Carl Hiaasen – Lucky You

“Your turn,” she said.

“JoLayne, please.”

Then suddenly Krome was on his back, except she wasn’t holding his ankles as a proper sit-up partner would do. Instead she was straddling his chest, pinning his arms.

“Know what I was thinking?” she said. “About what you said earlier, how white or black doesn’t matter.”

“Weren’t we talking about dreams and horses?”

“Maybe you were.”

Deliberately Tom Krome went limp. His goal was to minimize the frontal contact, which was indescribably wonderful. He was also trying to think of a distraction, something to make his blood go cold. Sinclair’s face was an obvious choice, but Krome couldn’t summon it.

JoLayne was saying, “It’s important we should have this discussion… ”

“Later.”

“So it does matter. White and black.”

“JoLayne?”

Now she was nose-to-nose and pressing her body down harder. “Tom, you tell me the truth.”

He turned his head away. Total limpness was no longer sustainable.

“Tom?”

“What.”

“Are you mistaking this moment for some kind of clumsy seduction?”

“Call me crazy.”

JoLayne pulled away. By the time he sat up, she was perched on the bed, cutting him a look. “Back in the shower for you!”

“I thought we had a professional relationship,” he said. “I’m the reporter, you’re the story.”

“So you’re the only one who gets to ask questions? That’s really fair.”

“Ask away, but no more wrestling.” Krome, thinking: What a handful she is.

JoLayne cuffed him. “OK, how many black friends do you have? I mean friend friends.”

“I don’t have many close friends of any color. I am not what you’d call gregarious.”

“Ah.”

“There’s a black guy at work—Daniel, from Editorial. We play tennis every now and then. And Jim and Jeannie, they’re lawyers. We get together for dinner.”

“That’s your answer?”

Krome caved. “OK, the answer is none. Zero black friend friends.”

“Just like I thought.”

“But I’m working on it.”

“Yes, you are,” said JoLayne. “Let’s go for a ride.”

9

JoLayne’s friend was twenty minutes late, the longest twenty minutes of Tom Krome’s life. They were waiting at a bar called Shiloh’s in Liberty City. JoLayne Lucks was drinking ginger ale and munching on beer nuts. She wore a big floppy hat and round peach-tinted sunglasses. It didn’t matter what Tom Krome was wearing; he was the only white person there. Several patrons remarked upon the fact, and not in a welcoming tone.

JoLayne told him to put his notebook on the bar and start writing. “So you look official.”

“Good idea,” Krome said, “except I left it back in the room.”

JoLayne clicked her tongue. “You men, you’d forget your weenies if they weren’t glued on.”

A gangly transvestite in a fantastic chromium wig approached Krome and offered to blow him for forty dollars.

Krome said, “No, thanks, I’ve got a date.”

“Then I do her fo’ free.”

“Tempting,” said JoLayne, “but I think we’ll pass.”

With a bony hand, the transvestite gripped one of Krome’s legs. “Dolly don’t take no for an answer. And Dolly gots a blade in her purse.”

JoLayne leaned close to Krome and whispered: “Give him a twenty.”

“Not a chance.”

“Speak up now,” said the Dolly person. Ridiculous fake fingernails dug into Krome’s calf. “Come on, big man, let’s go out to yo’ cah. Bring the fancy lady if you wants.”

Krome said, “I like that dress—didn’t you used to be on Shindig?” The transvestite gave a bronchial laugh and squeezed harder. “Dolly’s gettin’ the boy ‘cited.”

“No, just annoyed.”

To unfasten the Dolly person’s hand from his knee, Krome twisted the thumb clockwise until it came out of the socket. The popping sound silenced the bar. JoLayne Lucks was impressed. She’d have to find out where he’d learned such a thing.

Dropping to his knees, the transvestite prostitute shrieked and pawed at himself with his crooked digit. Lurching to avenge his honor were two babbling crackheads, each armed with gleaming cutlery. They began to argue about who should get to stab the white boy first, and how many times. It was a superb moment for JoLayne’s friend to show up, and his arrival cleared the scene. The Dolly person shed a spiked pump during his scamper out the door.