Carl Hiaasen – Lucky You

To Trish he said, “I wonder what that’s all about.”

“You hush. They’re pets is all.”

JoLayne returned with her hair under a baseball cap, which Demencio found intriguing and sexy—the attitude as much as the style. JoLayne told Trish the cake looked delicious.

“Angel food,” Demencio’s wife said. “My grandma’s recipe. On my mother’s side.”

“Sit down, please.” JoLayne carried the plate to the kitchen counter. Trish and Demencio sat stiffly on an antique cherrywood love seat.

He said, “Those your turtles?”

JoLayne Lucks gave a bright smile. “Would you like one?”

Demencio shook his head. Trish, by way of explanation: “We’ve got a jealous old tomcat.”

JoLayne peeled the plastic wrapping from the cake and broke off a chunk with her fingers. Serenely she popped it in her mouth. “What brings you folks by?”

Trish glanced at Demencio, who shifted in the love seat. “Well,” he said, “here’s the thing—we heard about your good fortune. You know… ”

JoLayne gave him no help. She was savoring the angel food.

Demencio said, “About the Lotto, I mean.”

One of her fine brown eyebrows arched. She kept chewing. Demencio fumbled with a strategy. The woman seemed slightly spacey.

Trish came to the rescue. “We stopped over to say congratulations. Nothing like this ever happens in Grange.”

“No?” With a lizard flick of her tongue, JoLayne Lucks removed a crumb from one of her sparkling cobalt fingernails. “I thought miracles happen all the time around here. Most every Sunday, right?”

Demencio reddened, perceiving a dig at his Madonna concession. Trish, courageously: “What I meant, JoLayne, was nobody’s ever won anything. Nobody I can recall.”

“Well, you might be right.”

“It’s just a shame you’ve got to split the jackpot with somebody else.” Trish spoke with true sympathy. “Not that fourteen million bucks is anything to sneeze at, but it’d be nice if you were the only winner. Nice for Grange, too.”

Demencio shot a glare at his wife. “It’s still nice for Grange,” he said. “It’ll put us on the map, for damn sure.”

JoLayne Lucks said, “Ya’ll want some coffee?”

“So what’s next, girl?” Trish asked.

“I thought I’d feed the turtles.”

Trish chuckled uneasily. “You know what I mean. Maybe a new car? A place at the beach?”

JoLayne Lucks cocked her head. “You’re losing me now.”

Demencio had had enough. He stood up, hitching at his trousers. “I won’t lie. We came to ask a favor.”

JoLayne beamed. “That’s more like it.” She noticed how Trish’s hands had balled with tension.

Demencio forced a cough, to clear his throat. “Pretty soon you’ll be all famous, in the newspapers and TV. My idea was maybe when they ask where your Lotto luck came from, you could put in a good word.”

“For you?”

“For the Madonna, yes.”

“But I’ve never even been to the shrine.”

“I know, I know.” Demencio held up his hands. “It’s just an idea. I can’t promise hardly anything in return. I mean, you’re a millionaire now.”

Although he sorely hoped JoLayne wouldn’t ask for a commission on his take, he was prepared to part with ten percent.

Trish, quietly: “It’d just be a favor, like he said. Pure and simple. A favor for a neighbor.”

“Christmas is coming,” Demencio added. “Any little thing would help. Anything you could do.”

JoLayne Lucks walked them, one on each arm, to the door. She said, “Well, it’s surely something to think about. And, Trish, that’s glorious cake.”

“You’re so kind.”

“Sure you don’t fancy a turtle?”

In tandem, Demencio and his wife edged off the porch. “Thanks just the same,” they said, and walked home in silence. Trish pondered the possibility she’d gotten some bad information, as JoLayne Lucks didn’t behave like a woman who’d won a free toaster, much less a Lotto jackpot. Demencio, meanwhile, had concluded JoLayne Lucks was either a borderline psycho or a brilliant faker, and that further investigation was necessary.

Bodean James Gazzer had spent thirty-one years perfecting the art of assigning blame. His personal credo—Everything bad that happens is someone else’s fault—could, with imagination, be stretched to fit any circumstance. Bode stretched it.

The intestinal unrest that occasionally afflicted him surely was the result of drinking milk taken from secretly radiated cows. The roaches in his apartment were planted by his filthy immigrant next-door neighbors. His dire financial plight was caused by runaway bank computers and conniving Wall Street Zionists; his bad luck in the South Florida job market, prejudice against English-speaking applicants. Even the lousy weather had a culprit: air pollution from Canada, diluting the ozone and derailing the jet stream.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *