Robert Clinch was about to pull out of the driveway when he got an idea, something that might make his homecoming more bearable.
He slipped back into the house and wrote a note to Clarisse. He put it on the dinette, next to the toaster: “Honey, I’ll be home by noon. Maybe we can go to Sears and look for that shower curtain you wanted. Love, Bobby.”
Robert Clinch never returned.
By midafternoon his wife was so angry that she drove to Sears and purchased not only a shower curtain but some electric hair curlers and a pink throw rug too. By suppertime she was livid, and tossed her husband’s portion of Kentucky fried chicken over the fence to the Labrador retriever next door. At midnight she phoned her mother in Valdosta to announce that she was packing up the kids and leaving the bum for good.
The next morning, as Clarisse rifled her husband’s bureau for clues and loose cash, the county sheriff phoned. He had some lousy news.
From the air a cropduster had spotted a purplish slick on a remote corner of Lake Jesup known as Coon Bog. On a second pass the cropduster had spotted the sparkled hull of a bass boat, upside down and half-submerged about fifty yards from shore. Something big and red was floating nearby.
Clarisse Clinch asked the sheriff if the big red thing in the water happened to have blond hair, and the sheriff said not anymore, since a flock of mallard ducks had been pecking at it all night. Clarisse asked if any identification had been found on the body, and the sheriff said no, Bobby’s wallet must have shaken out in the accident and fallen into the water. Mrs. Clinch told the sheriff thank you, hung up, and immediately dialed the Visa Card headquarters in Miami to report the loss.
“What do you know about fishing?”
“A little,” said R. J. Decker. The interview was still at the stage where Decker was supposed to look steady and taciturn, the stage where the prospective client was sizing him up. Decker knew he was pretty good in the sizing-up department. He had the physique of a linebacker: five-eleven, one hundred ninety pounds, chest like a drum, arms like cable. He had curly dark hair and sharp brown eyes that gave nothing away. He often looked amused but seldom smiled around strangers. At times he could be a very good listener, or pretend to be. Decker was neither diffident nor particularly patient; he was merely on constant alert for jerks. Time was too short to waste on them. Unless it was absolutely necessary, like now.
“Are you an outdoorsman?” Dennis Gault asked.
Decker shrugged. “You mean can I start a campfire? Sure. Can I kill a Cape buffalo barhanded? Probably not.”
Gault poured himself a gin and tonic. “But you can handle yourself, I presume.”
“You presume right.”
“Size doesn’t mean a damn thing|,” Gault said. “You could still be a wimp.”
Decker sighed. Another macho jerk.
Gault asked, “So what kind of fishing do you know about?”
“Offshore stuff, nothing exotic. Grouper, snapper, dolphin.”
“Pussy fish,” Gault snorted. “For tourists.”
“Oh,” Decker said, “so you must be the new Zane Grey.”
Gault looked up sharply from his gin. “I don’t care for your attitude, mister.”
Decker had heard this before. The mister was kind of a nice touch, though.
Dennis Gault said, “You look like you want to punch me.”
“That’s pretty funny.”
“I don’t know about you,” Gault said, stirring his drink. “You look like you’re itching to take a swing.”
“What for?” Decker said. “Anytime I want to punch an asshole I can stroll down to Biscayne Boulevard and take my pick.”
He guessed that it would take Gault five or six seconds to come up with some witty reply. Actually it took a little longer.
“I guarantee you never met an asshole like me,” he said.
Decker glanced at his wristwatch and looked very bored—a mannerism he’d been practicing.
Gault made a face. He wore a tight powder-blue pullover and baggy linen trousers. He looked forty, maybe older. He studied Decker through amber aviator glasses. “You don’t like me, do you?” he said.