“Now the fun starts,” said a young woman standing next to R. J. Decker. She was holding two sleeping babies.
The starter raised a pistol and fired into the air. Instantly a wall of noise rose off Maurepas: the race was on. The bass boats hiccuped and growled and then whined, pushing for more speed. With the throttles hammered down, the stems dug ferociously and the bows popped up at such alarming angles that Decker was certain some of the boats would flip over in midair. Yet somehow they planed off perfectly, gliding flat and barely creasing the crystal texture of the lake. The song of the big engines was that of a million furious bees; it tore the dawn all to hell.
It was one of the most remarkable moments Decker had ever seen, almost military in its high-tech absurdity: forty boats rocketing the same direction at sixty miles per hour. In darkness.
Most of the spectators applauded heartily.
“Doesn’t anyone ever get hurt?” Decker asked the woman with the two babies, who were now yowling.
“Hurt?” she said. “No, sir. At that speed you just flat-out die.”
Skink was waiting outside the motel when Decker returned. “You got the cameras?” he asked.
“All ready,” Decker said.
They drove back to the Sportsman’s Hideout and rented the same johnboat from the night before. This time Decker asked for a paddle. The cashier said brightly to Skink: “Are you finding enough of those eels, Mr. Cousteau?”
“Sί,” Skink replied.
“Oui!” Decker whispered.
“Oui!” Skink said. “Many many eels.”
“I’m so glad,” the cashier said.
Hastily they loaded the boat. Decker’s camera gear was packed in waterproof aluminum carriers. Skink took special care to distribute the weight evenly, so the johnboat wouldn’t list. After the morning’s parade of lightning-fast bass rigs, the puny fifteen-horse outboard seemed slow and anemic to Decker. By the time they got to the secret spot, the sun had been up an hour.
Skink guided the johnboat deep into the bulrushes. The engine stalled when the prop snarled in the thick grass. Skink used his bare hands to pull them out of sight, away from the pass. Soon they seemed walled in by cattails, sawgrass, and hyacinth. Directly overhead was the elevated ramp of Interstate 55; Decker and Skink were hidden in its cool shadow. Wordlessly Skink shed the orange rainsuit and put on a full camouflage hunting outfit, the type deer hunters use. He threw one to R. J. Decker and told him to do the same. The mottled hunting suit was brand-new, still crinkled from the bag.
“Where’d you get this?” Decker asked.
“Borrowed it,” Skink said. “Put the tripod up front.” By swinging the plastic paddle he cleared a field of view through the bullrushes. He pointed and said, “That’s where we pulled the last trap.”
Decker set the tripod in the bow, carefully tightening the legs. He attached a Nikon camera body with a six-hundred-millimeter lens; it looked like a snub-nosed bazooka. He had decided on black-and-white film; as evidence it was much more dramatic than a tiny Kodachrome slide. Color was for vacation snapshots, black-and-white was for the grit of reality. With a long lens the print would have that grainy texture that seemed to convey guilt, seemed proof that somebody was getting caught in the act of something.
Decker closed one eye and expertly focused on the strand of monofilament tied to the concrete piling.
“How long do we wait?” he asked.
Skink grunted. “Long as it takes. They’ll be here soon.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The fish,” Skink said. He meant the two bass he had left in the fish trap, the ones he had marked with the pliers. “The longer you leave ‘em, the worse they look. Bang their heads against the wire, get all fucked up. They’d stand out bad at the weigh-in. The trick is to get ’em fresh.”
“Makes sense,” Decker said.
“Well, these boys aren’t stupid.”
On this point Decker and Skink disagreed.
After fifteen minutes they heard the sound of another boat. Skink slid to his knees and Decker took his position at the tripod camera. A boat with a glittering green metal-flake hull drifted into the Nikon’s frame; the man up front held a fishing rod and used a foot pedal to control a small electric motor. The motor made a purring sound; it was designed to maneuver the boat silently, so as not to frighten the bass. The angler seated in the stern was casting a purple rubber worm and working the lure as a snake, the way Skink had showed Decker that night on Lake Jesup.
Unfortunately, neither of the men in the green boat happened to be Dickie Lockhart searching for his traps; they were just ordinary fishermen. After a while they glided away, still working the shoreline intently, seldom speaking to one another. Decker didn’t know if the men were contestants in the big tournament, but thought they probably must be, judging by the grim set to their jawlines.
An hour passed and no other boats went by. Skink leaned back, propping his shoulders against the plastic cowling of the outboard motor. He looked thoroughly relaxed, much happier than he had seemed in the motel room. A blue heron joined them in the shade of the highway. Head cocked, it waded the shallows in slow motion, finally spearing a small bluegill. Skink laughed out loud and clapped his hands appreciatively. “Now, that’s fishing!” he exclaimed, but the noise startled the gangly bird, which squawked and flapped away, dropping the bluegill. No bigger than a silver dollar, the wounded fish swam in addled circles, flashing in the brown water. Skink leaned over and snatched it with one sure swipe.
“Please,” Decker protested.
Skink shrugged. “Gonna die anyway.”
“I promise, we’ll get a big lunch at Middendorf’s—”
But it was too late. Skink gulped the fish raw.
“Christ.” Decker looked away. He hoped like hell they wouldn’t see any snakes.
“Protein,” Skink said, muffling a burp.
“I’ll stick to Raisin Bran.”
Stiffly Decker stood up to stretch his legs. He was beginning to think Dickie Lockhart wouldn’t show up. What if he’d gotten spooked by finding the other traps empty? What if he’d decided to play it safe and fish honestly? Skink had assured him that no such change of plans was possible, too much was at stake. Not just first-place prize money but crucial points in the national bass standings—and don’t forget the prestige. Damn egos, Skink had said, these boys make Reggie Jackson seem humble by comparison.
“Any sign of the Rundell brothers this morning?” Skink asked.
“Not that I saw,” Decker said.
“You can bet your ass they’ll show up at the weigh-in. We’ll have to be careful. You look worried, Miami.”
“Just restless.”
Skink sat forward. “You been thinking about the dead guy back in Harney, am I right?”
“Dead guys, plural.”
“See why Bobby Clinch got killed in the Coon Bog,” Skink said. “He was looking for fish cages, same as we were last night. Only Bobby wasn’t too careful. The Bog is probably where Dickie hides some big mother hawgs.”
Decker said, “It’s not just Clinch that bothers me, it’s the other two.”
Skink propped his chin in his hands. He was doing his best to appear sympathetic. “Look at it like this: the creep I killed probably killed your pal the Armadillo.”
“Is that how you look at it?”
“I don’t look at it,” Skink said, “period.”
“He shot at us first,” Decker said, almost talking to himself.
“Right.”
“But we should have gone to the cops.”
“Don’t be a jackass. You want your fucking name in the papers? Not me,” Skink said. “I got no appetite for fame.”
Decker had been dying to ask. “What exactly did you do,” he said to Skink, “before this?”
“Before this?” Skink plucked off his shades. “I made mistakes.”
“Something about you does look familiar,” Decker said. “Something about the mouth.”
“Used to leave it open a lot,” Skink said.
“I think it’s the teeth,” Decker was saying.
Skink’s forest-green eyes sparkled. “Ah, the teeth.” He grinned, quite naturally.
But R. J. Decker couldn’t make the connection. The brief governorship of Clinton Tyree had occurred before Decker’s newspaper days and before he paid much attention to statewide politics. Besides, the face now smiling at him from beneath the flowered bathcap was so snarled and seamed that the governor’s closest friends might have had trouble recognizing him.
“What’s the story?” Decker asked earnestly. “Are you wanted somewhere?”
“Not wanted,” Skink said. “Lost.”
But before Decker could press for more, Skink raised a fishy brown finger to his lips. Another boat was coming.
Coming fast, and from the opposite direction. Skink motioned to Decker and they shrank to the deck of the narrow johnboat. The sound of the other outboard stopped abruptly, and Decker heard men’s voices behind them. The voices seemed very close, but he was afraid to get up and look.
“You have a talk with that fuckin’ guy tonight!” said one man.
“I said I would, didn’t I?” Another voice.
“Find out if he was followed or what.”
“He woulda said somethin’.”
“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.
14
“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 S
kink 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 Spurting 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 bounding 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.