Carl Hiaasen – Double Whammy

Decker was almost embarrassed to tell him. “Fifty grand,” he said.

Skink didn’t even blink. “Not enough,” he said. “Come on, Miami, finish your damn supper.”

Ott Pickney stopped by the motel before eight the next morning. He knocked loudly on R. J. Decker’s door.

Groggily, Decker let him in. “So how’d it go?” Ott asked.

“A lively night.”

“Is he as kooky as they say?”

“Hard to tell,” Decker said. Living in Miami tended to recalibrate one’s view of sanity.

Ott said he was on his way to a funeral. “That poor fella I told you about.”

“The fisherman?”

“Bobby Clinch,” Ott said. “Sandy wants a tearjerker for the weekend paper—it’s the least we can do for a local boy. You and Skink going out for bass?”

“Not this morning.” Skink had left the proposition in the air. Decker planned to meet him later.

Ott Pickney said, “Why don’t you ride along with me?”

“To a funeral?”

“The whole town’s closing down for it,” Ott said. “Besides, I thought you might want to see some big-time bassers up close. Bobby had loads of friends.”

“Give me a second to shower.”

Decker hated funerals. Working for the newspaper, he’d had to cover too many grim graveside services, from a cop shot by some coked-up creep to a toddler raped and murdered by her babysitter. Child murders got plenty of play in the papers, and a shot of the grieving parents was guaranteed to run four columns, minimum. A funeral like that was the most dreaded assignment in journalism. Decker didn’t know quite what to expect in Harney. For him it was strictly business, a casual surveillance. Maybe even Dickie Lockhart would show up, Decker thought as he toweled off. He was eager to get a glimpse of the town celebrity.

They rode to the graveyard in Ott Pickney’s truck. Almost everyone else in Harney owned a Ford or a Chevy, but Ott drove a new Toyota flatbed. “Orchids,” he explained, a bit defensively, “don’t take up much space.”

“It’s a fine truck,” Decker offered.

Ott lit a Camel so Decker rolled down the window. It was a breezy morning and the air was cold, blowing dead from the north.

“Can I ask something?” Ott said. “It’s personal.”

“Fire away.”

“I heard you got divorced.”

“Right,” Decker said.

“That’s a shame, RJ. She seemed like a terrific kid.”

“The problem was money,” Decker said. “He had some, I didn’t.” His wife had run off with a timeshare-salesman-turned-chiropractor. Life didn’t get any meaner.

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” The divorce wasn’t really what Ott wanted to talk about. “I heard something else,” he said.

“Probably true,” Decker said. “I did ten months at Apalachee, if that’s what you heard.”

Pickney was sucking so hard on the cigarette that the ash was three inches long. Decker was afraid it would drop into Ott’s lap and set his pants on fire, which is what had happened one day in the newsroom of the Miami Sun. None of the fire extinguishers had been working, so Ott had been forced to straddle a drinking fountain to douse the flames.

“Do you mind talking about it?” Ott said. “I understand if you’d rather not.”

Decker said, “It was after one of the Dolphin games. I was parked about four blocks from the stadium. Coming back to the car, I spotted some jerkoff breaking into the trunk, trying to rip off the cameras. I told him to stop, he ran. He was carrying two Nikons and a brand-new Leka. No way was I going to let him get away.”

“You caught up with him?”

“Yeah, he fell and I caught up to him. I guess I got carried away.”

Pickney shook his head and spit the dead Camel butt out the window. “Ten months! I can’t believe they’d give you that much time for slugging a burglar.”

“Not just any burglar—a football star at Palmetto High,” Decker said. “Three of his sisters testified that they’d witnessed the whole thing. Said Big Brother never stole the cameras. Said he was minding his own business, juking on the corner when I drove up and asked where I could score some weed. Said Big Brother told me to get lost, and I jumped out of my car and pounded him into dog meat. All of which was a goddamn lie.”

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