And when JoLayne Lucks learned she’d won the Florida lottery, she knew immediately what to do with the money: She would buy Simmons Wood and save it.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, working up the numbers on a pocket calculator, when she heard a sharp knock from the porch. She figured it must be Tom, the newspaperman, giving it one more shot. Who else would be so brash as to drop by at midnight?
The screen door opened before JoLayne got there. A stranger stepped into her living room. He was dressed like a hunter.
Krome asked, “Did you find her?”
“Yes,” said Dick Turnquist.
“Where?”
“I hesitate to tell you.”
“Then don’t,” said Krome. He lay on the sheets with his fingers interlocked behind his head. To keep the receiver at his ear he’d propped it in the fleshy pocket above his collarbone. Years of talking to editors from motel rooms had led him to perfect a supine, hands-free technique for using the telephone.
Turnquist said, “She’s checked herself into rehab, Tom. Says she’s hooked on antidepressants.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Says she’s eating Prozacs like Pez.”
“I want her served.”
“Tried,” Turnquist said. “The judge says leave her alone. Wants a hearing to find out if she is of’diminished mental capacity.’ ”
Krome cackled bitterly. Turnquist was sympathetic.
Mary Andrea Finley Krome had been resisting divorce for almost four years. She could not be assuaged with offers of excessive alimony or a cash buyout. I don’t want money, I want Tom. No one was more baffled than Tom himself, who was acutely aware of his deficiencies as a domestic companion. The dispute had been brutally elongated because the case was filed in Brooklyn, which was, with the possible exception of Vatican City, the worst place in the world to expedite a divorce. Further complicating the procedure was the fact that the estranged Mrs. Krome was an accomplished stage actress who was capable, as she demonstrated time and again, of convincing the most hard-bitten judge of her fragile mental condition. She also had a habit of disappearing for months at a time with obscure road shows—most recently it was a musical adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs—which made it difficult to serve her with court summonses.
Tom Krome said, “Dick, I can’t take much more.”
“The competency hearing is set two weeks from tomorrow.”
“How long can she drag this out?”
“You mean, what’s the record?”
Krome sat up in bed. He caught the phone before it hit his lap. He put the receiver flush to his lips and said loudly: “Does she even have a goddamn lawyer yet?”
“I doubt it,” said Dick Turnquist. “Get some rest, Tom.”
“Where is she?”
“Mary Andrea?”
“Where’s this rehab center?” Krome asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh, let me guess. Switzerland?”
“Maui.”
“Fuck.”
Dick Turnquist said things could be worse. Tom Krome said he didn’t think so. He gave the lawyer permission to round up a couple of expert witnesses on Prozac for the upcoming hearing.
“Shouldn’t be hard,” Krome added. “Who wouldn’t love a free trip to Hawaii?”
Two hours later, he was startled awake by the light graze of fingernails on his cheek.
Katie. Krome realized he’d fallen asleep without locking his door. Moron! He sprung upright.
The room was black. He smelled perfumed soap.
“Katherine?” Christ, she must’ve run out on her husband!
“No, it’s me. Please don’t turn on the light.”
He felt the mattress shift as JoLayne Lucks sat beside him. In the darkness she found one of his hands and brought it to her face.
“Oh no,” said Krome.
“There were two of them.” Her voice was thick.
“Let me see.”
“Keep it dark. Please, Tom.”
He traced along her forehead, down her cheeks. One of her eyes was swollen shut—a raw knot, hot to the touch. Her top lip was split open, bloody and crusting.
“Jesus,” Krome sighed. He made her lie down. “I’m calling a doctor.”
“No,” JoLayne said.
“And the cops.”
“Don’t!”
Krome felt like his chest would explode. Gently JoLayne pulled him down, so they were lying side by side.
“They got the ticket,” she whispered.
It took a moment for him to understand: The lottery ticket, of course.