The Reverend Weeb nearly preached himself hoarse over that lamb, and after the Christmas miracle he swore off healings forever. By then it didn’t matter; his reputation had been made. Soon stations all over the South were airing Weeb’s show, Jesus in Your Living Room, and weekly mail donations were topping in the six figures. In TV evangelism Charlie Weeb finally had hooked into a popular trend before it tapped out.
This time he decided to take a chance. This time he funneled the profits into expansion instead of Bahamian bank accounts. With Weeb’s preacher hour as its blockbuster leadoff, the Outdoor Christian Network was inaugurated with sixty-four stations as prepaid subscribers. The OCN format was simple: religion, hunting, fishing, farm-stock reports, and country-music-awards shows. Even as Charlie Weeb branched the OCN empire into real estate, investment banking, and other endeavors, he could scarcely believe the rousing success of his TV formula; it confirmed everything he had always said about the state of the human race.
Initially Weeb had refused to believe that grown men would sit for hours watching fishing programs on cable TV. In person the act of fishing was boring enough; watching someone else do it seemed like a form of self-torture. Yet Weeb’s market researchers convinced him otherwise—Real Men tuned in to TV fishing, and the demographics were rock-solid for beer, tobacco, and automotive advertising, not to mention the marine industry.
Weeb scanned the projections and immediately ordered up a one-hour bass-fishing program. He personally auditioned three well-known anglers. The first, Ben Geer, was rejected because of his weight (three hundred and ninety pounds) and his uncontrollable habit of coughing gobs of sputum into the microphone. The second angler, Art Pinkler, was witty, knowledgeable, and ruggedly handsome, but burdened with a squeaky New England accent that spelled death on the Q meter. The budget was too lean for speech lessons or overdubbing, so Pinkler was out; Charlie Weeb needed a genuine redneck.
Which left Dickie Lockhart.
Weeb thought the first episode of Fish Fever was the worst piece of television he had ever seen. Dickie was incoherent, the camera work palsied, and the tape editors obviously stoned. Still Dickie had hauled in three huge largemouth bass, and the advertisers had loved every dirt-cheap minute. Baffled, Weeb stuck with the show. In three years, Fish Fever became a top earner for the Outdoor Christian Network, though in recent months it had lost ground in several important markets to Ed Spurling’s rival bass show. Spurling’s program was briskly edited and slickly packaged, which appealed to Charlie Weeb, as did anything that made wads of money and was not an outright embarrassment. Sensing that Dickie Lockhart’s days as the Baron of Bass might be numbered, the Reverend Weeb had quietly approached Fast Eddie Spurling to see if he could be bought. The two men were still haggling over salaries by the time the Cajun Invitational fishing tournament came along, when Dickie found the preacher with two nearly naked women.
Lockhart’s demand for a lucrative new contract was an extortion that Reverend Weeb could not afford to ignore; competition had grown cutthroat among TV evangelicals—the slightest moral stain and you’d be off the air.
As he had vowed, Dickie Lockhart won the New Orleans tournament easily. Charlie Weeb didn’t bother to show up at the victory party. He scheduled a press conference for the next morning to announce Dickie Lockhart’s new cable deal, and phoned the TV writer of the Times-Picayune to let him know. Then he called a couple of hookers.
At five-thirty in the morning, a city policeman knocked on the double door to Charlie Weeb’s hotel suite. The cop recognized one of the hookers but didn’t mention it. “I’ve got bad news, Reverend,” the policeman said. “Dickie Lockhart’s been murdered.”
“Jesus help us,” Charlie Weeb said.
The cop nodded. “Somebody beat him over the head real good. Stole his truck, his boat, all his fishing gear. The cash he won in the tournament, too.”
“This is terrible,” said Reverend Weeb. “A robbery.”
“We’ll know more tomorrow, when the lab techs are done,” the cop said on his way out. “Try to get some rest.”
“Thank you,” said Charlie Weeb.
He was wide-awake now. He paid off the hookers and sat down to write his Sunday sermon.
R. J. Decker was not exactly flabbergasted to wake up in the motel room and find that Skink had not returned. Decker had every reason to suspect that it was he who had murdered Dickie Lockhart—first of all, because Skink had talked so nonchalantly about doing it; second, the perverse details of the crime seemed to carry his stamp.
Decker showered in a daze and shaved brutally, as if pain would drive the fog from his brain. The case had turned not only more murderous but also more insane. The newspapers would go nuts with this stuff; it was probably even a national story. It was a story from which Decker fervently wished to escape.
After checking out of the motel, he packed his gear into the rental car and drove toward Pass Manchac. It was nine in the morning—surely somebody had discovered the gruesome scene by now.
As he drove across the water Decker’s heart pounded; he could see blue lights flashing near the boat ramp. He pulled in at the Sportsman’s Hideout, got out of the car, and wedged into the crowd that encircled the huge bass aquarium. There were five police cruisers, two ambulances, and a fire truck, all for one dead body. It had been three whole hours since Dickie’s remains had been fished from the tank, strapped to a stretcher, and covered with a green woolen blanket; no one seemed in a hurry to make the trip to the morgue.
The crowd was mostly men, some of whom Decker recognized even without their caps as contestants from the bass tournament. Two local detectives with pads and pencils were working the spectators, hoping to luck into a witness. A pretty young woman leaned against one of the squad cars. She was sobbing as she talked to a uniformed cop, who was filling out a pink report. Decker heard the girl say her name was Ellen. Ellen O’Leary. She had a New Orleans accent.
Decker wondered what she knew, what she might have seen.
In the back of his mind Decker harbored a fear that Skink might show up at the dock to admire his own handiwork, but there was no sign of him. Decker slipped into a phone booth and called Dennis Gault at home in Miami. He sounded half-asleep.
“What do you want?”
What do you want? All charm, this guy.
“Your pal Dickie’s landed his last lunker,” Decker said.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s dead.”
“Shit,” Gault said. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
“Don’t leave New Orleans,” Gault said. “Stay put.”
“No way.” Just what I need is that asshole jetting up for brunch at Brennan’s, Decker thought. He’s probably icing a Dom Perignon already.
In an oddly stiff tone Gault asked, “Do you have those pictures?” As if it made a difference now.
Decker didn’t answer. Through the pane in the phone booth he was watching Thomas Curl and the Rundell brothers in the parking lot of the marina. One of the local detectives was interviewing the three men together; when Ozzie talked, his head bobbed up and down like a dashboard puppy. The cop was scribbling energetically in his notebook.
“What number you at?” Dennis Gault asked over the phone.
“Seventy,” Decker replied. “As in miles per hour.”
The tire blew on Interstate 10, outside of Kenner. The spare was one of those tiny toy tires now standard equipment on new cars. To get to the spare Decker had to empty the trunk of his duffel and camera gear, which he stacked neatly by the side of the highway. He had gotten the rental halfway jacked when he heard another car pull up behind him in the emergency lane; by the emphysemic sounds of the engine, Decker knew it wasn’t a cop.
Not even close. It was a brown 1974 Cordoba, its vinyl roof puckered like a sun blister. Two-for-four on the hubcaps. Three men got out of the rusty old tank; judging by their undershirts and tattoos, Decker assumed they were not from the Tr
iple-A. He pried the crowbar out of the jack handle and held it behind him.
“Gentlemen,” he said.
“Whatsamatter here?” said the largest of the trio.
“Flat tire,” Decker said. “I’m fine.”
“year?”
“Yeah. Thanks anyway.”
The men didn’t exactly take the hint. Two of them ambled over to where Decker had laid the camera bag, tripod, and galvanized lens cases. One of the jerks poked at the cameras with the toe of his boot.
“Whatsis?” he said.
“Beer money,” said the other.
Decker couldn’t believe it. Broad daylight, cars and trucks and Winnebagos cruising by on the interstate—and these pussbuckets were going to roll him anyway. Damned Nikons, he thought; sometimes they seemed to be the root of all his troubles.
“I’m a professional photographer,” Decker said. “Want me to take your picture?”
The two thinnest men looked expectantly toward the bigger one. Decker knew the idea appealed to them, although their leader needed a little convincing. “A nice eight-by-ten,” Decker said affably, “just for fun.” He knew what the big guy was thinking: Well, why not—we’re going to steal the damn things anyway.
“Stand in front of the car and I’ll get a shot of all three of you together. Go ahead, now.”
Decker walked over to the camera bag and inconspicuously set the crowbar inside. He picked up a bare F-3 camera body, didn’t even bother to screw on a lens. These morons wouldn’t know the difference. Shrugging, murmuring, slicking their hair with brown bony hands, the highwaymen struck a pricelessly idiotic pose in front of the dented Cordoba. As he pressed the shutter, Decker almost wished there were film in the camera.
“That’s just great, guys,” he said. “Now let’s try one from the side.”
The big man scowled.
“Just a joke,” Decker said. The two thin guys didn’t get it anyway.
“Enougha this shit,” the leader of the trio said. “We want your goddamn car.”
“What for?”
“To go to Florida.”
Of course, Decker thought, Florida. He should have known. Every pillhead fugitive felon in America winds up in Florida eventually. The Human Sludge Factor—it all drips to the South.
“One more picture,” Decker suggested. He had to hurry; he didn’t want to get mugged, but he didn’t want to miss his plane, either.
“No!” the big man said.
“One more picture and you can have the car, the cameras, everything.”
Decker kept one eye on the interstate, thinking: Don’t they have a highway patrol in Louisiana?
“You guys got some cigarettes? That would be a good shot, have a cigarette hanging from your mouth.”
One of the thin guys lighted a Camel and wedged it into his lips at a very cool angle. “Oh yeah,” Decker said. “That’s what I mean. Let me get the wide-angle lens.”
He went back to the camera bag and fished out a regular fifty-millimeter, which he attached to the Nikon. He picked up the crowbar and slipped it down the front of his jeans. The black iron felt cold against his left leg.
When he turned around, Decker saw that all three men now sported cigarettes. “The girls down in Florida are gonna love this picture,” he said.
One of the thin guys grinned. “Good pussy in Florida, right?”
“The best,” Decker said. He moved up close, clicking away. The men stunk like stale beer and tobacco. Through the lens Decker saw rawboned ageless faces; they could have been twenty years old, or forty-five. Classic cons. They seemed mesmerized by the camera, or at least by Decker’s hyperactive choreography. The leader of the trio plainly was getting antsy; he couldn’t wait to kick Decker’s ass, maybe even kill him, and get moving.
“Almost done,” Decker said finally. “Move a little closer together . . . that’s good . . . now look to my right and blow some smoke . . . great! . . . keep looking out at the water . . . that-is-perfect!”
Staring obediently at Lake Pontchartrain, the three men never saw Decker pull out the crowbar. With both hands he swung as hard as he could, a batter’s arc. The iron blade pinged off the top of their skulls one by one, as if Decker were playing a human xylophone. The robbers fell in a wailing cross-eyed heap.
Decker had expected less noise and more blood. As the adrenaline ebbed, he looked down and wondered if he had hit them more than once. He didn’t think so.
Now it was definitely time to go; the flat tire was Hertz’s problem. Decker quickly loaded his stuff into the Cordoba. The key was in the ignition. A blue oily pistol lay on the front seat. He tossed it out the window on his way to the airport.
16
The first person R. J. Decker called when he got back to Miami was Lou Zicutto. Lou was branch claims manager of the mammoth insurance company where Decker worked part-time as an investigator. Lou was a spindly little twit, maybe a hundred twenty pounds, but he had a huge florid head, which he shaved every day. As a result he looked very much like a Tootsie Pop with lips. Despite his appearance, Lou Zicutto was treated respectfully by all employees and coworkers, who steadfastly believed that he was a member of the Mafia who could have them snuffed with a single phone call. Lou himself did nothing to discourage this idea, even though it wasn’t true. Except for the fancy stationery, Decker himself didn’t see much difference between the mob and an insurance company, anyway.
“Where ya been?” Lou Zicutto asked. “I left a jillion messages.” Lou had a raspy cabdriver voice, and he was always sucking on menthol cough drops.
“I’ve been out of town on a case,” Decker said. He could hear Lou slurping away, working the lozenges around his teeth.
“We got Núñez this week, remember?”
Núñez was a big fraud trial the company was prosecuting. Núñez was a stockbroker who stole his own yacht and tried to scuttle it off Bimini for the insurance. Decker had shot some pictures and done surveillance; he was scheduled to testify for the company.
“You’re my star witness,” Lou said.
“I can’t make it, Lou, not this week.”
“What the hell you mean?”
Decker said, “I’ve got a conflict.”
“No shit you got a conflict. You got a big fucking conflict with me, you don’t show up.” The cough drops were clacking furiously. “Two million bucks this creep is trying to rip us for.”
“You got my pictures, the tapes, the reports—” Decker said.
“Your smiling face is what the lawyers want,” Lou Zicutto said. “You be there, Mr. Cameraman.” Then he hung up.
The second person Decker tried to call was Catherine. The first time, the line was busy. He tried again two minutes later and a man answered. It sounded like James, the chiropractor; he answered the phone the way doctors do, not with a civil hello but with a “Yes?” Like it was a pain in the ass to have to speak to another human being.
Decker hung up the phone, opened a beer, and put a Bob Seger album on the stereo. He wondered what Catherine’s new house looked like, whether she had one of these sunken marble tubs she’d always wanted. A vision of Catherine in a bubble bath suddenly swept over Decker, and his chest started to throb.
He was half-asleep on the sofa when the phone rang. The machine answered on the third ring. Decker sat up when he heard Al Garcίa’s voice.
“Call me as soon as you get in.”
Garcia was a Metro police detective and an old friend. Except he didn’t sound so friendly on the machine; he sounded awfully damn professional. Decker was a little worried. He drank two cups of black instant coffee before calling back.
“Hey, Sarge, what’s up?”
Garcia said, “You at the trailer?”
“No, I’m in the penthouse of the Coconut Grove Hotel. They’re having a Morgan Fairchild lookalike contest and I’m the judge for the swimsuit competition.”
Normally Garcia would have donated some appropriately lewd counterpunchline, but today all he offered was a
polite chuckle.
“We need to talk,” the detective said mildly. “See you in about thirty.”
Garcia was sitting on something, that much was certain. Decker shaved and put on a fresh shirt. He could easily guess what must have happened. A Louisiana cop probably had found those three dirtbags that Decker had clobbered along the interstate. They would have sworn that this scoundrel from Miami had flagged them down and robbed them, of course. A tracer on the Hertz car would have yielded Decker’s name and address, and from then on it was only a matter of professional courtesy. Al Garcίa was probably bringing a bench warrant from St. Charles Parish.
Decker was not especially eager to return, or be returned, to Louisiana. He figured he could beat the phony assault rap from the highway robbers, but what if the Lockhart case broke open in the meantime? Decker didn’t want to be around if Skink got arrested.
Skink was the big problem. If Decker hadn’t enlisted the mad hermit into the case, Dickie Lockhart would still be alive. On the other hand, it was probably Lockhart who had arranged the murders of Robert Clinch and then Ott Pickney. Decker didn’t know exactly what to do next; it was a goddamn mess. He had come to like Skink and he hated the thought of him going to the gas chamber over a greedy sleazoid such as Lockhart, but murder was murder. As he straightened up the trailer—a week’s worth of moldy laundry, mainly—Decker toyed with the idea of telling Garcia the whole story; it was so profoundly weird that even a Miami cop might be sympathetic. But Decker decided to hold off, for the moment. There appeared to be a good chance that Skink might never be found, or even identified as a suspect. Decker also understood that Skink might see absolutely nothing wrong in what he did, and would merely appear one day to take full credit for the deed. This was always a possibility when dealing with the chronically unraveled.
The news from Louisiana was relatively sparse. In the two days Decker had been back in Florida, the local newspapers had run only a couple of four-paragraph wire stories about Dickie Lockhart’s murder at the bass tournament—robbery believed to be the motive; no prints, no suspects; services to be held in Harney County. The stories probably would have gotten better play had it not been for the biannual mass murder in Oklahoma; this time it was twelve motorists shot by a disgruntled toll-booth operator who was fed up with people not having exact change.