Deacon Johnson chuckled weakly. “I underestimated you, sir. Let’s make it a thousand dollars.”
“For a thousand bucks I take a shower,” the blind man said, “that’s all.”
When the man stood up he towered over Deacon Johnson. He pulled on a flowered plastic cap and smoothed it flat over his skull. Then, with thick callused fingers, he pinched Deacon Johnson’s elbow and held on.
“Lead the way,” the blind man said.
The instant the other bass boats roared away, Al Garcia felt sure that he and Jim Tile would be drowned, that the roiling wakes would swamp the wooden skiff and it would sink upside-down, trapping them both in a cold underwater pocket.
This did not happen. The skiff proved not only stable but also dry. It was, however, maddeningly slow—made even slower by the sloshing heft of the Igloo cooler, which was filled with fresh Lake Jesup water especially for Queenie. That, added to the considerable weight of the two men, the tackle, the gas tank, the lunchboxes, the anchor, and the bait (several pounds of frozen Harney County shiners, Queenie’s favorite) was almost too much for the tired little six-horse Mercury to push.
Garcia puttered down the canal on a straight course for Lunker Lake Number Seven. With one hand he steered the engine. With the other he idly trolled a fishing line baited with a misshapen jangling monstrosity of a lure. “Looks like an elephant IUD,” Garcia had told the perky but unappreciative sales rep who’d given it to him on the dock. “Maybe one of Cher’s earrings.”
It was a long slow ride, and the rhythmic drone of the outboard eventually brought on drowsiness. Garcia was half-dozing when something jolted his hands; he opened his eyes to see the tip of the fishing rod quiver and dip. Remembering what Skink had taught him, he jerked twice, solidly, and a stubborn tug answered at the end of the line. Without much effort the detective reeled in his catch, a feisty black fish no more than twelve inches long.
Jim Tile said, “I believe that’s a baby bass.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Al Garcia. “Throw him in the cooler.”
“What for?”
“So we can show the governor we got one fair and square.”
“It’s awfully small,” Jim Tile remarked, releasing the bass into the Igloo.
“A fish is a fish,” the detective said. “Come on, Jimbo, get in the goddamn tournament spirit.”
Then the engine quit; coughed twice, spit blue smoke, and died. Al Garcia removed the cowling and tinkered fruitlessly for ten minutes, then traded places so the trooper could give it a try.
Jim Tile repeatedly pulled the starter cord, but the Mercury showed no sign of life. After the tenth try, he sat down and said, “Damn.”
The wooden skiff hung motionless in the canal, not another bass boat in sight.
“We got a long ways to go,” Garcia said.
On a hunch, Jim Tile disengaged the fuel line and sniffed the plug.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
Garcia winced. “Don’t tell me we’re out of gas.”
Jim Tile hoisted the heavy aluminum fuel tank and unscrewed the lid. He peered inside, then put his nose to the hole.
“Plenty of gas,” he said dismally, “only somebody’s pissed in it.”
The night had taken a toll on both of them.
Catherine felt gritty and cramped from being curled in the trunk of the car. Her knees were scuffed and her hair smelled like tire rubber from using the spare as a pillow. She had cried herself to sleep, and now, in the white glare of morning, the sight of Thomas Curl’s pistol made her want to cry again. Thinking of Decker helped to hold back the tears.
Curl himself had deteriorated more than Catherine had thought possible, short of coma or death. He could no longer move his right arm at all; the muscle was as black and dead as the dog head that hung from it. Gunk seeped from Curl’s eyes and nose, and overnight his tongue had bloomed swollen from his mouth, like some exotic scarlet fruit. On the boat he practically ignored Catherine, but murmured constantly to the rictal dog while stroking its petrified muzzle. By now Catherine was used to everything, even the smell.