Catherine didn’t know about the pictures. She wondered which ones R.J. had kept, which ones he liked best.
“My husband’s a doctor. He could take a look at that arm when he gets back tonight.” Another bluff. James would have passed out at the sight.
“No way,” Thomas said. “We’re headed for Lauderdale.” He looked down at the dog head and smiled. “Ain’t that right, Lucas boy?”
Catherine was not surprised when Lucas made no reply, but Thomas Curl frowned unhappily. “Lucas, you hear me? Goddammit, puppy, speak!”
The festering dog head clung mutely to his arm.
Thomas Curl shoved the barrel of the pistol into one of the animal’s piebald ears.
“Please don’t,” Catherine cried, raising her arms.
No longer paying even cursory attention to the highway, Thomas glared down at Lucas and bared his own teeth. “My daddy said you got to show ’em who’s boss. Dogs is like wives, he said, you can’t let ’em have their way once else they run wild. Ain’t that right, Lucas boy?”
Again nothing.
Thomas Curl cocked the pistol. “Bad dog, Lucas!”
Catherine covered her mouth and let out a muffled little bark.
Curl grinned and leaned closer. “Hear that?”
Catherine barked again. It was better than having him fire a gun inside the car, doing seventy.
“That’s my puppy,” Curl said, oblivious. He laid the pistol in his lap and patted the crown of the dead dog’s head. “You good boy, Lucas, I knew all along.”
“Ruff!” said Catherine.
Skink netted more shiners and made Al Garcia practice with the fish until nearly dawn. Finally they let the monster-beastie rest, and Skink rowed back across Lake Jesup. As they dragged the skiff ashore, Garcia noticed two cars parked behind Skink’s truck at the shack. One belonged to Trooper Jim Tile. The other was a tangerine Corvette.
“Company,” Skink said, removing his raincap.
The four of them were sitting around the campfire: Decker, Tile, Lanie Gault, and a woman whom Skink did not recognize. Decker introduced her as Ellen O’Leary.
“How’s the eye?” Jim Tile asked.
Skink grinned and took off his sunglasses. “Good as new,” he said. Everyone felt obliged to say something nice about the owl eye.
“You hungry?” Skink said. “I’ll take the truck and find some breakfast.”
“We hit the Mister Donut on the way in,” Decker said.
“Thank you anyway,” Lanie added.
Skink nodded. “I am, sort of,” he said. “Hungry, I mean. You please move the cars?”
“Take mine,” Lanie said, fishing the keys out of her jeans. “Better yet, I’ll go with you.”
“Like hell,” Decker said.
“I don’t mind,” said Skink, “if you don’t.”
“No more rope tricks,” Lanie said. It was her cockteasing voice; Decker recognized it. She got in the passenger side of the Corvette. Skink squeezed himself behind the wheel.
“Hope she likes possum omelets,” Decker said.
Skink and Lanie were gone a long time.
Al Garcia told Decker the plan, beginning with: “The man’s totally crazy.”
“Thanks for the bulletin.”
Jim Tile said, “He knows about things. You can trust him.”
Skink’s plan was to crash the big bass tournament and ruin it. His plan was to sabotage the Lunker Lakes resort on national television.
Garcia said to Jim Tile: “You and me are fishing together.”
“In the tournament?”
“He’s already paid our entry fee,” Garcia said. “The best part is, we’re supposed to be hermanos. Brothers.”
Jim Tile shook his head. He was smiling. “I like it. I don’t know why, but I do.”
In a faint voice Ellen O’Leary said, “You don’t look that much alike.”
“In the eyes we do,” Garcia said, straight-faced. “This is going to be fun.”
“Fun” is not the word R. J. Pecker would have chosen. Things had gotten dangerously out of hand; suddenly a one-eyed roadside carnivore with possible brain damage was running the whole program. Even more astounding, Garcia was going along with it. Decker couldn’t imagine what could have happened while he and Jim Tile were up at Crescent Beach.
“This is all fascinating,” Decker said, “and I wish both of you the best of luck in the tournament, but my immediate problem is Dennis Gault. Murder-one, remember?”
By way of interagency updating, Jim Tile said to Garcia: “The sister is taken care of. As a state’s witness, forget it.” He held up the tape cassette.