“I hate to say so, but yeah.”
“Well, I’m still not sure.”
She took a step back. True to form, Shiner chose the moment to lunge for the Remington. He was surprised that JoLayne released it without a struggle. He was further surprised to find himself unable to hold on to it, as both his thumbs were abruptly dislocated and rendered useless.
While Shiner flopped on the ground like a mullet, JoLayne thanked Tom for teaching her the trick. He calmly grabbed Shiner around the neck and urged him in the strongest terms to suffer in silence, so as not to alert his travel companions.
“Now, where’s the videotape?”
“It’s hid in my car,” Shiner whispered hoarsely, “back at Chub’s trailer.”
“Chub is the man with the ponytail?”
“And a tire patch on his eye, yessir. Plus a big ole crab on his hand.”
Krome let go of Shiner’s neck and yanked him upright. “What’s his real name?”
“Chub? I never heard him tell.” The kid was moist-eyed and panting. When he snuck a peek at his crooked thumbs, he almost passed out.
“What would your momma say about all this? Lord, I can just imagine.” JoLayne’s tone was scorching. She picked up the shotgun and sat on the sand beside Shiner. He recoiled as if she were a tarantula.
“Why’d you do this?” she asked. “Why’d you help those bastards?”
“I dunno.” Shiner turned away and clammed up. It was the same strategy he tried whenever his mother hassled him about skipping his hymns or sneaking beer to his room.
Tom Krome said, “He’s hopeless, Jo. Let’s go.”
“Not yet.” Gently she put a fingernail under the young man’s chin and turned his head, so their eyes met.
Shiner said, “It’s just a club, OK? They asked did I wanna join up and I said sure. A brotherhood is what they tole me. That’s all.”
“Sure,” said Tom. “Like Kiwanis, only for Nazis.”
“It ain’t what you think. Least it dint start out that way.” Shiner, mumbling in a childish tone.
JoLayne’s eyes glistened. “You know what your ‘brothers’ did to me? Want me to show you?”
Wordlessly the skinhead pitched forward and threw up.
JoLayne Lucks took this as an unqualified no.
Unlike some women her age, Amber held a realistic view of life, love, men and her prospects. She knew where her good looks could carry her and how far to let things go. She would not fall for the blond modeling routine (drawing the line at calendar tryouts), and she would not dance tables (despite the staggering sums involved). She would remain a waitress at Hooters and finish junior college and get a respectable job as a cosmetologist or perhaps a paralegal. She would stay with jealous Tony until someone better came along, or until she could no longer tolerate his foolishness. She would not become the mistress of any man old enough to be her father, no matter how much money he had or how great a bay-front apartment he offered to rent for her. She would borrow from her parents only in emergencies, and she would pay back every dime as soon as she could. She would keep only one credit card. She would not fake an orgasm two nights in a row. She would stay off cigarets, which had killed her uncle, and avoid Absolut vodka, which caused her to misbehave in public. She would not be automatically impressed by men with black convertibles or foreign-language skills.
Yet even the most centered and well-grounded young woman would have been rightfully terrified to be kidnapped by an armed militia. However, waitressing in ludicrously skimpy shorts had given Amber an unshakable confidence in her ability to handle jerks of all kinds. Of the three rednecks, Shiner was the weak link and consequently the chief target of her attentions. Amber of course had never actually worked in a tattoo parlor and knew nothing about the art, but she’d correctly surmised that young Shiner was so hungry for her touch that he would allow her to poke holes in his flesh with a rusty fishhook.
Early on, she’d sensed that Shiner’s heart wasn’t in hate crimes and that he’d joined up with Chub and Bodean Gazzer mainly out of smalltown boredom and curiosity. After Shiner confided about the stolen Lotto ticket and the $14 million prize, Amber realized his two buddies intended to ditch him at their earliest convenience. Which meant she’d be left alone with the camouflaged colonel and the one-eyed panty-sniffing stoner, both of whom she perceived as more brutish and less malleable than the novice skinhead. Almost certainly they were not averse to the notion of forcible sexual intercourse.