Carl Hiaasen – Lucky You

He heard the slosh of her climbing out of the tub. Then the lights in the bathroom went out.

“That was me,” she said. “Don’t try anything.”

It was so dark that Krome couldn’t see his own nose. He felt something sharp at his back.

“Gun,” JoLayne explained.

“Gotcha.”

“I want you to take off your clothes.”

“For Christ’s sake.”

“And get in the bathtub.”

“No!” he said.

“You want your interview, Mr. Krome?”

Until that moment, everything that had happened in the house of JoLayne Lucks was splendid material for Krome’s feature story. But not this part, the disrobing-at-gunpoint of the reporter. Sinclair would never be told.

Once Krome was in the water, JoLayne Lucks turned on the lights. She stood the shotgun against the toilet, and knelt next to the tub. “How you feeling?” she asked.

“Ridiculous.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. You’re a good-enough-looking man.” She peeled the towel off her head and shook her hair.

Tom Krome roiled the water to churn up more soap bubbles, in a futile effort to conceal his shriveled cock. JoLayne thought that was absolutely adorable. Krome fidgeted self-consciously. He reflected on the difficult and occasionally dangerous situations in which he’d found himself as a reporter—urban riots, drug busts, hurricanes, police shootouts, even a foreign coup. Yet he’d never felt so stymied and helpless. The woman had thought it out very carefully. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“Because I was scared of you.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of.”

“Oh, I can see that.”

He laughed then. Couldn’t help it. JoLayne Lucks laughed, too. “You gotta admit it breaks the ice.”

Krome said, “You left the front door open.”

“I sure did.”

“And that’s what you do when you’re scared? Leave the door open and wait buck naked in the bath?”

“With a Remington,” JoLayne reminded him, “full of nickel turkey load. Gift from Daddy.” She ran some hot water into the tub. “You gettin’ chilly?”

Krome kept his hands folded across his groin. There was no sense trying to act casual, but he did. JoLayne put her chin on the edge of the tub. “What do you want to know, Mr. Krome?”

“Did you win the lottery?”

“Yes, I won the lottery.”

“Why aren’t you happy about it?”

“Who says I’m not.”

“Will you keep your job at Dr. Crawford’s?” The lady at the bed-and-breakfast had told him JoLayne Lucks worked at the veterinary clinic.

She said, “Hey, your fingers are pruning up.”

Krome was determined to overcome the distraction of his own nakedness. “Can I ask a favor? There’s a notebook and a ballpoint pen in the pocket of my pants.”

“Oh, no you don’t.”

“But you promised.”

“I beg your pardon?” She picked up the gun again; gonged the barrel loudly against the tub’s iron faucet, which protruded from the wall between Krome’s feet.

OK, he thought. We’ll do it her way.

“JoLayne, have you ever won anything before?”

“Bikini contest at Daytona. I was eighteen, for heaven’s sake, but I know what you’re thinking.” She rolled her eyes.

Krome said, “What was the prize?”

“Two hundred bucks.” She paused. Puffed her cheeks. Propped the shotgun against the sink. “Look, I can’t lie. It was a wet T-shirt contest. I tell people it was bikinis because it doesn’t sound so slutty.”

“Heck, you were just a kid.”

“But you’d put it in the newspaper anyway. It’s too juicy not to.”

She was right: It was an irresistible anecdote—yet one that could be retold tastefully, even poignantly, as JoLayne Lucks would appreciate when she finally saw Tom Krome’s feature article. In the meantime he could do little but gaze at the glassy bubbles that clung to the wet hair on his chest. He felt disarmed and preposterous.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked JoLayne.

“I’ve got just an awful feeling.”

“Like a vision?” Krome was fishing to see if she was one of the local paranormals. He hoped not, even though it would’ve made for a more colorful story.

“Not a vision, just a feeling,” she said. “The way you can sometimes feel a storm coming, even when there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

It was agony, hearing one good quote after another slip away untranscribed. Again he begged for his notebook.

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