“One more picture,” Decker suggested. He had to hurry; he didn’t want to get mugged, but he didn’t want to miss his plane, either.
“No!” the big man said.
“One more picture and you can have the car, the cameras, everything.”
Decker kept one eye on the interstate, thinking: Don’t they have a highway patrol in Louisiana?
“You guys got some cigarettes? That would be a good shot, have a cigarette hanging from your mouth.”
One of the thin guys lighted a Camel and wedged it into his lips at a very cool angle. “Oh yeah,” Decker said. “That’s what I mean. Let me get the wide-angle lens.”
He went back to the camera bag and fished out a regular fifty-millimeter, which he attached to the Nikon. He picked up the crowbar and slipped it down the front of his jeans. The black iron felt cold against his left leg.
When he turned around, Decker saw that all three men now sported cigarettes. ‘The girls down in Florida are gonna love this picture,” he said.
One of the thin guys grinned. “Good pussy in Florida, right?”
“The best,” Decker said. He moved up close, clicking away. The men stunk like stale beer and tobacco. Through the lens Decker saw rawboned ageless faces; they could have been twenty years old, or forty-five. Classic cons. They seemed mesmerized by the camera, or at least by Decker’s hyperactive choreography. The leader of the trio plainly was getting antsy; he couldn’t wait to kick Decker’s ass, maybe even kill him, and get moving.
“Almost done,” Decker said finally. “Move a little closer together… that’s good… now look to my right and blow some smoke… great!… keep looking out at the water… that-is-per-fect!”
Staring obediently at Lake Pontchartrain, the three men never saw Decker pull out the crowbar. With both hands he swung as hard as he could, a batter’s arc. The iron blade pinged off the top of their skulls one by one, as if Decker were playing a human xylophone. The robbers fell in a wailing cross-eyed heap.
Decker had expected less noise and more blood. As the adrenaline ebbed, he looked down and wondered if he had hit them more than once. He didn’t think so.
Now it was definitely time to go; the flat tire was Hertz’s problem. Decker quickly loaded his stuff into the Cordoba. The key was in the ignition. A blue oily pistol lay on the front seat. He tossed it out the window on his way to the airport.
The first person R. J. Decker called when he got back to Miami was Lou Zicutto. Lou was branch claims manager of the mammoth insurance company where Decker worked part-time as an investigator. Lou was a spindly little twit, maybe a hundred twenty pounds, but he had a huge florid head, which he shaved every day. As a result he looked very much like a Tootsie Pop with lips. Despite his appearance, Lou Zicutto was treated respectfully by all employees and coworkers, who steadfastly believed that he was a member of the Mafia who could have them snuffed with a single phone call. Lou himself did nothing to discourage this idea, even though it wasn’t true. Except for the fancy stationery, Decker himself didn’t see much difference between the mob and an insurance company, anyway.
“Where ya been?” Lou Zicutto asked. “I left a jillion messages.” Lou had a raspy cabdriver voice, and he was always sucking on menthol cough drops.
“I’ve been out of town on a case,” Decker said. He could hear Lou slurping away, working the lozenges around his teeth.
“We got Nuñez this week, remember?”
Nuñez was a big fraud trial the company was prosecuting. Nuñez was a stockbroker who stole his own yacht and tried to scuttle it off Bimini for the insurance. Decker had shot some pictures and done surveillance; he was scheduled to testify for the company.
“You’re my star witness,” Lou said.
“I can’t make it, Lou, not this week.”
“What the hell you mean?”
Decker said, “I’ve got a conflict.”
“No shit you got a conflict. You got a big fucking conflict with me, you don’t show up.” The cough drops were clacking furiously. “Two million bucks this creep is trying to rip us for.”