Double Whammy (8 page)

“You'll hear my theory tonight, on the lake.”

“On the lake?”

“Your first communion,” Skink said, and scrambled noisily back up into the big pine.

 

Ott Pickney had left Miami in gentle retreat from big-city journalism. He knew he could have stayed at the
Sun
for the rest of his life, but felt he had more or less made his point. Having written virtually nothing substantial in at least a decade, he had nonetheless departed the newspaper in a triumphant state of mind. He had survived the conversion to cold type, the advent of unions, the onslaught of the preppy cubs, the rise of the hotshot managers. Ott had watched the stars and starfuckers arrive and, with a minimum of ambition, outlasted most of them. He felt he was living proof that a successful journalist need not be innately cunning or aggressive, even in South Florida.

In Ott's own mind, Harney was the same game, just a slower track.

Which is why he half-resented R. J. Decker's infernal skepticism about the death of Bobby Clinch. A foolhardy fisherman wrecks his boat and drowns—so what? In Miami it's one crummy paragraph on page 12-D; no one would look twice. Ott Pickney was peeved at Decker's coy insinuation that something sinister was brewing right under Ott's nose. This wasn't Dade County, he thought, and these weren't Dade County people. The idea of an organized cheating ring at the fish tournaments struck Ott as merely farfetched, but the suggestion of foul play in Robert Clinch's death was a gross insult to the community. Ott resolved to show R. J. Decker how wrong he was.

After the funeral, Ott went back to the newsroom and stewed awhile. The
Sentinel
's deadlines being what they were, he had two days to play with the Clinch piece. As he flipped through his notebook, Ott figured he had enough to bang out fifteen or twenty inches. Barely.

In an uncharacteristic burst of tenacity, he decided to give Clarisse Clinch another shot.

He found the house in chaos. A yellow moving van was parked out front; a crew of burly men was emptying the place. Clarisse had set up a command post in the kitchen, and under her scathing direction the movers were working very swiftly.

“Sorry to intrude,” Ott said to her, “but I remembered a couple more questions.”

“I got no answers,” Clarisse snapped. “We're on our way to Valdosta.”

Ott tried to picture Clarisse in a slinky, wet-looking dress, sliding long-legged into a tangerine sports car. He couldn't visualize it. This woman was a different species from Lanie Gault.

“I just need a little more about Bobby's hobby,” Ott said. “A few anecdotes.”

“Anecdotes!” Clarisse said sharply. “You writing a book?”

“Just a feature story,” Ott said. “Bobby's friends say he was quite a fisherman.”

“You saw the coffin,” Clarisse said. “And you saw his friends.” She clapped her hands twice loudly. “Hey! Watch the ottoman, Pablo, unless you want to buy me a new one!”

The man named Pablo mumbled something obscene.

Clarisse turned back to Ott. “Do you fish?”

He shook his head.

“Thank God there's at least one of you,” she said.

Her eyes flickered to a bookcase in the living room. Ott noticed that there were no books on the shelves, only trophies. Each of the trophies was crowned with a cheap gold-painted replica of a jumping fish. Bass, Ott assumed. He counted up the trophies and wrote the number “18” in his notebook. One of the movers unfolded a big cardboard box and began wrapping and packing the trophies.

“No!” Clarisse said. “Those go in the dumpster.”

The mover shrugged.

Ott followed the widow to the garage. “This junk in here,” she was saying, “I've got to sell.”

Bobby Clinch's fishing gear. Cane poles, spinning rods, flipping rods, bait-casting rods, popping rods, fly rods. Ott Pickney counted them up and wrote “22” in his notebook. Each of the outfits seemed to be in immaculate condition.

“These are worth a lot of money,” Ott said to Clarisse.

“Maybe I should take out an ad in your newspaper.”

“Yes, good idea.” All Harney
Sentinel
reporters were trained in the paperwork of classified advertising, just in case the moment arose. Ott got a pad of order forms out of the glove box in the truck.

“Twenty-two fishing rods,” he began.

“Three pairs of hip waders,” Clarisse said, rummaging through her husband's bass trove.

“Two landing nets,” Ott noted.

“Four vests,” she said, “one with Velcro pockets.”

“Is that an electric hook sharpener?”

“Brand new,” Clarisse said. “Make sure you put down that it's brand new.”

“Got it.”

“And I don't know what to do about
this.”
From under a workbench she dragged what appeared to be a plastic suitcase with the word “PLANO” stamped on the top. “I can't even lift the dam thing,” she said. “I'm afraid to look inside.”

“What is it?” Ott asked.

“The mother lode,” Clarisse said. “Bobby's tacklebox.”

Ott hoisted it by the handle, then set it down on the kitchen counter. It must have weighed fifty pounds.

“He has junk in there from when he was ten years old. Lures and stuff.” Clarisse's voice sounded small; she was blinking her eyes as if she were about to cry, or at least fighting the urge.

Ott unfastened the clasps on the tacklebox and opened the lid. He had never seen such an eclectic collection of gadgets: rainbow-colored worms and frogs and plastic minnows and even tiny rubber snakes, all bristling with diamond-sharpened hooks. The lures were neatly organized on eight folding trays. Knives, pliers, stainless-steel hook removers, sinkers, swivels, and spools of leader material filled the bottom of the box.

In a violet velvet pouch was a small bronze scale used for weighing bass. The numerals on the scale optimistically went up to twenty-five pounds, although no largemouth bass that size had ever been caught.

Of the scale, Clarisse remarked: “That stupid thing cost forty bucks. Bobby said it was tournament-certified, whatever that means. All the guys had the same model, he said, so nobody could cheat on the weight.”

Ott Pickney carefully fitted the bronze scale back in its pouch. He returned the pouch to Bobby Clinch's tacklebox and closed the latches.

Clarisse sat down on the concrete steps in the garage and stared sadly at the bushel of orphaned fishing poles. She said, “This is what Bobby's life was all about, Mr. Pickney. Not me or the kids or the job at the phone company . . . just this. He wasn't happy unless he was out on the lake.”

Finally a decent quote, Ott thought, and scribbled feverishly in his notebook.
He wasn't happy unless he was fishing on the lake.
Close enough.

It wasn't until later, as Ott Pickney was driving back to the newspaper office, that it hit him like a fist in the gut: R. J. Decker was right. Something odd was going on.

If Bobby Clinch had taken the tacklebox on his fateful trip, it surely would have been lost in the boat accident.

So why had he gone to Lake Jesup without it?

 

Skink's boat was a bare twelve-foot skiff with peeling oars and splinters on the seat planks.

“Get in,” he told R. J. Decker.

Decker sat in the prow and Skink shoved off. It was a chilly night under a muffled sky; an unbroken mat of high gray clouds, pushed south by a cold breeze. Skink set a Coleman lantern in the center of the skiff, next to Decker's weatherproof camera bag.

“No bugs,” Skink remarked. “Not with this wind.”

He had brought two fishing rods that looked like flea-market specials. The fiberglass was brown and faded, the reels tarnished and dull. The outfits bore no resemblance to the sparkling masterpiece that Decker had seen displayed so reverently in Bobby Clinch's casket.

Skink rowed effortlessly; wavelets kissed at the bow as the little boat crossed Lake Jesup. Decker enjoyed the quiet ride in the cool night. He was still slightly uneasy around Skink, but he was beginning to like the guy, even if he was a head case. Decker had met a few like Skink, eccentric hoary loners. Some were hiding, some were running, some just waiting for something, or someone, to catch up. That was Skink, waiting. Decker would give him plenty of room.

“Looks like no one else is out tonight,” he said to Skink.

“Ha, they're everywhere,” Skink said. He rowed with his back to Decker. Decker wished he'd take off the damn shower cap, but couldn't figure a way to broach the subject.

“How do you know which way to go?” he asked.

“There's a trailer park due northwest. Lights shine through the trees,” Skink said. “They leave 'em on all night, too. Old folks who live there, they're scared if the lights go off. Wild noises tend to get loud in the darkness—you ever noticed that, Miami? Pay attention now: the boat is the face of a clock, and you're sittin' at midnight. The trailer park lights are ten o'clock—”

“I see.”

“Good. Now look around about two-thirty, see there? More lights. That's a Zippy Mart on Route 222.” Skink described all this without once turning around. “Which way we headed from camp, Miami?”

“Looks like due north.”

“Good,” Skink said. “Got myself a fuckin' Eagle Scout in the boat.”

Decker didn't know what this giant fruitcake was up to, but a boat ride sure beat hell out of an all-night divorce surveillance.

Skink stopped rowing after twenty minutes. He set the lantern on the seat plank and picked up one of the fishing rods. From the prow Decker watched him fiddling with the line, and heard him curse under his breath.

Finally Skink pivoted on the seat and handed Decker the spinning rod. Tied to the end of the line was a long purple rubber lure. Decker figured it was supposed to be an eel, a snake, or a worm with thyroid. Skink's knot was hardly the tightest that Decker had ever seen.

“Let's see you cast,” Skink said.

Decker held the rod in his right hand. He took it back over his shoulder and made a motion like he was throwing a baseball. The rubber lure landed with a slap four feet from the boat.

“That sucks,” Skink said. “Try opening the bail.”

He showed Decker how to open the face of the reel, and how to control the line with the tip of his forefinger. He demonstrated how the wrist, not the arm, supplied the power for the cast. After a half-dozen tries, Decker was winging the purple eel sixty-five feet.

“All right,” Skink said. He turned off the Coleman lantern.

The boat drifted at the mouth of a small cove, where the water lay as flat as a smoky mirror. Even on a starless night the lake gave off its own gray light. Decker could make out an apron of pines along the shore; around the boat were thick-stemmed lily pads, cypress nubs, patches of tall reeds.

“Go to it,” said Skink.

“Where?” Decker said. “Won't I get snagged on all these lilies?”

“That's a weedless hook on the end of your line. Cast just like you were doing before, then think like a nightcrawler. Make it dance like a goddamn worm that knows it's about to get eaten.”

Decker made a good cast. The lure plopped into the pads. As he retrieved it, he waggled the rod in a lame attempt to make the plastic bait slither.

“Jesus Christ, it's not a fucking
breadstick
it's a snake.” Skink snatched the outfit from Decker's hands and made a tremendous cast. The lure made a distant plop as it landed close to the shoreline. “Now watch the tip of the rod,” Skink instructed. “Watch my wrists.”

The snake-eel-worm skipped across the lily pads and wriggled across the plane of the water. Decker had to admit it looked alive.

When the lure was five feet from the boat, it seemed to explode. Or something exploded beneath it. Skink yanked back, hard, but the eel flew out of the water and thwacked into his shower cap.

Decker's chest pounded in a spot right under his throat. Only bubbles and foam floated in the water where the thing had been.

“What the hell was that?” he stammered.

“Hawg,” Skink said. “Good one, too.” He unhooked the fake eel from his cap and handed the fishing rod back to Decker. “You try. Quick now, while he's still hot in the belly.”

Decker made a cast in the same direction. His fingers trembled as he jigged the rubber creature across the surface of the cove.

“Water's nervous,” Skink said, drying his beard. “Slow it down a tad.”

“Like this?” Decker whispered.

“Yeah.”

Decker heard it before he felt it. A jarring concussion, as if somebody had thrown a cinderblock in the water near the boat. Instantly something nearly pulled the rod from his hands. On instinct Decker yanked back. The line screeched off the old reel in short bursts, bending the rod into an inverse U. The fish circled and broke the surface on the starboard side, toward the stem. Its back was banded in greenish black, its shoulders bronze, and its fat belly as pale as ice. The gills rattled like dice when the bass shook its huge mouth.

“Damn!” Decker grunted.

“She's a big girl,” Skink said, just watching.

The fish went deep, tugged some, sat some, then dug for the roots of the lilies. Awestruck, Decker more or less hung on. Skink knew what would happen, and it did. The fish cleverly wrapped the line in the weeds and broke off with a loud crack. The battle had lasted but three minutes.

“Shit,” Decker said. He turned on the lantern and studied the broken end of the monofilament.

“Ten-pounder,” Skink said. “Easy.” He swung his legs over the plank, braced his boots on the transom, and started to row.