Part 29 (1/2)

”Wouldn't stick. No one saw me do it, and no one found the gun. h.e.l.l, they wouldn't even hold me overnight.”

”Yeah, they would,” Jim Tile said, ”on my word.”

Skink's smile went away.

The trooper said, ”The charge wouldn't stick, that's true. But I could take you out of circulation for a month or two. Let the situation simmer down.”

”Why?” Skink demanded. ”You know I'm right. You know what I'm doing is right.”

”Not shooting rental cars.”

”A lapse of judgment,” Skink admitted. ”I said I was sorry, for G.o.d's sake.”

Jim Tile put a hand on his friend's shoulder. ”I know you think it's the right thing, and the cause is good. But I'm afraid you're gonna lose.”

”Maybe not,” Skink said. ”I think the Mojo's rising.”

The trooper always got lost when Skink started quoting old rock-and-roll songs; someday he was going to sit Skink's s.h.i.+ny a.s.s down and make him listen to Aretha. Put some soul in his system. Jim Tile said, ”I've got a life, too. Can't spend the rest of it looking out for you.”

Skink sagged against the car door. ”Jim, they're paving the G.o.dd.a.m.n island.”

”Not the whole thinga””

”But this is how it begins,” Skink said. ”Jesus Christ, you ought to know. This is how it begins!”

There was no point in pus.h.i.+ng it. The state had bought up nearly all North Key Largo for preservation; the Amazing Kingdom and the Falcon Trace property were essentially all that remained in private hands. Still, Skink was not celebrating.

Jim Tile said, ”This guy you recruiteda””

”I didn't recruit him.”

”Whatever. He's in it, that's the main thing.”

”Apparently so,” Skink said. ”Apparently he's serious.”

”So locking you up won't do any good, will it? Not with him still out there.” The trooper put on his hat and adjusted it out of habit. In the darkness of the car, Skink couldn't read the expression on his friend's face. Jim Tile said, ”Promise me one thing, all right? Talk some sense to the boy. He's new at it, Governor, and he could get hurt. That stunt with the bulldozers, it's not cool.”

”I know,” said Skink, ”but it's got a certain flair.”

”Listen to me,” Jim Tile said sternly. ”Already he's got some serious people after his a.s.s, you understand? There's things I can help with and things I can't.”

Skink nodded. ”I'll talk to him, I promise. And thanks.”

Then he was gone. Jim Tile reached across to shut the door and his arm instantly was enveloped by an influx of mosquitoes. Frenzied humming filled the car.

He stomped the accelerator and the big Crown Victoria sprayed a fusillade of gravel into the mangroves. Westbound at a hundred fifteen miles an hour, the trooper rolled down the windows to let the wind suck the bugs from the car.

”Two of them.” His words were swallowed in the roar of the open night. ”Now I got two of the crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”

TWENTY-ONE.

Carrie Lanier's place was furnished as exquisitely as any mobile home. It had a microwave, an electric can opener, a stove, a nineteen-inch color TV, two paddle fans and a Naugahyde convertible sofa where Joe Winder slept. But there was no music, so on his third day as a fugitive Winder borrowed Carrie's car and went back to the apartment to retrieve his stereo system and rock tapes. He was not totally surprised to find that his place had been broken, entered and ransacked; judging by the viciousness of the search, Pedro Luz was the likely intruder. The inventory of losses included the portable television, three champagne gla.s.ses, a tape recorder, the plumbing fixtures, the mattress, a small Matisse print and the toaster. One of Nina's pink bras, which she had forgotten, had been desecrated ominously with cigarette burns, and hung from a Tiffany lamp. Also, the freshwater aquarium had been shattered, and the twin Siamese fighting fish had been killed. It appeared to Joe Winder that their heads were pinched off.

The stereo tuner and tape deck escaped harm, though the turntable was in pieces. A pair of hedge clippers protruded from one of the speakers; the other, fortunately, was undamaged.

”It's better than nothing,” Joe Winder said when he got back to the trailer. ”Low fidelity is better than no fidelity.”

While he rea.s.sembled the components, Carrie Lanier explored the box of ca.s.settes. Every now and then she would smile or go ”Hmmm” in an amused tone.

Finally Winder looked up from the nest of colored wires and said, ”You don't like my music?”

”I like it just fine,” she said. ”I'm learning a lot about you. We've got The Kinks. Seeger live at Cobo Hall. Mick and the boys.”

”Living in the past, I know.”

”Oh, baloney.” She began to stack the tapes alphabetically on a shelf made from raw plywood and cinder blocks.

”Do you have a typewriter?” he asked.

”In the closet,” Carrie said. ”Are you going to start writing again?”

”I wouldn't call it writing.”

She got out the typewriter, an old Olivetti manual, and made a place for it on the dinette. ”This is a good idea,” she said to Joe Winder. ”You'll feel much better. No more shooting at heavy machinery.”

He reminded her that he hadn't actually pulled the trigger on the bulldozers. Then he said, ”I stopped writing a long time ago. Stopped being a journalist, anyway.”

”But you didn't burn out, you sold out.”

”Thanks,” Winder said, ”for the reminder.”

It was his fault for staggering down memory lane in the first place. Two nights earlier, Carrie had quizzed him about the newspaper business, wanted to know what kind of stories he'd written. So he'd told her about the ones that had stuck with him. The murder trial of a thirteen-year-old boy who'd shot his little sister because she had borrowed his Aerosmith alb.u.m without asking. The marijuana-smuggling ring led by a fugitive former justice of the Florida Supreme Court. The bribery scandal in which dim-witted Dade County building inspectors were caught soliciting Lotto tickets as payoffs. The construction of a $47 million superhighway by a Mafia contractor whose formula for high-grade asphalt included human body parts.

Joe Winder did not mention the story that had ended his career. He offered nothing about his father. When Carrie Lanier had asked why he'd left the newspaper for public relations, he simply said, ”Because of the money.” She had seemed only mildly interested in his short time as a Disney World flack, but was impressed by the reckless s.e.xual behavior that had gotten him fired. She said it was a healthy sign that he had not become a corporate drone, that the spark of rebellion still glowed in his soul. ”Maybe in my pants,” Winder said, ”not in my soul.”

Carrie repeated what she had told him the first night: ”You could always go back to being a reporter.”

”No, I'm afraid not.”

”So what is it you want to typea”love letters? Maybe a confession?” Mischievously she tapped the keys of the Olivetti; two at a time, as if she were playing ”Chopsticks.”

The trailer was getting smaller and smaller. Joe Winder felt the heat lick at his eardrums. He said, ”There's a reason you've hidden that gun.”

”Because it's not your style.” Carrie slapped the carriage and made the typewriter ring. ”G.o.d gave you a talent for expression, a gift with the language.”

Winder moaned desolately. ”Have you ever read a single word I've written?”