After high school Jim Tile enrolled at Florida State University in Tallahassee, majored in criminal justice, was graduated, and joined the highway patrol. His friends and classmates told him that he was nuts, that a young black man with a 4.0 grade average and a college degree could write his own ticket with the DEA or Customs, maybe even the FBI. Jim Tile could have taken his pick. Besides, everybody knew about the highway patrol: it had the worst pay and the highest risks of any law-enforcement job in the state-not to mention its reputation as an enclave for hardcore rednecks who, while not excluding minority recruits, hardly welcomed them with champagne and tickertape parades.
In the 1970s the usual fate of black troopers was to get assigned to the lousiest roads in the reddest counties. This way they could spend most of their days writing tickets to foul-mouthed Klansmen farmers who insisted on driving their tractors down the middle of the highway in violation of about seventeen traffic statutes. Two or three years of this challenging work was enough to inspire most black troopers to look elsewhere for employment, but Jim Tile hung on. When other troopers asked him why, he replied that he intended someday to become commander of the entire highway patrol. His friends thought he was joking, but when word of Jim Tile's boldly stated ambition reached certain colonels and lieutenants in Tallahassee he was immediately reassigned to patrol the remote roadways of Harney County and faithfully protect its enlightened citizenry, most of whom insisted on addressing him as Boy or Son or Officer Zulu.
One day Trooper Jim Tile was told to accompany a little-known gubernatorial candidate on a campaign swing through Harney. The day began with breakfast at the pancake house and finished with a roast-hog barbecue on the shore of Lake Jesup. The candidate, Clinton Tyree, gave the identical slick speech no less than nine times, and out of utter boredom Jim Tile memorized it. By the end of the day he was unconsciously muttering the big applause lines just before they came out of the candidate's mouth. From the reactionsâand penurious donationsâof several fat-cat political contributors, it was obvious that they had gotten the idea that Clinton Tyree was letting a big black man tell him what to say.
At dusk, after all the reporters and politicos had polished off the barbecue and gone home, Clinton Tyree took Jim Tile aside and said:
“I know you don't think much of my speech, but in November I'm going to be elected governor.”
“I don't doubt it,” Jim Tile had said, “but it's because of your teeth, not your ideals.”
After Clinton Tyree won the election, one of the first things he did was order Trooper Jim Tile transferred from Harney County to the governor's special detail in Tallahassee. This unit was the equivalent of the state's Secret Service, one of the most prestigious assignments in the highway patrol. Never before had a black man been chosen as a bodyguard for a governor, and many of Tyree's cronies told him that he was setting a dangerous precedent. The governor only laughed. He told them that Jim Tile was the most prescient man he'd met during the whole campaign. An exit survey taken on election day by the pollster Pat Caddell revealed that what Florida voters had liked most about candidate Clinton Tyree was not his plainly spoken views on the death penalty or toxic dumps or corporate income taxes, but rather his handsome smile. In particular, his teeth.
During his brief and turbulent tenure in the governor's mansion, Clinton Tyree confided often in Jim Tile. The trooper grew to admire him; he thought the new governor was courageous, visionary, earnest, and doomed. Jim Tile was probably the only person in Florida who was not surprised when Clinton Tyree resigned from office and vanished from the public eye.
As soon as Tyree was gone, Trooper Jim Tile was removed from the governor's detail and sent back to Harney in the hopes that he'd come to his senses and quit the force.
For some reason he did not.
Jim Tile remained loyal to Clinton Tyree, who was now calling himself Skink and subsisting on fried bass and dead animals off the highway. Jim Tile's loyalty extended so far as to driving the former governor to the Orlando airport for one of his rare trips out of state.
“I could take some comp time and come with you,” Jim Tile volunteered.
Skink was riding in the back of the patrol car in order to draw less attention. He looked like a prisoner anyway.
“Thanks for the offer,” he said, “but we're going to a tournament in Louisiana.”
Jim Tile nodded in understanding. “Gotcha.” Bopping down Bourbon Street he'd be fine. Fishing the bayous was another matter.
“Keep your ears open while I'm gone,” Skink said. “I'd steer clear of the Morgan Slough, too.”
“Don't worry.”
Skink could tell Jim Tile was worried. He could see distraction in the way the trooper sat at the wheel; driving was the last thing on his mind. He was barely doing sixty.
“Is it me or yourself you're thinking about?” Skink asked.
“I was thinking about something that happened yesterday morning,” Jim Tile said. “About twenty minutes after I dropped you guys off on the highway, I pulled over a pickup truck that nearly broke my radar.”
“Mmmm,” Skink said, acting like he couldn't have cared less.
“I wrote him up a speeding ticket for doing ninety-two. The man said he was late for work. I said where do you work, and he said Miller Lumber. I said you must be new, and he said yeah, that's right. I said it must be your first day because you're driving the wrong damn direction, and then he didn't say anything.”
“You ever seen this boy before?”
“No,” Jim Tile said.
“Or the truck?”
“No. Had Louisiana plates. Jefferson Parish.”
“Mmmm,” Skink said.
“But you know what was funny,” Jim Tile said. “There was a rifle clip on the front seat. No rifle, just a fresh clip. Thirty rounds. Would have fit a Ruger, I expect. The man said the gun was stolen out of his truck down in West Palm. Said some nigger kids stole it.”
Skink frowned. “He said that to your face?
Nigger
kids? What the hell did you do when he said that, Jim? Split open his cracker skull, I hope.”
“Naw,” Jim Tile said. “Know what else was strange? I saw two jugs of coffee on the front seat. Not one, but two.”
“Maybe he was extra thirsty,” Skink said.
“Or maybe the second jug didn't belong to him. Maybe it belonged to a buddy.” The trooper straightened in the driver's seat, yawned, and stretched his arms. “Maybe the man's buddy was the one with the rifle. Maybe there was some trouble back on the road and something happened to him.”
“You got one hell of an imagination,” Skink said. “You ought to write for the movies.” There was no point in telling his friend about the killing. Someday it might be necessary, but not now; the trooper had enough to worry about.
“So you got the fellow's name, the driver,” Skink said.
Jim Tile nodded. “Thomas Curl.”
“I don't believe he works at Miller's,” Skink remarked.
“Me neither.”
“Suppose I ask around New Orleans.”
“Would you mind?” Jim Tile said. “I'm just curious.”
“Don't blame you. Man's got to have a reason for lying to a cop. I'll see what I can dig up.”
They rode the last ten miles in silence; Jim Tile, wishing that Skink would just come out and tell him about it, but knowing there were good reasons not to. The second man was dead, the trooper was sure. Maybe the details weren't all that important.
As he pulled up to the terminal, Jim Tile said, “This Decker, you must think he's all right.”
“Seems solid enough.”
“Just remember he's got other priorities. He's not working for you.”
“Maybe he is,” Skink said, “and he just doesn't know it.”
“Yet,” said Jim Tile.
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R. J. Decker was pacing in front of the Eastern Airlines counter when Skink lumbered in, looking like a biker who'd misplaced all his amphetamines. Still, Decker had to admit, the overall appearance was a slight improvement.
“I took a bath,” Skink said, “aren't you proud?”
“Thank you.”
“I hate airplanes.”
“Come on, they're boarding our flight.”
At the gate Skink got into an argument with a flight attendant who wouldn't let him carry on his scuba gear.
“It won't fit under the seat,” she explained.
“I'll show you where it fits,” Skink growled.
“Just check the tanks into baggage,” Decker said.
“They'll bust 'em,” Skink protested.
“Then I'll buy you new ones.”
“Our handlers are very careful,” the flight attendant said brightly.
“Troglodytes!” said Skink, and stalked onto the airplane.
“Your friend's a little grumpy this morning,” the flight attendant said as she took Decker's ticket coupon.
“He's just a nervous flier. He'll settle down.”
“I hope so. You might mention to him that we have an armed sky marshal on board.”
Oh, absolutely, Decker thought, what a fine idea.
He found Skink hunkered down in the last row of the tail section.
“I traded seats with a couple Catholic missionaries,” Skink explained. “This is the safest place to be if the plane goes down, the last row. Where's your camera gear?”
“In a trunk, don't worry.”
“You remembered the tripod?”
“Yes, captain.”
Skink was a jangled mess. He fumed and squirmed and fidgeted. He scratched nervously at the hair on his cheeks. Decker had never seen him this way.
“You don't like to fly?”
“Spent half my life on planes. Planes don't scare me. I hate the goddamn things but they don't scare me, if that's what you're getting at.” He dug into a pocket of his black denim jacket and brought out the black sunglasses and the flowered shower cap.
“Please don't put those on,” Decker said. “Not right now.”
“You with the fucking FAA or what?” Skink pulled the rainhat tight over his hair. “Who cares,” he said.
The man looks miserable, Decker thought, a true sociopath. It wasn't the airplane, either, it was the people; Skink plainly couldn't stand to be out in public. Under the rainhat he seemed to calm. Behind the charcoal lenses of the sunglasses, Decker sensed, Skink's green eyes had closed.
“Pay no attention to me,” he said quietly.
“Take a nap,” Decker said. The jet engines, which seemed anchored directly over their heads, drowned Decker's words; the plane started rolling down the runway. Skink said nothing until they were airborne.
Then he shifted in his seat and said: “Bad news, Miami. The Rundell brothers are on this bird. Picking their noses up in first class, if you can believe it. Makes me sick.”
Decker hadn't noticed them when he boarded; he'd been preoccupied with Skink. “Did they see you?”
“What do you think?” Skink replied mordantly.
“So much for stealth.”
Skink chuckled. “Culver damn near wet his pants.”
“He'll be on the phone to Lockhart the minute we're on the ground.”
“Can't have that,” Skink said. He stared out the window until the flight attendants started moving down the aisle with the lunch trays. Skink lowered the tabletop at his seat and braced his logger's arms on it.
“Ozzie and Culver, they don't know your face.”
“I don't think so,” Decker said, “but I can't be sure. I believe I stopped in their bait shop once.”
“Damn.” Skink smoothed the plastic cap against his skull and fingered his long braid of hair. Decker could tell he was cooking up a scheme. “Where does this plane go from New Orleans?” Skink asked.
“Tulsa.”
“Good,” Skink said. “That's where you're going. As soon as you get there, hop another flight and come back. You got plenty of cash?”
“Yeah, and plastic.”
“It's cash you'll need,” Skink said. “Most bail bondsmen don't take MasterCard.”
Whatever the plan, Decker didn't like it already. “Is it you or me who's going to need bail?”
“Aw, relax,” Skink said.
But now it was impossible.
When the stewardess brought the food, Skink glowered from under his cap and snapped: “What in the name of Christ is this slop?”
“Beef Wellington, muffins, a fresh garden salad, and carrot cake.”
“How about some goddamn opossum?” Skink said.
The flight attendant's blue buttonlike eyes flickered slightly. “I don't think so, sir, but we may have a chicken Kiev left over from the Atlanta flight.”
“How about squirrel?” Skink said. “Squirrel Kiev would be lovely.”
“I'm sorry, but that's not on the menu,” the stewardess said, the lilt and patience draining from her voice. “Would you care for a beverage this morning?”
“Just possum hormones,” Skink said, “and if I don't get some, I'm going to tear this goddamn airplane apart.” Then he casually ripped the tray table off its hinges and handed it to the flight attendant, who backpedaled in terror up the aisle.
She was calling for her supervisor when Skink rose from his seat and shouted, “You promised opossum! I called ahead and you promised to reserve a possum lunch. Kosher, too!”
R. J. Decker felt paralyzed. Skink's plan was now evident, and irreversible.
“Fresh opossumâor we all die together!” he proclaimed. By now pandemonium was sweeping the tail section; women and children scurried toward the front of the aircraft while the male passengers conferred about the best course of action. Skink's size, apparel, and maniacal demeanor did not invite heroic confrontation at thirty thousand feet.