Carl Hiaasen (14 page)

“Not a chance.”

“Speak up now,” said the Dolly person. Ridiculous fake fingernails dug into Krome’s calf. “Come on, big man, let’s go out to yo’ cah. Bring the fancy lady if you wants.”

Krome said, “I like that dress—didn’t you used to be on
Shindig?”

The transvestite gave a bronchial laugh and squeezed harder. “Dolly’s gettin’ the boy ’cited.”

“No, just annoyed.”

To unfasten the Dolly person’s hand from his knee, Krome twisted the thumb clockwise until it came out of the socket. The popping sound silenced the bar. JoLayne Lucks was impressed. She’d have to find out where he’d learned such a thing.

Dropping to his knees, the transvestite prostitute shrieked and pawed at himself with his crooked digit. Lurching to avenge his honor were two babbling crackheads, each armed with gleaming cutlery. They began to argue about who should get to stab the white boy first, and how many times. It was a superb moment for JoLayne’s friend to show up, and his arrival cleared the scene. The Dolly person shed a spiked pump during his scamper out the door.

The name of JoLayne’s friend was Moffitt, and he made no inquiries about the crackheads or the yowling robber. Moffitt was built like a middleweight and dressed like an expensive lawyer. His gray suit was finely tailored and his checkered necktie was silk. He wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses with round conservative frames, and carried a small cellular telephone. He greeted JoLayne with a hug but scarcely nodded at Tom Krome.

The bartender brought Moffitt a Diet Coke and a bowl of pitted olives. He popped one in his mouth and asked JoLayne to remove her sunglasses.

After examining her face, he turned to Krome: “She gave me one version over the phone, but I want to hear yours—did you do this to her?”

“No.”

“Because if I find out otherwise, you’re going on an ambulance ride—”

“I didn’t do it.”

“—possibly in a bag.”

JoLayne said, “Moffitt, it wasn’t him.”

They moved to a booth. Moffitt asked for a card, and Krome got one from his billfold. Moffitt remarked that he’d never heard of
The Register
. JoLayne told him to lighten up.

Moffitt said, “Sorry. I don’t trust anyone in the media.”

“Well, I’m stunned,” said Krome. “We’re so accustomed to being adored and admired.”

Moffitt didn’t crack a smile. To JoLayne he said: “What’s your plan, Jo? What do you need from me?”

“Help. And don’t tell me to go to the cops because if I do, I’ll never get my Lotto ticket back.”

Impassively Moffitt agreed. His cell phone rang. He turned it off. “I’ll do what I can,” he said.

JoLayne turned to Krome. “We’ve known each other since kindergarten. He takes a personal interest in my well-being, and I do the same for him.”

“Don’t lie to the man. I’m lucky to get a Christmas card.” Moffitt tapped his knuckles on the table. “Tell me about the guys who did this.”

“Rednecks,” JoLayne said, “red-to-the-bone rednecks. They called me, among other things, a rotten nigger slut.”

“Nice.” Moffitt spoke in a tight voice. When he reached for his Coke, Krome noticed the bulge under his left arm.

JoLayne said: “We’re following them.”

“Following.” Moffitt looked skeptical. “How?”

“Her credit card,” Krome explained. “They’re burning a trail.”

Moffitt seemed encouraged. He took out a gold Cross pen and reached for a stack of cocktail napkins. In small precise script he took down the details JoLayne gave him—the purchase of the lottery ticket, how she’d met Tom Krome, the break-in, the beating, the red pickup truck, the missing video from the Grab N’Go. By the time she finished, Moffitt had filled both sides of three napkins, which he folded neatly and tucked into an inside suit pocket.

Tom Krome said, “Now I’ve got a question.”

JoLayne nudged him and said not to bother. Moffitt shifted impatiently.

“Who do you work for?” Krome said. “What do you do?”

“Use your imagination,” Moffitt told him. Then, to JoLayne: “Call me in a day or two, but not at the office.”

Then he got up and left. The bar stayed quiet; no sign of Dolly or his pals.

Fondly JoLayne said: “Poor Moffitt—I give him fits. And he’s such a worrier.”

“That would explain the gun,” said Krome.

“Oh, that. He works for the government.”

“Doing what?”

“I’ll let him tell you,” JoLayne said, sliding out of the booth.

“I’m hungry again, how about you?”

Amber’s boyfriend was named Tony. He’d been on her case to quit her job, until she made first alternate for Miss September
in the Hooters Girl Calendar. After that Tony came to the restaurant three or four times a week, he was so proud. The more beers he drank, the louder he’d brag on Amber. This, she understood, was his suave way of letting the customers know she was spoken for.

Several months earlier, the Hooters people had asked Amber and three other waitresses to pose for a promotional poster, which was to be given away free to horny college guys on Fort Lauderdale beach. When Amber told Tony about the poster, he immediately joined a gym and began injecting steroids. In ten months he gained thirty-two pounds and developed such an igneous strain of acne across both shoulders that Amber forbade him to wear tank tops.

Initially she’d been flattered by Tony’s surprise appearances at the restaurant, particularly since the other waitresses thought he was so handsome—quite the hunk! Amber never let on that Tony couldn’t keep a job, mooched shamelessly off his parents, hadn’t finished a book since tenth grade and wasn’t all that great in the sack. And ever since he’d started the workout binge, he’d become moody and rough. One time he’d dragged her dripping wet from the shower to the bed, by her hair. She’d considered leaving him, but nothing better had presented itself. Tony
did
look good (at least in a sleeved shirt), and in Amber’s world that counted for something.

Yet she wished he’d stop dropping in at work. His presence was not only distracting, it was a drain on her income. Amber had been keeping track: Whenever Tony was there, her tips fell off by as much as a third. Therefore the sight of her hulked-out sweetheart swaggering through the door on this particular Wednesday evening—Wednesday already being a slow night, tipwise—failed to evoke in the alternate Miss September either gladness or affection. The frisky ambience of Hooters brought out Tony’s demonstrative side, and at every opportunity he intercepted
his tray-laden princess with an indiscreet hug, smooch or pat on the ass. Tony’s boisterous possessiveness was meant to discourage other patrons from flirting with Amber, and it did. Unfortunately, it also discouraged excessive gratuities.

Amber’s only hope on this night was the icky-looking pair of rednecks at table seven, the same two who yesterday had left her a hundred-dollar tip on a credit card. The shorter man had arrived in a fresh suit of camouflage, while his ponytailed companion—the one who’d tried to buy her shorts—appeared not to have changed clothes or even shaved. Affixed across the orbit of his left eye was a new rubber bicycle patch; Amber tried not to imagine what was behind it. The faces of both men still bore the scabs of savage cuts, as if they’d gone at each other with razors. Amber could not dismiss the possibility.

But for her purposes, the rednecks could not be crude and spooky and disgusting. They were handsome and sexy and sophisticated; Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise, sharing a plate of chicken wings. That’s how Amber treated them. It wasn’t easy, but a hundred bucks was a hundred bucks.

“Honey,” said the ponytailed one, “you’s right about the White Rebel Brotherhood. They’s a damn rock band.”

“You should see ’em live,” Amber said. She set two cold Coronas on the table.

The stumpy one in camouflage asked her if the name of the group was some kind of joke. “Considering all the Negroes they got,” he added.

Amber said, “I think it’s meant to be funny, yeah.”

The ponytailed one, lathering his palms with the condensation from the beer bottle: “Well, Bode don’t think it’s so funny. Can’t say I do, neither.”

Amber’s poster-quality smile didn’t flicker. “The music’s killer. That’s all I know.”

Then she glided away with their empties and an order for more onion rings. Her path to the kitchen took her directly past Tony’s table, and of course he snatched her by the elastic waistband of her shorts.

“Not now,” she told him.

“Who’re those dirtbags?”

“Just customers. Now let me get to work,” Amber said.

Tony grunted. “They hit on you? That’s what it looked like.”

“You’re going to get me in trouble with the boss. Let go, OK?”

“First a kiss.” With one arm he pulled her close.

“Tony!”

“A kiss for Tony, that’s right.”

And of course he had to slip her some tongue, right there in the middle of the restaurant. Out of the corner of an eye, Amber noticed the rednecks watching. Tony must have seen them, too, because he was beaming by the time Amber pulled free.

A few minutes later, when she delivered the onion rings to the table, the ponytailed one said: “People ever tell you you look ’zackly like Kim Basinger?”

“Really?” Amber acted flattered, though she’d always seen herself in the Daryl Hannah mold.

“Bode thinks so, too, don’tcha?”

“Dead ringer,” said the camouflaged man, “and I’m the better judge. I still got both good eyes.”

Amber said, “Well, you’re sweet for saying so. Can I get you anything else?”

“Matter a fact, yes you can,” the ponytailed man said. “How ’bout one a them red-hot kisses like you give that other guy?”

Amber blushed. With a moist leer the camouflaged man said, “Yeah, I didn’t see that on no menu!”

The ponytailed one observed that Amber wasn’t too keen on the kissing idea. He cocked his face upward and tapped a dirty
fingertip on the bicycle patch. “Mebbe it’s me. Mebbe you prejudiced against handicaps.”

Amber, sensing (as all good waitresses can) that her tip was in jeopardy: “No, oh no, I can explain. That’s my boyfriend.”

In unison the men twisted in their chairs to reappraise Tony across the restaurant. He returned their stares with a belligerent sneer.

The ponytailed redneck said, “No shit. The hell is he, Cuban?”

Amber said no, Tony was from Los Angeles. “Sometimes he gets carried away. I’m sorry if it upset you.”

Through a mouthful of onions, the one called Bode said: “Meskin, I’ll bet. They’re all over California is what I heard.”

On the way back to the bar station, Amber stopped at Tony’s table and curtly related what had happened: “Thanks to you, they think I kiss all the customers. They think it’s part of the service. You happy now?”

Tony’s eyes darkened. “Those dirtbags—they wanted a kiss?”

“Do us all a favor. Go home,” Amber whispered.

“No fuckin’ way. Not now.”

“Tony, I swear to God …”

He was flaring his nostrils, puffing his chest, flexing his arms. All that’s missing, Amber thought, is the workout mirror.

Declared Tony: “I’ll straighten those shitheads out.”

“No you won’t,” said Amber, bitterly surveying the suddenly empty table. “They’re gone.”

She hurried back, hoping to find some cash. Nothing—they’d skipped on the tab.
Shit
, she thought. It would come out of her pay.

Suddenly she was enveloped by Tony’s cologne, as subtle as paint thinner. She felt him looming behind her. “Goddamn you,” she said, retreating to the kitchen. Predictably, Tony stormed out the door.

Two hours later, Amber’s redneck customers returned, anchoring themselves at the same table.

She tried not to appear too relieved. “Where’d you fellas run off to?”

“Jest needed some fresh air,” said the ponytailed one, lighting a cigaret. “You miss us? Say, where’s that kissing-machine boyfriend a yours?”

Amber pretended not to hear him. “What can I get for you?”

The camouflaged man ordered four more beers, two apiece, and a fresh heap of wings. “Add it on our bill,” he said, flashing the Visa card with two stubby fingers.

Amber was waiting for the drink order when the barmaid handed her the phone. “For you, honey,” she said. “Guess who.”

Tony, of course. Screaming.

“Slow down,” Amber told him. “I can’t understand a word.”

“My car!” he cried. “Somebody burned up my car!”

“Oh, Tony.”

“Right in my fucking driveway! They torched it!”

“When?”

“During wrestling, I guess. It’s still on fire, they got like five guys tryin’ to put out the flames….”

The barmaid came with the tray of Coronas. Amber told Tony she was really sorry about the car, but she had to get back to work.

“I’ll call you on my break,” she promised.

“The Miata, Amber!”

“Yes, baby, I heard you.”

When she brought the beers and chicken wings to the two rednecks, the one named Bode said: “Sugar, you’re our rock ‘n’ roll expert. Is there a band called the White Clarion Aryans?”

Amber thought for a moment. “Not that I ever heard of.”

“Good,” Bode said.

“Not jes good,” said his ponytailed friend, “fan-fucking-tastic!”