The woman was discreetly whisked away from the shrine before trouble started. Demencio had vowed to be more careful. Scenting the Madonna’s tears was a fine touch, he thought. The devout souls who waited so long in the hot Florida sun deserved more than a drop of salty water on their fingertips—this was supposed to be Jesus’ mother, for heaven’s sake. Her tears ought to smell special.
Trish held the plastic bottle while Demencio poured the last of the Charlie perfume. Again she marveled at how small and childlike his brown hands were. And steady. He would’ve made a wonderful surgeon, her husband, if only he’d had the chance. If only he’d been born in, say, Boston, Massachusetts, instead of Hialeah, Florida.
Demencio replaced the plastic bottle inside the Madonna. Clear thin tubes ran upward from the bottle’s cap to the inside of the statue’s eyelids, where the clever Demencio had drilled pinprick-sized holes. A thicker black tube ran internally down the length of the statue and emerged from another hole in her right heel. The black air tube connected to a small rubber bulb, which could be operated by hand or by foot. Squeezing the bulb forced the phony tears out of the bottle, up the twin tubes and into the Madonna’s eyes.
There was an art to it, and Demencio fancied himself one of the best in the business. He kept the tears small, subtle and paced at intervals. The longer the crowd was made to linger, the more soft drinks, angel food cake, T-shirts, Bibles, holy candles and sunblock they purchased.
From Demencio, of course.
Most everybody in Grange knew what he was up to, but they didn’t say much. Some were too busy running their own scams. Besides, tourists were tourists and there wasn’t much difference, when you got down to the core morality of it, between Mickey Mouse and a fiberglass Madonna.
Trish liked to say: “All we’re really selling is hope.”
Demencio liked to say: “I’d rather peddle religion than a phony goddamn rodent.”
He made decent money, though he wasn’t rich and probably never would be. Not like Miss JoLayne Lucks, whose astounding and undeserved windfall he now contemplated.
“How much she win?” he asked his wife.
“Fourteen million, if it’s true.”
“She’s not sure?”
“She not sayin’.”
Demencio snorted. Anybody else, they’d be hooting and hollering all over town. Fourteen million bucks!
Trish said, “All they announced is there’s two winning tickets. One was bought down around Homestead, the other was in Grange.”
“The Grab N’Go?”
“Yep. The way they figured out who, the store only sold twenty-two Lotto tickets all last week. Twenty-one is accounted for. JoLayne’s is the only one left.”
Demencio fitted the fiberglass Madonna back together. “So what’s she up to?”
Trish reported that, according to neighbors, JoLayne Lucks had not come out of her house all morning and was not answering the telephone.
“Maybe she ain’t home,” Demencio said. He carried the Madonna into the house. Trish followed. He set the statue in a corner, next to his golf bag.
“Let’s go see her,” he said.
“Why?” Trish wondered what Demencio was planning. They barely knew the Lucks woman to say hello.
“Bring her some angel food cake,” Demencio proposed. “It’s a neighborly thing on a Sunday morning. I mean, why the hell not?”
2
JoLayne Lucks didn’t expect to see Trish and Demencio on her front porch, and Demencio didn’t expect to see so much of JoLayne’s legs. She appeared in a peach-colored jogging bra and sky-blue panties.
“I wasn’t ready for company,” she said in a sleepy voice.
Trish: “We’ll drop by another time.”
“Whatcha got there?”
Demencio said, “Cake.”
He was transfixed by JoLayne’s perfectly muscled calves. How’d they get like that? He never saw her running.
“Come on in,” she said, and Demencio—shaking free of his wife’s grip—went in.
They stood, each holding one side of the cake plate, while JoLayne Lucks went to put on a pair of jeans. The small tidy house showed no signs of a post-lottery celebration. Trish remarked on the handsome piano in the living room; Demencio eyed an aquarium full of baby turtles—there must have been fifty of them, paddling full tilt and goggled-eyed against the glass.