Actually, part of the boat. The blue metal-flake hull had been sawed up and hewn into a coffin. It wasn’t a bad job, either, especially on short notice.
Clarisse Clinch thought it a ghastly idea until the Harney County Bass Blasters Club had offered to pay the bill. The funeral director was a dedicated fisherman, which made it easier to overlook certain state burial regulations concerning casket material.
R. J. Decker resisted the urge to grab an F-1 and shoot some pictures. The last thing he needed in the viewfinder was a shrieking widow.
The thirty-acre cemetery was known locally as Our Lady of Tropicana, since it had been carved out of a moribund citrus grove. The mourners stood in the sunshine on a gentle green slope. The preacher had finished the prayer and was preparing to lay Bobby Clinch’s soul to rest.
“I know some of you were out on Lake Jesup this morning and missed the church service,” the preacher said. “Clarisse has been kind enough to let us open the casket one more time so you boys—Bobby’s fishing buddies—can pay your eternal respects.”
Decker leaned over to Ott Pickney. “Which one is Lockhart?”
“Don’t see him,” Ott said.
A line of men, many dressed in khaki jumpsuits or bright flotation vests, a few still sloshing in their waders, filed by the sparkly blue casket. The undertaker had done a miraculous job, all things considered. The bloatedness of the body’s features had been minimized by heavy pink makeup and artful eye shadows. Although the man in the casket did not much resemble the Bobby Clinch that his pals had known, it could easily have been an older and chubbier brother. While some of the fishermen reached in and tugged affectionately at the bill of Bobby’s cap (which concealed what the ducks had done to his hair), others placed sentimental tokens in the coffin with their dead companion; fishing lures, mostly: Rapalas, Bombers, Jitterbugs, Snagless Sallies, Gollywompers, Hula Poppers, River Runts. Some of the lures were cracked or faded, the hooks bent and rusted, but each represented a special memory of a day on the water with Bobby Clinch. Clarisse made an effort to appear moved by this fraternal ceremony, but her thoughts were drifting. She already had a line on a buyer for her husband’s Blazer.
Ott Pickney and R. J. Decker were among the last to walk by the casket. By now the inside looked like a display rack at a tackle shop. A fishing rod lay like a sword at the dead man’s side.
Ott remarked, “Pearl Brothers did a fantastic job, don’t you think?”
Decker made a face.
“Well, you didn’t know him when he was alive.
“Nobody looks good dead,” Decker said. Especially a floater.
Finally the lid was closed. The bier was cleared of flowers, including the impressive spray sent by the Lake Jesup Bass Captains Union—a leaping lunker, done all in petunias. With the ceremony concluded, the mourners broke into small groups and began to trudge back to their trucks.
“I gotta get some quotes from the missus,” Ott whispered to Decker.
“Sure. I’m in no particular hurry.”
Ott walked over and tentatively sat down on a folding chair next to Clarisse Clinch. When he took out his notebook, the widow recoiled as if it were a tarantula. R. J. Decker chuckled.
“So you like funerals?”
It was a woman’s voice. Decker turned around.
“I heard you laugh,” she said.
“We all deal with grief in our own way.” Decker kept a straight face when he said it.
“You’re full of shit.” The woman’s tone stopped just short of friendly.
Mid-thirties, dark blue eyes, light brown hair curly to the shoulders. Decker was sure he had seen her somewhere before. She had an expensive tan, fresh from Curaçao or maybe the Caymans. She wore a black dress cut much too low for your standard funeral. This dress was a night at the symphony.
“My name is Decker.”
“Mine’s Lanie.”
“Elaine?”
“Once upon a time. Now it’s Lanie.” She shot a look toward Ott Pickney. Or was it Clarisse? “You didn’t know Bobby, did you?” she said.
“Nope.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m a friend of Ott’s.”
“You sure don’t look like a friend of Ott’s. And I wish you’d please quit staring at my tits.”
Decker reddened. Nothing clever came to mind so he kept quiet and stared at the tops of his shoes.
Lanie said, “So what did you think of the sendoff?”
“Impressive.”
“ ‘Sick’ is the word for it,” she said.
An ear-splitting noise came from the gravesite. Bobby Clinch’s customized bass-boat casket had slipped off the belts and torn free of the winch as it was being lowered into the ground. Now it stood on end, perpendicular in the hole; it looked like a giant grape Popside.
“Oh Jesus,” Lanie said, turning away.
Cemetery workers in overalls scrambled to restore decorum. Decker saw Clarisse Clinch shaking her head in disgust. Ott was busy scribbling, his neck bent like a heron’s.
“How well did you know him?” Decker asked.
“Better than anybody,” Lanie said. She pointed back toward the driveway, where the mourners’ cars were parked. “See that tangerine Corvette? That was a present from Bobby, right after he finished second in Atlanta. I’ve only given two blowjobs in my entire life, Mr. Decker, and that Corvette is one of them.”
Decker resisted asking about the other. He tried to remember the polite thing to say when a beautiful stranger struck up a conversation about oral sex. None of the obvious replies seemed appropriate for a funeral.
The woman named Lanie said, “Did you get a look inside the coffin?”
“Yeah, amazing,” Decker said.
“That fishing rod was Bobby’s favorite. A Bantam Maglite baitcaster on a five-foot Fenwick graphite.”
Decker thought: Oh no, not her too.
“I gave him that outfit for Christmas,” Lanie said, adding quickly: “It wasn’t my idea to bury him with it.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Decker said.
They watched the cemetery workers tip Bobby Clinch’s coffin back into the grave, where it landed with an embarrassing thud. Hastily the diggers picked up their shovels and went to work. Lanie slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses and smoothed her hair. Her motions were elegant, well-practiced in the kind of mirrors you’d never find in Harney. The lady was definitely out-of-town.
“It wasn’t what you think. Bobby and me, I mean.”
“I don’t think anything,” Decker said. Why did they always have this compulsion to confess? Did he look like Pat O’Brien? Did he look like he cared?
“He really loved me,” Lanie volunteered.
“Of course he did,” Decker said. The Corvette was proof. A greater love hath no man than an orange sports car with a T-top and mag wheels.
“I hope you find out what really happened,” she said. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Well, you’re going to earn your fee on this one.”
Then she walked away. R. J. Decker found himself concentrating on the way she moved. It was a dazzlingly lascivious walk, with a sway of the hips that suggested maybe a little booze for breakfast. Decker had done worse things than admire a woman’s legs at a funeral, but he knew he should have been thinking about something else. Why, for example, the grieving mistress knew more about him than he knew about her. He got up and strolled after her. When he called her name, Lanie turned, smiled, didn’t stop walking. By the time Decker caught up she was already in the Corvette, door locked. She waved once through the tinted windows, then sped off, nearly peeling rubber over his feet.
When Decker got back to the grave, Ott Pickney was finishing his interview.
He nodded good-bye to Clarisse. “A cold woman,” he said to Decker. “Something tells me Bobby spent too much time on the lake.”
As they walked to the truck, Decker asked about the fishing rod in the coffin.
“Looked like a bea
uty,” Ott agreed.
“Yes, but I was wondering,” Decker said. “Guy goes fishing early one morning, flips his boat, falls in the lake . . .”
“Yeah?”
“How’d they ever find the rod?”
Ott shrugged. “Hell, R.J., how do I know? Maybe they snagged it off the bottom.”
“Thirty feet of brown water? I don’t think so.”
“Okay, maybe he didn’t bring it with him. Maybe he left it at home.”
“But it was his favorite rig.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I just think it’s odd.”
“Bass fanatics like Bobby Clinch got a hundred fishing poles, R.J., a new favorite every day. Whatever catches a lunker.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“You need to relax,” Ott said, “you really do.”
They climbed in the Toyota and like clockwork Pickney lit up a Camel. He couldn’t do it outdoors, in the fresh air, Decker thought; it had to be in a stuffy cab. He felt like getting out and hiking back to the motel. Give himself some time to think about this Lanie business.
“Clarisse didn’t give me diddly for this story,” Ott complained. “A bitter, bitter woman. I’d much rather have been interviewing your saucy new friend.”
Decker said, “Who was she, anyway?”
“A very hot number,” Ott said. “Don’t tell me she’s already got your dick in a knot.”
“She seemed to know who I am. Or at least what I do.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“She said her name was Lanie.”
“Lovely, lovely Lanie,” Ott sang.
“Then you know her.”
“R.J., everybody knows Lanie Gault. Her brother’s one of the biggest bass fishermen in the country.”
Dickie Lockhart missed the big funeral because he had to fly to New Orleans and meet with his boss.
The boss was the Reverend Charles Weeb, president, general manager, and spiritual commander of the Outdoor Christian Network, which syndicated Dickie Lockhart’s television show.
Lockhart was not a remotely religious person—each Sunday being occupied by fishing—so he’d never bothered to ascertain precisely which denomination was espoused by the Reverend Charles Weeb. Whenever the two men met, Weeb never mentioned sin, God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or any of the A-list apostles. Instead Weeb mainly talked about ratings and revenues and why some of Lockhart’s big sponsors were going soft on him. During these discussions the Reverend Charles Weeb often became exercised and tossed around terms like “shithead” and “cocksucker” more freely than any preacher Dickie Lockhart had ever met.
Two or three times a year, Lockhart would be summoned to New Orleans for a detailed review of Fish Fever, Lockhart’s immensely popular television show. The Reverend Charles Weeb, who naturally had his own evangelical show on the Outdoor Christian Network, seemed to possess an uncommon interest in Lockhart’s low-budget fishing travelogue.
On the day of Bobby Clinch’s funeral the two men met in a pink suite in a big hotel on Chartres Street. The room was full of fruit baskets and complimentary bottles of booze. On a credenza by the door stood an odd collection of tiny statuary—plastic dashboard saints that various hotel workers had dropped off so that the Reverend Weeb might bestow a small blessing, if he had time.
“Nutty Catholics,” Weeb grumbled. “Only know how to do two things—screw and beg forgiveness.”
“Can I have an apple?” Dickie Lockhart asked.
“No,” said Charles Weeb. He wore an expensive maroon jogging suit that he’d bought for cash on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. As always, his straw-blond hair looked perfect. Weeb also had straw-blond eyebrows which, Dickie Lockhart guessed, were combed with as much care as the hair.
Weeb propped his Reeboks on the coffee table, slipped on a pair of reading glasses, and scanned the latest Nielsens.
“Not too terrible,” he said.
“Thank you,” Lockhart said. Meetings were not his strong suit; he was already daydreaming about Bourbon Street, and what might happen later.
“You want to explain Macon?” Charlie Weeb said, peering over the rims.
Lockhart shrank into the sofa. He had no idea what the boss was talking about Had he missed a fishing tournament? Maybe a promotional gig for one of the top sponsors? Wasn’t Macon where Happy Gland Fish Scent was manufactured?
“Macon,” Weeb sighed. His tone was that of a disappointed parent. “We lost Macon to that shiteating cocksucker.”
“Spurling?”
“Who else!” Weeb crumpled the Nielsens.
Ed Spurling hosted a show called Fishin’ with Fast Eddie, which was broadcast by satellite to one hundred and seventeen television stations. One more, counting Macon.
In the fierce battle for TV bass-fishing supremacy, Ed Spurling was Dickie Lockhart’s blood rival.
“Macon,” Dickie said morosely. Georgia was damn good bass country, too.
“So it’s one hundred twenty-five stations to one-eighteen,” the Reverend Charles Weeb remarked. “Too damn close for comfort.”
“But we’ve got some overlap,” Lockhart noted. “Mobile, Gulfport, and Fort Worth.”
Weeb nodded. “Little Rock too,” he said.
These were cable systems that carried both bass programs; a few markets could easily support more than one.
“Guess I forgot to tell you,” Weeb said. “You lost the dinnertime slot in Little Rock. They bumped you to Sunday morning, after Ozark Bowling.
Lockhart groaned. Spurling’s lead-in was Kansas City Royals baseball, a blockbuster. It didn’t seem fair.
“You see what’s happening,” the reverend said darkly.
“But the show’s doing good. Did you see the one from Lake Jackson?”
“Shaky lens work.” Weeb sneered. “Looked like your video ace had the DTs.”
“We do our best,” the fisherman muttered, “on a thousand lousy bucks per episode.” That was the Fish Fever budget, excluding Dickie Lockhart’s salary. Travel money was so tight that Lockhart drove a Winnebago between locations to save on motels.
Weeb said, “Your show needs a damn good jolt.”
“I caught three ten-pounders at Lake Jackson!”
“Spurling’s got a new theme song,” Weeb went on. “Banjos. Mac Davis on the vocals. Have you heard it?”
Lockhart shook his head. He wasn’t much for arguing with the boss, but sometimes pride got the best of him. He asked Charles Weeb, “Did you see the latest BBRs?”
Published by Bass Blasters magazine, the Bass Blasters Ratings (BBR) ranked the country’s top anglers. The BBR was to bass fishing what the Nielsens were to the TV networks.
“Did you notice who’s number one?” Dickie Lockhart asked. “Again.”
“Yeah.” Weeb took his sneakers off the coffee table and sat up. “It’s a good fucking thing, too, because right now all we got going for us is your name, Dickie. You’re a winner and viewers like winners.’Course, I see where Mr. Spurling won himself a tournament in mid-Tennessee—”
“The minor leagues, Reverend Weeb. I smoked him at the Atlanta Classic. He finished eighth, and no keepers.”
Weeb stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from his expensive jogging suit. Then he sat down again. “As I said, we’re very pleased you’re on top. I just hate to see you slipping, that’s all. It happens, if you’re not careful. Happens in business, happens in fishing too. One and the same.”
Weeb tore open a fruit basket and tossed Lockhart an apple. Lockhart felt like telling Weeb how much his jogging suit looked like K-Mart pajamas.
The Reverend Charles Weeb said, “This is the majors, Dickie. If you don’t win, you get benched.” He took off his glasses. “I truly hope you keep winning. In fact, I strongly recommend it.”
On this matter, of course, Dickie Lockhart was way ahead of him.
5
Decker honked twice as he drove up to Skink’s shack. Short, polite honks. The last thing h
e wanted to do was surprise a man in a shooting mood.
The shack had a permanent lean, and looked as if a decent breeze could flatten it. Except for the buzz of horseflies, the place stood silent. Decker stuck his hands in his pockets and walked down to the lake. Across the water, several hundred yards away, a sleek boat drifted with two fishermen, plugging the shoreline. Every time one of them cast his lure, the shiny monofilament made a gossamer arc over the water before settling to the surface. The pointed raspberry hull of the fishermen’s boat glistened under the noon sun. Decker didn’t even bother to try a shout. If Skink were fishing, he’d be alone. And never in a boat like that.
Decker trudged back to the shack and sat on the porch. Seconds later he heard a cracking noise overhead, and Skink dropped out of an old pine tree.
He got up off the ground and said, “I’m beginning not to despise you.”
“Nice to hear,” Decker said.
“You didn’t go inside.”
“It’s not my house,” Decker said.
“Precisely,” Skink grumped, clomping onto the porch. “Some people would’ve gone in anyway.”
Daylight added no nuances or definition to Skink’s appearance. Today he wore camouflage fatigues, sunglasses, and a flowered shower cap from which sprouted the long braid of silver-gray hair.
He poured coffee for Decker, but none for himself.
“I got fresh rabbit for lunch,” Skink said.
“No thanks.”
“I said fresh.”
“I just ate,” Decker said unconvincingly.
“How was the funeral?”
Decker shrugged. “Did you know Robert Clinch?”
“I know them all,” Skink said.
“Lanie Gault?”
“Her brother’s the big tycoon who hired you.”
“Right.” Decker had been relieved when Ott had told him that Dennis Gault was Lanie’s brother. A husband would have been disconcerting news indeed.
Decker said, “Miss Gault thinks there’s something strange about the way Bobby Clinch died.”
Skink was on his haunches, working on the fire. He didn’t answer right away. Once the tinder was lit, he said, “Good rabbit is tough to come by. They tend to get all the way smushed and there’s no damn meat left. The best ones are the ones that just barely get clipped and knocked back to the shoulder of the road. This one here, you’d hardly know it got hit. Meat’s perfect. Might as well dropped dead of a bunny heart attack.” Skink was arranging the pieces on a frypan.