart ignored them. He grabbed each end of the stringer and lifted the bass for the benefit of the photographers. True-life pictures, he knew, were the essence of product-endorsement advertisements in outdoor magazines. Each of Dickie's many sponsors desired a special shot of their star and the prizewinning catch, and Lockhart effusively obliged. By the time he had finished posing and deposited the big fish into the tank, the bass were so dead that they sank like stones. The scorer chalked "30-9" next to Dickie's name on the big board.

  R. J. Decker's camera ran out of film, but he didn't bother to reload. It was all a waste of time.

  The weighmaster handed Lockhart two checks and three sets of keys.

  "Just what I need," the TV star joked, "another damn boat."

  R. J. Decker couldn't wait to get out, and he pushed the rental car, an anemic four-cylinder compact, as fast as it would go. On Route 51 a gleaming Jeep Wagoneer passed him doing ninety, minimum. The driver looked like Ed Spurling. The passenger had startling straw-blond hair and wore a salmon jogging suit. They both seemed preoccupied.

  At the motel the skinny young desk clerk flagged Decker into the lobby.

  "I gave the key to your lady friend," he said with a wink. "Didn't think you'd mind."

  "Of course not," Decker said. Catherine—she'd come after all. He almost ran to the room.

  The moment he opened the door Decker realized that Skink could no longer be counted among the sane; he had vaulted the gap from eccentric to sociopath.

  Lanie Gault was tied up on the floor.

  Not just tied up but tightly wrapped—wound like a mummy from shoulders to ankles in eighty-pound monofilament fishing line.

  She was alive, at least. Her eyes were wide open, but upside-down it was hard to read the emotions. Decker noticed that she was naked except for bikini panties and gray Reebok sneakers. Her mouth was sealed; Skink had run a strip of hurricane tape several times around Lanie's head, gumming her curly brown hair. Decker decided to save the tape for last.

  "Don't move," he said. As if she'd be going out for cigarettes.

  Decker dug a pocket knife from his camera bag. He knelt next to Lanie and began sawing through the heavy strands. Skink had wrapped her about four hundred times, spun her like a top, evidently; cutting her free took nearly thirty minutes. He took extra care with the tape over her mouth.

  "Christ," she gasped, examining the purple grooves in her flesh. Decker helped her to the bed and handed her a blouse from her overnight bag.

  "You know," Lanie said, cool as ever, "that your friend is totally unglued."

  "What did he do to you?"

  "You just saw it."

  "Nothing else?"

  "This isn't enough?" Lanie said. "He strung me up like a Christmas turkey. The weird thing was, he never said a word."

  Decker was almost afraid to ask: "Why'd he take your clothes off?"

  Lanie shook her head. "He didn't, that was me. Thought I'd surprise you when you got back. I was down almost to the bare essentials when Bigfoot barged in."

  "We're sharing the room," Decker said lamely.

  "Cute."

  "He sleeps on the floor."

  "Lucky for you."

  Decker said, "He didn't act angry?"

  "Not really. Annoyed, I guess. He tied me up, grabbed his gear, and took off. Look at me, Decker, look what he did! I got stripes on my tits, stripes all over."

  "They'll go away," Decker said, "once the circulation comes back."

  "That line cut into the back of my legs," Lanie said, examining herself in the mirror.

  "I'm sorry," Decker said. He was impressed that Lanie was taking it so well. "He didn't say where he was going?"

  "I told you, he didn't say a damn thing, just sang this song over and over."

  Decker was past the point of being surprised. "A song," he repeated. "Skink was singing?"

  "Yeah. 'Knights in White Satin.' "

  "Ah." Moody Blues. The man was a child of the Sixties.

  "He's not much of a crooner," Lanie grumbled.

  "As long as he didn't hurt you."

  She shot him a look.

  "I mean, besides tying you up," Decker said.

  "He didn't try to pork me, no," Lanie said, "and he didn't stick electrodes into my eyeballs, if that's what you mean. But he's still totally nuts."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "I could call the cops, you know."

  "What for? He's long gone."

  Not so long, Lanie thought, maybe fifteen minutes. "Mind if I take a shower?"

  "Go ahead." Decker slumped back on the bed and closed his eyes. Soon he heard water running in the bathroom. He wished it were rain.

  Lanie came out, still dripping. Already the purple ligature bars were fading.

  "Well, here we are," she said, a bit too brightly. "Another night, another motel. Decker, we're in a rut."

  "So to speak."

  "Remember the last time?"

  "Sure."

  "Well, don't get too damn excited," she said, scowling. She wrapped herself in the towel.

  Decker had always been a sucker for fresh-out-of-the-shower women. With considerable effort he pushed ahead with purposeful conversation. "Dennis told you I was here."

  "He mentioned it, yeah."

  "What else did he mention?"

  "Just about Dickie and the tournament, that's all," Lanie said. She sat on the bed and crossed her legs. "What's with you? I came all this way and you act like I've got a disease."

  "Rough day," Decker said.

  She reached over and took his hand. "Don't worry about your weird friend, he'll find his way back to Harney."

  Decker said, "He forgot his plane ticket." Not to mention the insistent New Orleans bail bondsman; the airline disturbance was a federal rap.

  "He'll be fine," Lanie said. "Put him on a highway and he'll eat his way home."

  Decker perked up. "So you know about Skink?"

  "He's a legend," Lanie said. She started unbuttoning Decker's shirt. "One rumor is he's a mass murderer from Oregon. Another says he's ex-CIA, helped kill Trujillo. One story goes he's hiding from the Warren Commission."

  "Those are first-rate," Decker said, but he had nothing more plausible to offer in the way of Skink theories. A bomber for the Weather Underground. Owsley's secret chemist. Lead singer for the Grass Roots. Take your pick.

  "Come under the covers," Lanie said, and before Decker knew it the towel was on the floor and she was sliding between the muslin sheets. "Come on, you tell me about your rough day."

  This, thought Decker, from
a woman who'd just been strung up nude by a madman. Good old irrepressible Lanie Gault.

  Later she got hungry. Decker said there was a good burger joint down the street, but Lanie nagged him into driving all the way to New Orleans. She tossed her overnight bag in the back seat and announced that she'd get her own room in the Quarter because she didn't want to stay at the Quality Court, in case Skink returned. Decker didn't blame her one bit.

  They went to the Acme for raw oysters and beer. Lanie kept making suggestive oyster remarks while Decker smiled politely, wishing like hell he were back in Miami, alone in his trailer. He had enjoyed rolling around in bed with her—at least he'd thought so at the time—but was having difficulty recalling any of the prurient details.