“Aw, relax,” Skink said.
But now it was impossible.
When the stewardess brought the food, Skink glowered from under his cap and snapped: “What in the name of Christ is this slop?”
“Beef Wellington, muffins, a fresh garden salad, and carrot cake.”
“How about some goddamn opossum?” Skink said.
The flight attendant’s blue buttonlike eyes flickered slightly. “I don’t think so, sir, but we may have a chicken Kiev left over from the Atlanta flight.”
“How about squirrel?” Skink said. “Squirrel Kiev would be lovely.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not on the menu,” the stewardess said, the lilt and patience draining from her voice. “Would you care for a beverage this morning?”
“Just possum hormones,” Skink said, “and if I don’t get some, I’m going to tear this goddamn airplane apart.” Then he casually ripped the tray table off its hinges and handed it to the flight attendant, who backpedaled in terror up the aisle.
She was calling for her supervisor when Skink rose from his seat and shouted, “You promised opossum! I called ahead and you promised to reserve a possum lunch. Kosher, too!”
R. J. Decker felt paralyzed. Skink’s plan was now evident, and irreversible.
“Fresh opossum—or we all die together!” he proclaimed. By now pandemonium was sweeping the tail section; women and children scurried toward the front of the aircraft while the male passengers conferred about the best course of action. Skink’s size, apparel, and maniacal demeanor did not invite heroic confrontation at thirty thousand feet.
To Decker it seemed like every passenger in the airplane had turned around to stare at the lunatic in the flowered shower cap.
The aisle cleared as a man with a badge on his shirt came out of first class and hurried toward the trouble.
“Remember, you don’t know me!” Skink whispered to Decker.
“No kidding.”
The sky marshal, a short stocky man with a bushy mustache, asked R. J. Decker if he would mind moving up a few rows for the remainder of the flight.
“Gladly,” Decker said.
The sky marshal carried no gun, just a short billy club and a pair of handcuffs. He sat down in Decker’s seat.
“Are you the man with the opossum?” Skink asked.
“Behave yourself,” the sky marshal said sternly, “and I won’t have to use these.” He jangled the handcuffs ominously.
“Please,” Skink said, “I’m a heavily medicated man.”
The sky marshal nodded. “Everything is fine now. We’re only a half-hour from New Orleans.”
Soon the plane was calm again and lunch service was resumed. When Decker turned around he saw Skink and the sky marshal chatting amiably.
After landing in New Orleans, the pilot asked all passengers to remain seated for a few minutes. As soon as the cabin door opened, three city policemen and two federal agents in dark suits boarded the plane and led Skink away in handcuffs and leg irons. On the way out he made a point of kissing one of the flight attendants on the earlobe and warning the pilot to watch out for windshear over Little Rock.
The Rundell brothers watched in fascination.
“Where they taking him?” Ozzie wondered.
“The nuthouse, I hope,” said Culver. “Let’s get going.”
R. J. Decker stayed on the plane to Tulsa. Except for one drunken tourist wearing a Disney World tank top and Pluto ears, it was a peaceful flight.
12
On the night of January 15, Dickie Lockhart got dog-sucking drunk on Bourbon Street and was booted out of a topless joint for tossing rubber nightcrawlers on the dancers. The worms were a freebie from a national tackle company whose sales reps had come to town for the big bass tournament. The sales reps had given Dickie Lockhart four bags of assorted lures and hooks, plus a thousand dollars cash as incentive to win the tournament using the company’s equipment. Dickie blew the entire grand in the French Quarter, buying rock cocaine and rainbow-colored cocktails for exquisitely painted women, most of whom turned out to be flaming he-she’s out trolling for cock. In disgust Dickie Lockhart had retreated to the strip joints, where at least the boobs were genuine. The trouble happened when he ran out of five-dollar bills for tips; finding only the slippery rubber nightcrawlers in his pockets, he began flicking them up at the nude performers. In his drunken state he was vastly entertained by the way the gooey worms clung to the dancers’ thighs and nipples, and would occasionally tangle in their pubic hair. The nightcrawlers looked (and felt) so authentic that the strippers began shrieking and clawing at their own flesh; one frail acrobat even collapsed and rolled about the stage as if she were on fire. Dickie thought the whole scene was hysterical; obviously these girls had never been fishing. He was mildly baffled when the bouncers heaved him out of the joint (hadn’t they seen him on TV?), but took some satisfaction when other patrons booed the rough manner in which he was expelled.
Afterward he had a few more drinks and went looking for his boss, the Reverend Charles Weeb. Drunk was the only condition in which Dickie Lockhart could have made this decision; as a rule one did not pop in on Reverend Weeb unless one was invited.
Dickie lurched up to the top-floor suite of the swank hotel on Chartres Street and pounded on the door. It was almost midnight.
“Who is it?” a female voice asked.
“DEA!” said Dickie Lockhart. “Open the fuck up!”
The door opened and a beautiful long-haired woman stood there; at least she seemed beautiful to Dickie Lockhart. An apparition, really. She was wearing canvas hip waders and nothing else. Her lovely breasts poked out in a friendly way from under the suspenders. For a moment Dickie almost forgot he was supposed to be with the DEA.
“I got a warrant for Charles Weeb,” he snarled.
“What’s with the fishing pole?” the naked wader asked.
Dickie Lockhart had been carrying a nine-foot boron fly rod all night long. He couldn’t remember why. Somebody in a bar had given it to him; another damn salesman, probably.
“It’s not a fishing rod, so shut up!”
“Yes, it is,” said the woman.
“It’s a heroin probe,” Dickie Lockhart said. “Now stand back.” He brushed past her and marched into the living room of the suite, but the reverend was not there. Dickie headed for the master bedroom, the woman clomping after him in the heavy waders.
“Have you got a warrant?” she asked.
Dickie found the Reverend Charles Weeb lying on his back in bed. Another young woman was on top of him, bouncing happily. This one was wearing a Saints jersey, number 12.
From behind Dickie Lockhart the bare-breasted wader announced: “Charlie, there’s a man here to arrest you.”
Weeb looked up irritably, fastened his angry eyes on Dickie Lockhart, and said: “Be gone, sinner!”
It occurred to Dickie that maybe it wasn’t such a hot idea to stop by unannounced. He went back to the living room, turned on the television, and slumped on the couch. The woman in the waders fixed him a bourbon. She said her name was Ellen O’Something and that she had recently been promoted to executive secretary of the First Pentecostal Church of Exemptive Redemption, of which the Reverend Charles Weeb was founder and spiritual masthead. She apologized for answering the door half-naked, said the waders weren’t really her idea. Dickie Lockhart said he understood, thought she looked darn good in them. He told her to watch out for chafing, though, said he spoke from experience.
“Nice fly rod,” she remarked.
“Not for bass,” Dickie Lockhart said. “The action’s too fast for poppers.”
The woman nodded. “I was thinking more about streamers,” she said. “A Muddler Minnow, for instance. Say a four or a six.”
“Sure,” Dickie Lockhart said, dumbstruck, dizzy, madly in love. “Sure, with the boron you could throw a size four, you bet. Do you fish?”
At that moment the Reverend Charles Weeb thundered into the room with a mauve
towel wrapped around his midsection. The apparition excused herself and clomped off to a bedroom. Dickie Lockhart’s heart ached. He was sure he’d never see her again, Charles Weeb would make sure of that.
“Son, what in the name of holy fuck is the matter with you?” the clergyman began. “What demon has possessed you, what poison serpent, what diseased fucking germ has invaded your brain and robbed you of all common sense? What in the name of Our Savior Jesus were you thinking when you knocked on my door tonight?”
“I’m fairly plastered,” Dickie Lockhart said.
“Well, so you are. But see what you’ve done. That young lady in there—”
“The quarterback?”
“Hush! That young lady was on the brink of a profound revelation when you burst in and interrupted our collective concentration. I don’t appreciate that, Dickie, and neither does she.”
“The night’s young,” Dickie Lockhart said. “You can try again.”
The Reverend Weeb glowered. “Why did you come here?”
Dickie shrugged. “I wanted to talk.”
“About what?” Weeb hiked up the towel to cover the pale fatty roll of shrimp-colored belly. “What was so all-fired important that you would invade my personal privacy at this hour?”
“The show,” Dickie said, emboldened by Ellen’s bourbon. “I just don’t think you fully appreciate the show. I think you take me for granted, Reverend Weeb.”
“Is that right?”
Dickie Lockhart stood up. It wasn’t easy. He pointed the nine-foot boron fly rod directly at Reverend Weeb’s midsection, so that the tip tickled the gray curly hair.
“Catching bass is not easy,” Dickie Lockhart said, his own anger welling, fueled by a mental image of his beloved Ellen O’Something bouncing on top of this flabby rich pig. “Catching bass is not a sure thing.”
Weeb said, “I understand, Dickie.” He had dealt with angry drunks before and knew that caution was the best strategy. He didn’t like the fishing rod poking into his tummy, but realized that only his pride was in danger. “Overall, I think you do a hell of a job with Fish Fever, I really do.”
“Then why do you treat me like shit?”
“Now, I pay you very well,” Weeb said.
With his wrist Dickie Lockhart started whipping the rod back and forth, filling the room with sibilant noise. Weeb had a hunch it would hurt like hell if the tip thwacked across his bare flesh, and he edged back a step.
“I heard,” said Dickie Lockhart, “that you been talking to Ed Spurting.”
“Where did you hear that?” A new look came into the minister’s eyes, a look of nervousness.
“Some boys that fish with Ed. Said Ed told ’em that the Outdoor Christian Network wanted to buy his TV show.”
Weeb said, “Dickie, that’s ridiculous. We’ve got the best bass show in all America. Yours. We don’t need another.”
“That’s what I said, but those boys that fish with Ed told me something else. They said Ed was bragging that you promised to make him number one within two years. Within two years, they said, Fish Fever would be out of production.”
These redneck assholes, Weeb was thinking, what a grapevine they had. It was too bad Ed Spurling couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut.
“Dickie,” Weeb said, “somebody’s pulling your leg. I never met Spurling in my life. I don’t blame you for being upset, buddy, but I swear you’ve got nothing to worry about. Look, of all the pro bass anglers in the world, who did I ask to do the promotion footage for Lunker Lakes? Who? You, Dickie, ’cause you’re the best. All of us at OCN feel the same way: you’re our number-one man.”
Lockhart lowered the fishing rod. His eyes were muddy, his arms like lead. If he didn’t pass out soon he’d need another bourbon.
Soothingly the Reverend Charles Weeb said, “Don’t worry, son, none of what you heard is true.”
“Sure glad to hear it,” Dickie said, “because there’s no telling what would happen if I found out otherwise. No telling. Remember the guy from the zoning board down in Lauderdale, the one you told me to take fishing that time? Man, he had some wild stories about that Lunker Lagoon.”
“Lunker Lakes,” Weeb said tersely.
“He says he got himself a brand-new swimming pool, thanks to you. With a sauna in the shallow end!”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Dickie broke into a daffy grin. “And I’m trying to imagine what your faithful flock might do if they found out their shepherd was double-boffing a couple of sweet young girls from the church. I’m wondering about that, Reverend Weeb.”
“I get the point.”
“Do you really?” Dickie Lockhart wielded the fly rod swordlike and, with an artful flick, popped the knot on Charlie Weeb’s bath towel, which dropped to his ankles.
“Aw, what a cute little thing,” Dickie said with a wink. “Cute as a junebug.”
Weeb flushed. He couldn’t believe that the tables had turned so fast, that he had so carelessly misjudged this nasty little cracker bastard. “What do you want?” he asked Dickie Lockhart.
“A new contract. Five years, no cancellation. Plus ten percent of first-run syndication rights. Don’t look so sad, Reverend Weeb. I’ll make it easy for you: you don’t have to announce it until after I win the tournament this week. I’ll show up at the press conference with the trophy, put on a good show.”
“All right,” Weeb said, cupping his hands over his privates, “what else?”
“I want the budget doubled to two thousand per show.”
“Fifteen hundred tops.”
“Fine,” Dickie said, “I’m not a greedy man.”
“Anything more?” asked Reverend Weeb.
“Yeah, go get Ellen and tell her I’m giving her a ride home.”
Lake Maurepas, where the Cajun Invitational Bass Classic was to be held, was a bladder-shaped miniature of the immense Lake Pontchartrain. Located off Interstate 55 northwest of New Orleans, the marshy and bass-rich Maurepas was connected to its muddy mother at Pass Manchac, a few miles south of the town of Hammond. It was there that R. J. Decker and Skink took a room at a Quality Court motel. At the Sportsman’s Hideout Marina they rented a small aluminum johnboat with a fifteen-horsepower outboard, and told the lady at the cash register they’d be going out at dusk. The lady looked suspicious until Skink introduced himself as the famous explorer Philippe Cousteau, and explained he was working on a documentary about the famous Louisiana eel spawn, which only took place in the dead of night. Yes, the lady at the cash register nodded, I’ve heard of it. Then she asked for Philippe’s autograph and Skink earnestly replied (in a marvelous French accent) that for such a beautiful woman, a mere autograph would never do. Instead he promised to name a new species of mollusk in her honor.
It had taken the better part of the morning to get Skink arraigned and bailed out of jail, and by now it was the middle of the day; not hot, but piercingly bright, the way it gets in January in the Deep South. Skink said there was no point in going out on the water now because the bass would be in thick cover. He curled up on the floor of the motel room and went to sleep while Decker read the New Orleans Times-Picayune. On the back page of the local section was a small item about a local man who had disappeared on a fishing trip to Florida and was presumed drowned somewhere in the murky vastness of Lake Okeechobee. The young man’s name was Lemus Curl, and except for the absence of a blackened bullet hole in his forehead, the picture in the paper matched the face of the man whom Skink had shot dead near Morgan Slough; the man who had tried to murder them with the rifle. Obviously it was Lemus Curl’s brother whom Jim Tile had stopped for speeding shortly afterward. Interestingly, the same Thomas Curl was quoted in the newspaper as saying that his brother had slipped off the dike and tumbled into the water on the west side of the big lake. The article reported that Lemus Curl had been tussling with a hawg bass at the time of the tragic accident. Decker thought this last detail, though untrue, lent a fine ironic touch to the story.
Ski
nk snored away and Decker felt alone. He felt like calling Catherine. He found a pay phone outside the lobby of the Quality Court. She answered on the fifth ring, and sounded like she’d been sleeping.
“Did I wake you?”
“Hey, Rage, where you at?”
“In a motel outside New Orleans.”
“Hmmm, sounds romantic.”
“Very,” Decker said. “My roommate is a 240-pound homicidal hermit. For dinner he’s fixing me a dead fox he scraped off the highway near Ponchatoula, and after that we’re taking a leaky tin boat out on a windy lake to spy on some semi-retarded fishermen. Don’t you wish you were here?”
“I could fly in tomorrow, get a hotel in the Quarter.”
“Don’t be a tease, Catherine.”
“Oh, Decker.” She was stretching, waking up, probably kicking off the covers. He could tell all that over the phone. “I had to get up early and take James to the airport,” she said.
“Where to now?”
“San Francisco.”
“And of course he didn’t want you to come along.”
“That’s not true,” Catherine said. “Those conventions are a bore, and besides, I’ve got plans of my own. What are you doing out in the bayous?”
“Rethinking Darwin,” Decker said. “Some of these folks didn’t evolve from apes; it was the other way around.”
“You should have gotten a nice room downtown.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Decker said. “The fish people, I’m talking about.”
“Take notes,” Catherine said, “it sounds like it’ll make a terrific movie. Attack of the Fish People. Now, be honest, Rage, wouldn’t you rather be shooting pictures of golfers?”
Decker said, “I’d better go.”
“That’s it?”
“I’ve got a lot to tell you, but not over the phone.”
“It’s all right,” Catherine said. “Anytime you want to talk.” He wished she’d been serious about flying up to New Orleans, though it was a nutty scheme. She would have been safer in San Francisco with her chiropractor.