“To my Ma,” Shiner lied. “The tape’s hid in my car and the car’s at Major Chub’s trailer. I called my Ma and told her come down get it, she don’t hear from me by Thursday—”
“Tuesday,” Amber interjected.
“Right, Tuesday. I told her come get the car.”
“Then what?” Bodean Gazzer’s throat was like chalk.
Shiner said, “I told her to give the video to the black girl. JoLayne. She’ll know what to do.”
“You’re full a shit,” Bode said, without conviction.
“I ain’t.”
“I heard him make the phone call,” said Amber.
“Then goddamn the both a you.”
Amber announced she was going for a swim, alone. Shiner was relieved, because he’d been waiting to take a world-record leak.
Chub and Bode withdrew to the Reel Luv for an urgent conference. Even in his dazed and febrile condition, Chub comprehended what the kid had done; gotten hisself some insurance. “Does this mean we can’t kill the fucker?”
“I don’t see how,” Bode said.
“And what’s all this about the money?”
“He wants a cut, we gotta give it to him,” Bode said. “Thank God he only knows about one a them lottery tickets. So, like… what’s a third of fourteen million?”
Chub strained to do the division in his head. “Four something. Four point five, four point six.”
“So that’ll be his share. Long as he don’t find out about the other goddamn ticket.”
Chub felt like puking. Four and a half million bucks for that dumb dork! It wasn’t right. Sinful was what it was.
“Blackmail,” Bode said morosely. There was no denying the gravity of their predicament. Saving white America would have to wait; first they had to save themselves.
“Tell you what else,” he said to Chub. “Your pretty blond sweetheart’s in on the deal.”
“Not Amber. Ain’t no way.”
“You think Shiner’s smart enough to dream this shit up? Kid can’t find his own dick with a pair of salad tongs.”
“But still.” Chub didn’t want to believe Amber had hooked up with Shiner. Why would she be with him, he wondered, when she could have me?
Bode Gazzer told him to put on some clothes. “Before your pecker gets fried.”
“But I’m burnin’ up. Feel how hot.” He flopped his tumescent crab arm on the deck of the boat.
“No, thanks,” Bode said, stepping away. A notion had come to him. “Today’s Monday, right?”
“Don’t ask me.”
Bode drummed his fingers on the gunwale. “That gives us a whole day until Shiner’s momma hits the launchpad. Say we leave right now—run this puppy back to the highway, hop in the truck and haul ass. We could make Tall’hassee by lunchtime tomorrow.”
Chub peeped ferretlike from inside Amber’s orange shorts. “What about the video?”
“We stop at the trailer on the way north. Find the damn tape and burn it. Burn the whole car if we got to, just like we done to that asshole’s Miata.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Chub’s laugh came out as a dry rattle. He couldn’t wait to get off that miserable island. “Leave the sneaky bastard out here to rot. I love it, man.”
“Her, too.”
“Aw, no!”
Bode Gazzer said, “We better.”
“But I haven’t got to fuck her yet. Not even a b.j.”
“Come on. Let’s load the boat.”
Chub said, “We got time, man, if we hurry. Time for both of us to get a piece.”
Bode should’ve short-circuited the idea, but instead he allowed it to float around his imagination. He was beset by a vision of Amber nude, on her knees.
“We tie up the skinhead,” Chub proposed, “we each take a turn with the girl and then we split.”
“Will she go for it?” Bode didn’t feel right about raping a white woman. More important, it was a big-time felony.
Chub said, “S’pose it was her only way off the island. Then she’d go for it, you bet she would.”
“Good point,” Bode said.
It was a historic moment, Chub with an actual brainstorm. He climbed into the Reel Luv to search for his bag of glue.
Bode heard footsteps and wheeled around. He should’ve been ready with the Beretta, but he wasn’t.
Amber stood there in the camo jumpsuit, the top half open, her hair slick and shining from her swim. “I can’t find Shiner,” she said.