Carl Hiaasen - Double Whammy

by Double Whammy [lit]

  "The boat," Skink said.

  Catherine saw his tangled face looming impassively over Decker's shoulder.

  "I don't mean to interrupt," Skink said, "but there's some cops out front."

  Decker stood up and fought back a panic. It had to be Al Garcia. He knew about the divorce, and Catherine would have been high on his list of interviews. The surprising thing was that he'd come in the dead of night—unless, of course, he knew Decker was inside the house.

  Which any nitwit could have figured out from the rental car out front. Decker wondered if maybe deep down he wanted to go back to jail—what else could explain such carelessness? Skink took care of survival in the boonies, but the city was Decker's responsibility and he kept making dumb mistakes.

  "Your boat," Skink said again to Catherine, "it's tied up out back."

  She whispered, "I don't know where the keys are."

  "I don't need the keys," Skink said, no longer making an effort to talk quietly. "We'll leave 'er up at Haulover, but don't go looking right away."

  The doorbell rang, followed by three sharp knocks.

  James sat up in bed and reached for a lamp on the nightstand. Blearily he eyed Decker and Skink. "What's going on?"

  Catherine was out from the covers, brushing her hair in the mirror. "You better get moving," she said to Decker's reflection. "I'll keep them at the door."

  "We'll need a head start."

  "Don't worry, Rage."

  The doorbell rang again. The knocks turned to pounding. Slunk handed Decker his jeans and shoes.

  "What's going on?" James the doctor wondered. "Where's the damn dog?"

  Since the truck they'd been driving was registered to Dickie Lockhart, and since the New Orleans police had temporarily impounded it along with everything else belonging to Dickie, the Rundell brothers had been forced to take a Trailways all the way back to Florida. On the trip they talked primarily about two things—how their hero had died, and what had happened to their precious bass boat.

  Dim as they were, even the Rundells realized that not much could be done for Dickie, but the boat was another issue. It had been stolen and then scuttled in the middle of Lake Maurepas, where it had turned up as bottom clutter on Captain Coot Hough's Vexilar LCD Video sonic fish-finder. Once the lost boat had been pinpointed, the Rundells had recruited an amateur salvage team made up of fellow bass anglers, who raised the vessel with a hand-cranked winch mounted on a borrowed construction barge. The sight of their sludge-covered beauty breaking the surface was the second saddest thing Ozzie Rundell had ever seen—the first being Dickie Lockhart's blue-lipped corpse in the big fish tank.

  On the long bus ride back to Harney, Ozzie and Culver puzzled over who might have stolen their boat and why. The prime suspect seemed to be the violent hermit known to the Rundells only as Skink. A peculiar and vividly garbed man matching his description had been spotted on the lake by several other anglers, though no one had reported witnessing the actual sinking of the boat. What Skink was doing in Louisiana was a mystery that the Rundells did not contemplate for long—he was there, that's all that mattered. They clearly remembered the sky marshals leading him off the airplane in New Orleans, and they remembered the look of latent derangement in his eyes. Certainly the man was capable of stealing a boat; the riddle was finding a plausible motive. With a fellow like Skink, unadulterated malice might have been enough, but the Rundells remained doubtful. Culver in particular suspected revenge, or a plot hatched by one of Dickie Lockhart's jealous competitors. In the world of professional bassing it was well known that the Rundell brothers were the most loyal of Dickie's retinue, and in Culver's mind it made them likely targets.

  If Culver were outwardly angry about the destruction of their prized fishing boat, Ozzie seemed more wounded and perplexed. He was particularly incredulous that Skink would commit such an atrocity against them for no apparent reason. In the ten-odd years since the shaggy woodsman had come to live on Lake Jesup, Ozzie had probably not exchanged a half-dozen words with him. On the rare occasions when Skink came to town, he purchased lumber and dry goods and used books from the Faith Farm—or so Mrs. Coot Hough had gossiped—but never once had he come into the bait shop for tackle or lures (though he was reputed to be an expert angler). Ozzie's only close encounters with the man were the many times he'd had to swerve to avoid the crouched figure plucking animal carcasses off the Gilchrist Highway or Route 222. Nearly all the citizenry of Harney had occasionally come across Skink and his fresh roadkills, and the general assumption was that he ate the dead critters, though no one could say for a fact. The only person known to have a friendly relationship with Skink was Trooper Jim Tile of the state highway patrol. Occasionally fishermen out on Lake Jesup would see Jim Tile sitting at Skink's campfire, but none of them knew the trooper well enough to ask about it. Actually no one in Harney, not even the blacks, knew Jim Tile much better than they knew Skink.

  Which was why Ozzie was so stunned to hear his brother announce that they would visit the trooper as soon as they got home.

  "We'll get some answers out of that nigger," Culver said.

  "I don't know," Ozzie mumbled. He wasn't keen on confrontations. Neither was Culver, usually, but Dickie's murder had set him on edge. He was talking big and mean, the way he sometimes did after drinking.

  Ozzie Rundell had a perfectly good reason for not wanting to see Jim Tile face-to-face: Jim Tile had been out at Morgan Slough the night Ott Pickney was killed, the night Ozzie was driving Tom Curl's truck. As they were speeding out from the trail, Ozzie had spotted the trooper on foot. What he didn't know was whether or not Jim Tile had spotted him too. Ozzie had assumed not, since nothing terrible had happened in the days that followed, but he didn't want to press his meager luck. He felt he should explain to his brother the risks of visiting Jim Tile, but as usual the words wouldn't come out. The day after the newsman's death, Ozzie had assured Culver that everything had gone smoothly at the slough, and hadn't mentioned the black trooper. If Ozzie revealed the truth now, Culver would be furious, and Ozzie was in no mood to get yelled at. The closest thing to a protest he could muster was: "A trooper is the law. Even a nigger trooper."

  Culver scowled and said, "We'll see about that."

  Jim Tile lived alone in a two-bedroom apartment on Washington Drive, in the black neighborhood of Harney. He had been married for three years until his wife had gone off to Atlanta to become a big-time fashion model. Jim Tile could have gone with her, since he had been offered an excellent job with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, but he had chosen to stay with the highway patrol in Florida. His loyalty had been rewarded with a protracted tour of duty in the most backward-thinking and racist county in the state. To stop a car for speeding in Harney was to automatically invite a disgusting torrent of verbal abuse—the whites hated Jim Tile because he was black, and the blacks hated him for doing a honky's job. Rough words were expected, and occasionally somebody would sneak up and cut the tires on his patrol car late at night, but it seldom went any further. In all the years only one person had been foolhardy enough to try to fight Trooper Jim Tile. The boy's name was Dekle, and he was eighteen, as big and white as a Frigidaire, and just about as intelligent. Dekle had been doing seventy in a school zone and had run down a kitten before Jim Tile caught up and forced him off the road. At the time Jim Tile was new to Harney, and the Dekle boy remarked how he had never seen a chocolate state trooper before. Now you have, said Jim Tile, so turn around and put your hands on the roof of the car. At which point Dekle punched Jim Tile with all his strength and was astounded to see the trooper merely rock back slightly on his heels, when any other human being would have fallen flat on his back, out cold. The fight did not last long, perhaps thirty seconds, and years afterward Dekle's right arm still hung like a corkscrew and he still got around with the aid of a special Lucite cane, which his mother had purchased from a mail-order house in Tampa. Even in a place where there was no shortage of booze or stupidity, no one in Harney had since
gotten drunk enough or dumb enough to take a poke at the black trooper. Most folks, including Ozzie Rundell, wouldn't consider giving the man any lip.

  They found the apartment on Washington Drive easily; Jim Tile's black-and-tan Ford police cruiser was out front.

  Culver parked his mother's truck. He got a pistol from under the front seat and tucked it into the back of his dungarees.

  "What's that for?" Ozzie asked worriedly.

  "It's a bad neighborhood, Oz."

  "I ain't going in there with a gun," Ozzie said in a brittle voice. "I ain't!"

  "Fine," Culver said. "You sit out here in the parking lot with all these jigaboos. I'm sure they'll love the prospect of a fat little cracker boy like you."

  Ozzie looked around and knew that his brother was right. The streets were full of black faces, including some frightfully muscular teenagers slam-dunking basketballs through a rusty hoop nailed to a telephone pole. Ozzie decided he didn't want to stay in the truck after all. He followed Culver up to Jim Tile's apartment.

  The trooper was finishing dinner, and getting ready to go out on the night shift. He came to the door wearing the gray, sharply pressed trousers of his uniform, but no shirt. The Rundell brothers were awestruck by the dimensions of his chest and arms.

  After stammering for a second, Culver finally said, "We need to talk about the guy lives up on the lake."

  "Our boat got sunk," Ozzie warbled, without explanation.

  Jim Tile let them in, motioned toward two chairs at the dinette. The Rundell brothers sat down.

  "Skink is his name, right?" Culver said.

  "What's the connection," Jim Tile asked mildly, "between the man on the lake and your boat?"

  Ozzie started to say something, got lost, and looked to his brother for help. Culver said, "We heard Mr. Skink is the one who sunked it."

  Jim Tile said, "Well, Mr. Skink is out of town."

  "It happened out of town," Culver said. "At a tournament up in Louisiana."

  "Did you go to the police?" Jim Tile asked.

  "Not yet," Culver said. He had wanted to, but Thomas Curl had said it was a bad idea. He said the police would be busy with Dickie's murder, and it wouldn't be right to bother them over a bass boat. Besides, the boat had been recovered out of the water, and it was Thomas Curl's opinion that it could be repaired. Ozzie said great, but Culver didn't like the idea. Culver wanted a brand-new boat, and he wanted the man named Skink to buy it for him.

  "Well, if you haven't talked to the police in Louisiana, then I suggest you do," Jim Tile said. "Once there's a warrant, one of Sheriff Lockhart's deputies can go out to Lake Jesup and arrest him."

  Culver Rundell doubted if Sheriff Barley Lockhart was much interested in a boat theft, not with his famous nephew turning up murdered in Louisiana. Barley had caught a flight to New Orleans two days after the killing, and had not yet returned. Before leaving, the sheriff dramatically informed the Harney Sentinel that his presence had been requested to assist in the homicide investigation, but in reality the Louisiana authorities merely wanted somebody to accompany Dickie's autopsied body back to Florida.

  "It's a jurisdictional problem," Trooper Jim Tile said to the Rundell brothers. "I really can't help."

  "You can take us to see Mr. Skink," Culver said.

  "Why? You know where he lives—drive out there yourself."

  To Ozzie's ear, Jim Tile's response sounded as close to a definite no as you could get. But Culver wasn't giving up.

  "No way," Culver said. "I heard he's got a big gun, shoots at people just for the fun of it. He doesn't know me or my brother, and he might just open fire if we was to drive up unannounced. You, he knows. Even if he's crazy as they say, he won't shoot a damn police car."

  The low, even tone of Jim Tile's voice did not change. "I told you, he's out of town."

  "Well, let's go see."

  "No," said Jim Tile, rising. "I have to go to work."

  "Momma's truck," Ozzie blurted. "Maybe we oughta go, Culver."

  Annoyed, Culver glanced at his brother. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm worried about Momma's truck out there. Maybe we should go—"

  "The truck'll be fine," Culver said.

  "I don't know," Jim Tile said, parting the Venetian blinds. "It's a pretty rough neighborhood."

  Ozzie looked stricken.

  "Oh, settle down," Culver said angrily. Then, to Jim Tile: "You, why won't you help us? I lost a twenty-thousand-dollar rig because of that bastard!"

  Jim Tile was still looking out the window. "So that's your mother's pickup?"

  "Ours is in the impound, up New Orleans," Ozzie said.

  "The red one," Jim Tile said.

  "Yeah," Culver grunted, secretly impressed that the trooper would remember the color.

  Then Jim Tile said to Ozzie: "What about the green one?"

  The color washed out of Ozzie's cheeks. His eyelids fluttered, as if he were about to faint.

  "What green one?" Culver said, slow to put it together.

  "The one your brother was driving week before last," Jim Tile said, "out on the Gilchrist. About dawn, one morning."

  "When?" Ozzie hiccuped. "Wasn't me. Our truck is red."

  "You and two other guys," Jim Tile said, "and the truck was green. Out-of-state tags."

  Finally Culver was picking up on the train of conversation. He tried to help Ozzie as best he could, even though he felt like strangling him.

  "I remember that day," Culver improvised, watching his brother's eyes grow big. "You and some boys went fishing up at the slough. I remember 'cause you took a couple Shakespeare plug rods out of the shop, along with some Johnson spoons and purple skirts."

  Ozzie's lips were like chalk. His bottom jaw went up and down until finally he said, "Oh, yeah."

  Culver said, "I remember 'cause you didn't want to try live shiners, even though I told you to. You said there was too much heavy cover, so you'd prefer dragging those damn weedless spoons."

  Jim Tile was buttoning his shirt. "So, Ozzie," he said, "You guys catch anything?"

  "Sure," Ozzie said, glancing at the door, as if he were about to run.

  "What'd you catch?"

  "Our truck is red," Ozzie Rundell said, licking his lips. His shoulders twitched and his eyes rolled up and fixed on the ceiling. His cheeks puffed out, like he was trying to fart.

  "Pardon me?" Jim Tile said, bending over to tie his shoes.

  "That's Momma's pickup outside," Ozzie said in a very high voice. He was gone, unglued, lost in a pathetic blubbering panic. Culver shook his head disgustedly.

  "I asked what you caught," Jim Tile said, "out at Morgan Slough."

  Ozzie smiled and smacked his lips. "One time Dickie gave me a tacklebox," he said.

  "All right, that's enough," Culver broke in.

  "Ozzie?" said Jim Tile.

  "The day in the truck?"

  "The green truck, yes."

  "I was driving, that's all. I didn't drown nobody."

  "Of course not," Jim Tile said.

  "That's it," said Culver Rundell. "Shut the fuck up, Oz."

  Culver had the gun out. He was holding it with two hands, pointing it at Jim Tile's heart. Jim Tile glanced down once, but seemed to pay no more attention to the gun than if it were just Culver's fly unzipped.

  "Let's go," Culver said in a husky whisper.

  But Jim Tile merely walked into the bedroom, stood at the dresser, and adjusted his trooper's Stetson.

  "Now!" Culver shouted. Ozzie stared at the handgun and covered his ears.

  Jim Tile reached for a bottle of cologne.

  Culver exploded. "Nigger, I'm talking to you!"

  Only then did Jim Tile turn to give Ozzie Rundell's brother his complete and undivided attention.

  The boat was an eighteen-foot Aquasport with a two-hundred-horse Evinrude outboard; smooth trim, dry ride, very fast. Skink liked it quite a bit. He liked it so much he decided not to ditch it at Haulover docks after all, but to drive it up t
he Intracoastal Waterway all the way to Pier 66, in Fort Lauderdale. The morning was biting cold, and R. J. Decker would have preferred to travel by car, but there was no point to raising the issue. Skink was having a ball, his silvery ponytail strung out behind him like a rope in the breeze. At the Dania Beach bridge he cut the throttle down to idle speed and the Aquasport coasted into a slow crawl.

  "What's up?" Decker asked.

  Skink said, "Manatee zone."

  In the wintertime giant manatees migrate with their young to congregate sluggishly in the warm sheltered waters of the Intracoastal. During manatee season boaters are required by law to go slow, but each year dozens of the gentle mammals are run down and sliced to ribbons by reckless tourists and teenagers. The fine for such a crime costs the offending boater no more than a new pair of Top-Siders, and is not much of a deterrent. During the last days of his governorship, Clinton Tyree had lobbied for a somewhat tougher law. His version would have required anyone who killed a manatee to immediately forfeit his boat (no matter how luxurious) and pay a ten-thousand-dollar fine or go to jail for forty-five days. The Tyree amendment would have also required the manatee killer to personally bury the dead animal himself, at a public ceremony.