“They made me give it to them,” she said.
“Who?”
“I never saw them before. There were two of them.”
Krome heard her swallow, fighting the tears. His head was thundering—he had to do something. Get the woman to a hospital. Notify the police. Interview the neighbors in case somebody saw something, heard something…
But Tom Krome couldn’t move. JoLayne Lucks hung on to his arm as if she were drowning. He turned on his side and carefully embraced her.
She shivered and said, “They made me give it to them.”
“It’s OK.”
“No—”
“You’re going to be all right. That’s the important thing.”
“No,” she cried, “you don’t understand.”
A few minutes later, after her breathing settled, Krome reached over to the bedstand and turned on the lamp. JoLayne closed her eyes while he studied the cuts and bruises.
“What else did they do?” he asked.
“Punched me in the stomach. And other places.”
JoLayne saw his eyes flash, his jaw tighten. He told her: “It’s time to get up. We’ve got to do something about this.”
“Damn right,” she said. “That’s why I came to you.”
5
They took turns examining themselves in the rearview mirror, Chub swearing extravagantly: “Goddamn nigger bitch, goddamn we shoulda kilt her.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Bodean Gazzer. They both hurt like hell and looked worse. Chub had deep scratches down his cheeks, and his left eyelid was sliced in half—one ragged flap blinked, the other didn’t. He was soiled with blood, mostly his own.
He said, “I never seen such fuckin’ fingernails. You?”
Bode muttered in assent. His face and throat bore numerous purple-welted bite marks. The crazy cunt had also chewed off a substantial segment of one eyebrow, and Bode was having a time plugging the hole.
In a worn voice, he said: “Important thing is we got the ticket.”
“Which I’ll hang on to,” Chub said, “just to be safe.” And to make things even, he thought. No way was he about to let Bode Gazzer hold both Lotto tickets.
“Fine with me,” Bode said, though it wasn’t. He was in too much pain to argue. He’d never seen a woman fight so ferociously. Christ, she’d left them looking like gator puke!
Chub said, “They’s animals. Total goddamn animals.”
Bode agreed. “White girl’d never fuss like that. Not even for fourteen million bucks.”
“I’m serious, we shoulda kilt her.”
“Right. Wasn’t you the one had no interest in jail time?”
“Bode, go fuck yourself.”
Chub pressed a sodden bandanna to his tattered eyelid. He remembered how relieved he’d been to learn that the woman who’d hit the lottery numbers was black. What a weight off his shoulders! If she’d been white—especially a white Christian woman, elderly, like his granny—Chub knew he wouldn’t have had the guts to go through with the robbery. Much less slug her in the face and the privates, as was necessary with that wild JoLayne bitch.
And a white girl, you shove a pistol in her lips and she’ll do whatever she’s told. Not this one.
Where’s the ticket?
Not a word.
Where’s the goddamn ticket?
And Bode Gazzer saying, “Hey, genius, she can’t talk with a gun in her mouth.”
And Chub removing it, only to have the woman spit all over the barrel. Then she’d spit on him, too.
Leaving Chub and Bode to conclude there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to this person, in the way of rape or torture, to make her give up that ticket.
It had been Bode’s idea to shoot one of the turtles.
Give him credit, Chub thought, for figuring out the woman’s weakness.
Grabbing a baby turtle from the tank, setting it at JoLayne’s feet, chuckling in anticipation as it started marching toward her bare toes.
And Chub, firing a round into the center of the turtle’s shell, sending it skidding like a tiny green hockey puck across the floor, bouncing off walls and corners.
That’s when the woman broke down and told them where she’d hidden the Lotto stub. Inside the piano, of all places! What a racket they’d made, getting it out of there.
But they’d done it. Now here they were, parked in the amber glow of a streetlight; taking turns with the rearview, checking how badly the nigger girl had messed them up.