Carl Hiaasen – Lucky You

“I got a tip,” Sinclair said.

“You got a tip.”

“My brother-in-law phoned this morning. He lives over in Grange.”

Krome thought: Uh-oh. Crafts show. I will murder this fucker if he makes me cover another crafts show.

But Sinclair said: “You play the lottery, Tom?”

“Only when it’s up to forty million bucks or so. Anything less is chump change.”

No reaction from Sinclair, who was deep into his pitch: “There were two winners last night. One in Dade County, the other in Grange. My brother-in-law knows the woman. Her name is—are you ready for this?—Lucks.”

Inwardly Tom Krome groaned. It was the quintessential Sinclair headline: lady lucks wins the lotto!

You had your irony. You had your alliteration.

And you had your frothy, utterly forgettable feature story. Sinclair called them Feel Goods. He believed it was the mission of his department to make readers forget all the nastiness they were getting in other sections of the newspaper. He wanted them to feel good about their lives, their religion, their families, their neighbors, their world.

Once he’d posted a memo setting forth his philosophy of feature writing. Somebody—Sinclair suspected Tom Krome—had nailed a dead rat to it.

“How much she win?” Krome asked.

“The pot was twenty-eight million, so she’ll get half. What do you think, Tom?”

“Depends.”

“She works for a veterinarian. Loves animals, Roddy says.”

“That’s nice.”

“Plus she’s black.”

“Ah,” said Krome. The white editors who ran the newspaper loved positive stories about minorities; Sinclair obviously smelled a year-end bonus.

“Roddy says she’s a trip.”

Krome said, “Roddy would be your brother-in-law?” The tipster.

“Right. He says she’s a character, this JoLayne Lucks.” The headline dancing in Sinclair’s brain actually was: lucks be a lady!

Tom Krome said: “This Roddy person is married to your sister?”

“Joan. Yes, that’s right,” Sinclair answered, edgily.

“What the hell’s your sister doing in Grange?”

Grange was a truck-stop town known mainly for its miracles, stigmata, visitations and weeping Madonnas. It was a must-see on the Christian tourist circuit.

Sinclair said, “Joan’s a teacher. Roddy works for the state.” Sinclair wanted to make clear they weren’t nutcases but were responsible citizens. He noticed his palms had gotten damp from talking to Tom Krome for too long.

“This Lady Lucks,” Krome said, in a tone designed to cast scorn on the inevitable headline, “is she a Jesus freak? Because I’m in no mood to be preached at.”

“Tom, I really wouldn’t know.”

“She says Jesus gave her those lucky numbers, end of story. I’m coming home. You understand?”

Sinclair said, “Roddy didn’t mention anything like that.”

Solemnly Krome played his ace. “Think of the letters we’ll get.”

“What do you mean?” Sinclair hated letters almost as much as he hated telephone calls. The best stories were those that produced no reaction, one way or another, from readers. “What kind of mail?” he asked.

“Tons,” Krome replied, “if we do a piece saying Jesus is a gambling toot. Can you imagine? Hell, you’ll probably hear from Ralph Reed himself. Next they’ll be boycotting our advertisers.”

Firmly Sinclair said: “So let’s stay away from that angle. By all means.” After a pause: “Maybe this isn’t such a hot idea.”

On the other end, Tom Krome smiled. “I’ll drive up to Grange this afternoon. Check it out and let you know.”

“OK,” Sinclair said. “Go check it out. You want my sister’s phone number?”

“That’s not necessary,” said Krome.

Sinclair experienced a small shudder of relief.

Demencio was refilling the fiberglass Madonna when his wife, Trish, hurried outside to say that somebody in town won the lottery.

“I don’t suppose it’s us,” said Demencio.

“Rumor is JoLayne Lucks.”

“Figures.”

Demencio removed the top of the Madonna’s head and reached inside the statue to retrieve a plastic bottle that had once held the wiper fluid in a 1989 Civic hatchback. These days the jug held tap water, lightly scented with perfume.

Trish said, “You’re almost out of Charlie.”

Demencio nodded irritably. That would be a problem. It was important to use a fragrance the righteous faithful wouldn’t recognize; otherwise suspicions would be stirred. Once he’d experimented with Lady Stetson and there was nearly an uprising. The third pilgrim in line, a buzzardly bank teller from Huntsville, had sniffed it out instantly: “Hey, Mother Mary’s crying Coty tears!”

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