Carl Hiaasen (40 page)

And in small print at the bottom of the paper:

Bernard Squires crumpled the flyer and tossed it. Sickos, he thought, no matter where you go on this planet. Sickos who never learned to spell. Squires stopped at the Grab N’Go, where his request for a
New York Times
drew the blankest of stares. He settled for a
USA Today
and a cup of decaf, and headed back toward the b-and-b. Somewhere he made a wrong turn and found himself on a street he didn’t recognize—the chanting tipped him off.

Squires heard it from a block away: a man and a woman, vocalizing disharmoniously in some exotic tongue. The tremulous sounds drew Squires to a floodlit house. It was a plain, one-story concrete-and-stucco, typical of Florida tract developments in the 1960s and ’70s. Squires stood out of sight, behind an old oak, watching.

Three figures were visible—four, counting a statue of the Virgin Mary, which a dark-haired man in coveralls was positioning and repositioning on a small illuminated platform. Two other persons—the chanters, it turned out—sat with legs outstretched in a curved trench that had been dug in the lawn and filled with water. The man in the trench was cloaked in dingy bed linens, while the woman wore a formal white gown with lacy pointed shoulders. The pair was of indeterminate age, though both had pale skin and wet hair. Bernard Squires noticed V-shaped wakes pushing here and there in the water; animals of some kind, swimming …

Turtles?

Squires edged closer. Soon he realized he was witness to an eccentric religious rite. The couple in the trench continued to join arms and spout gibberish while scores of grape-sized reptile heads bobbed around them. (Squires recalled a cable-television
documentary about a snake-handling cult in Kentucky—perhaps this was a breakaway sect of turtle worshipers!) Interestingly, the dark-haired man in coveralls took no part in the moat-wallowing ceremony. Rather, he intermittently turned from the Madonna statue to gaze upon the two chanters with what appeared to Bernard Squires as unmasked disapproval.

“Kiiikkkeeeaay ka-kooo kattttkin!”
the couple bayed, sending such an icy jet down Squires’ spine that he crossed the street and hurried away. He was not a devout man and certainly didn’t believe in omens, but he was profoundly unsettled by the turtle handlers and the stranger with blood on his palms. Grange, which initially had impressed Squires as a prototypical tourist-grubbing southern truck stop, now seemed murky and mysterious. Weird vapors tainted the parochial climate of sturdy marriages, conservatively traditional faiths and blind veneration of progress—
any
progress—that allowed slick characters such as Bernard Squires to swoop in and have their way. He returned straightaway to the bed-and-breakfast, bid an early good night to Mrs. Hendricks (taking a pass on her pork roast, squash, snap beans and pecan pie), bolted the door to his room (quietly, so as not to offend his hostess), and slipped beneath the quilt to nurse a hollow, helpless, irrational feeling that Simmons Wood was lost.

The
Reel Luv
smelled of urine, salt and crab parts. How could it not?

Shiner slouched over the wheel. They were cruising at half-speed to conserve gas. Bode Gazzer’s marine chart was unrolled across Amber’s lap. The route to Jewfish Creek had been marked for them in ballpoint pen by the helpful Black Tide lady.

Florida Bay had a brisk chop; no rollers to make the travelers
queasy. Still, Shiner’s cheeks took on a greenish tinge, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“You all right?” Amber asked.

He nodded unconvincingly. The pudge on his arms and belly jiggled with each bump. He steered gingerly; the Black Tide lady had popped his dislocated thumbs back into the sockets, but they remained painfully swollen.

“Stop the boat,” Amber told him.

“I’m OK.”

“Stop it. Right now.” She reached across the console and levered back the throttle. Shiner didn’t argue because she had the gun; Chub’s Colt Python. The tip of the barrel peeked from beneath the chart.

As soon as the boat stopped moving, Shiner leaned over the side and puked up six of the eight Vienna sausages he’d wolfed down for breakfast on Pearl Key.

“I’m sorry.” He wiped his mouth. “Usually I don’t get seasick. Honest.”

Amber said, “Maybe you’re not seasick. Maybe you’re just scared.”

“I ain’t scared!”

“Then you’re a damn fool.”

“Scared a what?”

“Of getting busted in a stolen boat,” she said. “Or getting the shit beat out of you by my crazy jealous boyfriend back in Miami. Or maybe you’re just scared of the cops.”

Shiner said, “What cops?”

“The cops I ought to call the second we see a phone. To say I was kidnapped by you and nearly raped by your redneck pals.”

“Oh God.” Noisily Shiner launched the remainder of breakfast.

Afterwards he restarted the engines and off they went, the hull of the
Reel Luv
pounding like a tom-tom. Amber was still
trying to sort out what had happened on the island. Shiner hadn’t been much help; the more earnestly he’d tried to explain it, the nuttier it sounded.

This much she knew: The woman with the shotgun was the one the rednecks had robbed of the lottery ticket.

“How’d she find you guys all the way out here?” Amber had wondered, to which Shiner had proposed a fantastically muddled scenario involving liberals, Cubans, Democrats, commies, armed black militants, helicopters with infrared night scopes, and battalions of foreign-speaking soldiers hiding in the Bahamas. Wisely Shiner had refrained from tossing in the Jews, although he couldn’t stop himself from asking Amber (in a whisper) if her last name was actually Bernstein, as Chub had raged.

“Or d’you make that up?”

“What’s the difference,” she’d said.

“I don’t know. None, I guess.”

“You’d still marry me, wouldn’t you? In about ten seconds flat.” Amber winking at her joke, which had caused Shiner to redden and turn away.

That was after Chub had been shot and the colonel had been knocked out and Amber had fixed herself up and put on some clean clothes. Then the black woman and the white guy had collected the militia’s guns—the AR-15, the TEC-9, the Cobray, the Beretta, even Shiner’s puny Marlin .22—and heaved them one after another into the bay. The only thing that didn’t get tossed was a can of pepper spray, which the black woman placed in her handbag.

Afterwards she’d told Shiner and Amber to take the stolen boat back to the mainland. The black woman (JoLayne was her name) had marked the way on the chart and had even given them bottled water and cold drinks for the journey. Then the white guy had pulled Shiner aside, into the woods, and when
they’d returned Shiner was ashen. The white guy had handed Chub’s Colt Python to Amber with instructions to “shoot the little creep if he tries anything funny.”

Amber didn’t have much faith in the big revolver since it had misfired once already, but she didn’t mention that to Shiner. Besides, he looked too sick and dejected for mischief.

Which he was. The white guy, JoLayne’s friend, hadn’t laid a hand on him in the mangroves. Instead he’d looked the kid square in the eyes and said, “Son, if Amber doesn’t get home safe and sound, I’m going straight to your momma in Grange and tell her everything you’ve done. And then I’m going to put your name and ugly skinheaded picture on the front page of the newspaper, and you’re going to be famous in the worst possible way.”

And then he’d calmly escorted Shiner back to the shore and helped him into the boat. JoLayne Lucks had been waiting with the shotgun, watching over Bodean Gazzer and Chub. The white guy had waded in, shoving the stern into deeper water so Shiner and Amber could lower the outboards without snagging bottom.

“Have a safe trip,” the black woman had sung out. “Watch out for manatees!”

An hour later Shiner finally heard what he’d been dreading—a helicopter. But it was blaze orange, not black. And it wasn’t NATO but the U.S. Coast Guard, thwock-thwocking back and forth in search of a woman overdue in a small rental boat; a woman who’d said she was going no farther than Cotton Key.

Shiner had no way of knowing this. He was convinced the chopper had been sent to strafe him. He dove to the deck, yanking Amber with him.

“Look out! Look out!” he hollered.

“Would you please get a grip.”

“But it’s them!”

The helicopter dipped low over the boat. The crew spotted the couple entwined on the deck and, accustomed to such amorous sightings, flew on. Clearly it wasn’t the vessel they’d been sent to find.

Once the chopper disappeared, Shiner sheepishly collected himself. Amber shoved the chart under his chin and told him to quit behaving like a wimp. An hour later, the Jewfish Creek drawbridge came into view. They nosed the
Reel Luv
into the slip farthest from the dockmaster (its owner would be puzzled but pleased to find it there, and the theft would be ascribed to joyriding teenagers). Mindful of his throbbing thumbs, Shiner struggled to tie off the bow rope. Amber scouted for the marine patrol, just in case. She was relieved to spot her car, undisturbed in the parking lot.

Shiner gave a glum wave and said, “See ya.”

“Where you going?”

“To the highway. Try to hitch a ride.”

Amber said, “I’ll drop you in Homestead.”

“Naw, that’s OK.” He was worried about her boyfriend, jealous Tony. Maybe she was setting him up for an ass-whupping.

“Suit yourself,” she said.

Shiner thought: God, she’s so pretty. To hell with it. He said, “Maybe I will bum along.”

“That’s a good way to describe it. You drive.”

They were halfway up Highway One to Florida City when Amber took Chub’s pistol out again, leading Shiner to believe he’d misjudged her intentions.

“You’re gone kill me, ain’t you?”

“Oh right,” Amber said. “I’m going to shoot you in broad daylight in all this traffic, when I had all morning to blow your head off in the middle of nowhere and dump your body in the drink. That’s what a dumb bimbo I am. Just drive, OK?”

The way Shiner was feeling, a hot slug in the belly couldn’t
have hurt much worse than her sarcasm. He clamped his eyes on the road and tried to cook up a story for his Ma when he got back to Grange. The next time he glanced over at Amber, she’d gotten the Colt open. She was spinning the cylinder and peering, with one eye, into the chambers.

“Hey,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Stop the car.”

“OK, sure,” said Shiner. Carefully he guided the gargantuan Ford to the grassy shoulder, scattering a flock of egrets.

The gun lay open on Amber’s lap. She was unfolding a small piece of paper that had fallen from one of the bullet chambers.

Shiner said, “Lemme see.”

“Just listen: Twenty-four … nineteen … twenty-seven … twenty-two … thirty… seventeen.”

Shiner said, “God, don’t tell me it’s the damn Lotto!”

“Yup. Your dumb shitkicker buddies hid it inside the gun.”

“Oh man. Oh man. But—d-damn, what do we do now?”

Amber snapped the revolver shut and slipped the lottery coupon in a zippered pocket of her jumpsuit.

“You want me to keep drivin’?” Shiner asked.

“I think so, yes.”

They didn’t speak again until Florida City, where they stopped at a McDonald’s drive-thru. They were fifth in the line of cars.

Amber said, “We’ve got a decision to make, don’t we?”

“I always get the Quarter Pounder.”

“I’m talking about the Lotto ticket.”

“Oh,” said Shiner.

“Fourteen million dollars.”

“God, I know.”

“Sometimes there’s a difference,” Amber said, “between what’s right and what’s common sense.”

“Good.”

“All I’m saying is, we need to think this out from all angles. It’s a big decision. Order me a salad, would you? And a Diet Coke.”

Shiner said, “You wanna split some fries?”

“Sure.”

Later, sitting at the traffic light near the turnpike ramp, Shiner heard Amber say: “What do you think they did to your buddies? Back on the island, I mean. What do you think happened after we left?”

Shiner said, “I don’t know, but I can guess.” Sadly he examined the mutilated militia tattoo on his arm.

“Light’s green,” Amber said. “We can go.”

B
odean Gazzer watched the Negro woman pick through his wallet until she found the condom packet. How could she have possibly known?

Another mystery, Bode thought despondently. Another mystery that won’t matter in the end.

As nonchalant as a nurse, the woman unrolled the rubber and plucked out the lottery ticket, which she placed in a pocket of her jeans.

“That ain’t yours,” Bode Gazzer blurted.

“Pardon?” The Negro woman wore a half smile. “What’d you say, bubba?”

“That one ain’t yours.”

“Really? Whose might it be?”

“Never mind.” Bode didn’t like the way her eyes kept cutting to the shotgun, which she’d handed to the white guy while she searched the wallet.

“Funny,” she said. “I checked the numbers on that ticket. And they were
my
numbers.”

“I said never mind.”

Chub began to moan and writhe. The white guy said, “He’s losing lots of blood.”

“Yes, he is,” said the Negro woman.

Bode asked, “Is he gone die?”

“He most certainly could.”

The white guy said to the woman: “It’s your call.”

“I suppose so.”

She walked briefly out of Bode’s view. She reappeared carrying a flat white box with a small red cross painted on the lid. She knelt beside Chub and opened it.

Bode heard her saying: “I wish I could stand here and let you die, but I can’t. My whole life, I’ve never been able to watch a living thing die. Not even a cockroach. Not even a despicable damn sonofabitch like you …”