The colloquy quickly degenerated (despite the distraction of a blocked Dallas punt) until one of the men aimed the boat horn at Mary Andrea’s flawless nose and let ‘er rip. Krome saw no other option but to punch the fat fuck until he fell down. His bosom buddy of course took a wide sloppy swing at Krome’s noggin, but Tom had plenty of time to duck (Mary Andrea was way ahead of him) and unleash a solid uppercut to the scrotal region. The decking of the rude men drew flurries of cheers, the other football fans mistaking Krome’s outburst for an act of husbandly chivalry. In truth it was pure selfish anger, as Krome demonstrated by grabbing the boat horn, placing it flush against the right ear of fallen Walrus Face, and blasting away until the canister emptied, its plangent blare ebbing with a sequence of comical burps.
Cops arrived, jotted names, arrested no one. Krome himself fractured two knuckles in the fight but had no regrets. Mary Andrea scolded him for flying off the handle, but phoned every one of her friends to brag on him. A month later the Kromes heard from an attorney representing one of the commodities brokers, who claimed to be suffering from chronic headaches, deafness and myriad psychological problems resulting from the beating. A companion lawsuit was being hatched by the other fan, who was said to be in need of delicate surgery for cosmetic repair of a displaced left testicle. Tom Krome’s own lawyer strongly advised him to avoid a trial, which he did by agreeing to purchase Giants season tickets for each of the aggrieved brokers and also providing (thanks to the connections of a sportswriter pal) official-looking NFL footballs personally autographed by Lawrence Taylor.
Krome anticipated no such nuisance suits from Bodean Gazzer and would take all steps necessary to prevent the robber from escaping Pearl Key and stranding Tom and JoLayne without a boat. To prevent shooting off his own toes, Krome prudently set down the shotgun before he started running. The redneck had a fifty-yard head start but he wasn’t hard to track, crashing through branches like a crazed rhinoceros. Any concealment provided by Gazzer’s camouflage outfit was offset by his unstealthiness. The longer-legged Krome was able to gain ground and at no time mistook the fleeing felon for a mangrove tree.
He overtook Gazzer in a clearing and tackled him. The redneck extracted one chunky leg and slammed his boot smartly into Tom Krome’s cheekbone. Quickly Gazzer was up and running again. He got to the Boston Whaler, which he was laboring to drag into the water when Krome again overtook him. They went down in a splash, the camouflaged man windmilling his arms.
Krome felt a lifetime of emotional detachment dissolve in a stream of bubbles and galvanizing, uncontrollable fury. It was the first purely murderous impulse of his life, and for a split second it gave a perverse clarity to all the murderous acts he’d written about for newspapers. Krome understood that he ought to be terrified, but he felt only a primitive rage. He wrapped Bodean Gazzer in a brutal headlock and held him underwater with the gravest intention. When a wildly flung elbow struck Krome in the throat, he realized that he was (at age thirty-five) engaged in his first life-or-death struggle.
He would have preferred it more neatly choreographed, like the altercation at Giants Stadium, but that was unusual. In his work Krome had attended enough crime scenes to know that violence was seldom cinematic. Usually it was clumsy, careless, chaotic: a damn mess.
Exactly like this, he thought. If I can’t get my head up even for half a second, I’m probably going to drown.
In four lousy feet of water, I’m going to drown.
They’d stirred up so much marl that Krome couldn’t see anything but a greenish haze in suspension. He released his hold on Gazzer’s neck but they remained tangled—he and the crook, no longer fighting each other but flailing for air.
As the mortal darkening began, words came unspooled in Tom Krome’s brain.
REPORTER FOUND DEAD…
REPORTER BELIEVED DEAD FOUND DEAD…
REPORTER BELIEVED DEAD FOUND DEAD ON MYSTERY ISLAND.