Chub leaned forward. "What's wrong with right now?"
"Not in the truck. I can't preside and drive at the same time."
"Hell, you can't piss and whistle at the same time." Chub ran a mossy-looking tongue across his front teeth. "We don't need a damn meeting. We need our Lotto money."
Bode said, "No, man, it's too soon."
Chub took out the .357 and placed it on the floorboard at his feet. "Before somethin' else goes wrong," he said.
Wedged between the squabbling criminals in the front seat, Shiner felt inexplicably safe. Chub was the toughest, and not only because of the guns. Bode could be a hardass, too, but he was more of a thinker; the idea man. Shiner liked his suggestion for a real militia meeting, liked his attention to orderliness and strategy. But before the White Clarion Aryans held a meeting, Shiner wanted to get his tattoo fixed. It couldn't be that difficult, changing the W.R.B.to W.C.A.The screaming eagle was perfect the way it was.
When he inquired about stopping at a tattoo parlor, Chub laughed and said, "Just what you need."
"I'm dead serious."
Bode, stiffening in the driver's seat: "We ain't stoppin' for no such nonsense."
"Please, I got to!"
Chub said, "Aw, look at your damn arm. It's still bruised up from last time, like a rotten banana."
"You don't unnerstand." Shiner's chin dropped as he slid into a sulk.
Not this again, Chub thought. He snatched up the Colt and twisted the barrel into the kid's groin. "Son, you 'bout the whiniest little fuck I ever met."
Shiner's head came up with a jerk. "I'm s-sorry."
"Sorry don't begin to cover it."
Bode told his partner to take it easy. "We're all three of us still jacked up from last night. Tell you what, let's stop over to the trailer and fetch the automatics. Go out by the rock pit and let off some steam."
"Way cool," Shiner said, expectantly.
"Then, after, we'll have a meeting."
Chub said, "Whoop-dee-doo." He put the pistol in his belt. "Fuck the rock pit. I wanna shoot at somethin' that moves. Somethin' bigger 'n' faster than a goddamn turtle."
"Such as?"
"Wait and see," said Chub. "Shoot a Jew, cap a Jap – "
"Pop a wop," Shiner chimed. "Yeah!"
Bode Gazzer hoped his partner's sinister mood would pass before they broke out the serious toys.
Moffitt wasn't supposed to get mad.
He was a pro. He dealt with low-rent shitheads all the time.
But sneaking through the cramped apartment of Bodean James Gazzer, the agent felt his anger rise.
The wall poster of David Koresh, the Waco wacko himself. Moffitt had lost a friend in that fiasco of a raid.
Then there were the bullet holes in the plaster. Empty ammo-clips. Stacks of gun magazines and Soldier of Fortune.Porno videos. A paperback book called The Poacher's Bible.A pepper mill trimmed with a Nazi armband. A how-to pamphlet on fertilizer bombs. A clipped-out cartoon proposing a humorous aspect to the Holocaust. An assortment of NRA patches and bumper stickers. A closetful of camouflage clothes. Tacked to the peeling wallpaper behind the toilet: a Confederate flag. In the bedroom, a calico cross-stitched portrait of David Duke.
Moffitt thought: These guys must've had a blast, working on JoLayne.
He locked the front door behind him, bracing it with a chair. He opened a back window and punched out the screen, as an escape in case Bodean James Gazzer returned. The fresh air didn't hurt, either – the place smelled of soiled laundry, cigaret ash and stale beer. Methodically, Moffitt began to search. He knew from experience that even the dimmest of thugs occasionally could be brilliant at concealing contraband – and a lottery ticket was easier to hide than an AK-47 or a kilo of hash.
The kitchen was first. One glance at the crusty silverware made Moffitt glad he wore surgical gloves. With a heavy forearm he cleared the cluttered dinette. There he dumped every box and tin from Bodean James Gazzer's cabinets – sugar, flour, instant coffee, Cocoa Krispies, croutons, Quaker Oats.
No Lotto stub.
He took a deep breath before opening the refrigerator, but it wasn't as rancid as he'd feared. The food section was practically empty except for Budweisers, marshmallow-filled cookies, ketchup and a fuzzy chunk of Gouda. Finding nothing hidden there, Moffitt hacked his way into the freezer compartment, a favorite stash of novice dopers and smugglers. A half-gallon container of ancient fudge-ripple ice cream went into a mixing bowl, which went into the stove. When the slop was melted, Moffitt strained it through a colander. Then he emptied the ice trays on the counter and examined each cube.
No ticket.
He grabbed a steak knife and headed for the bedroom, where he eviscerated the pillows, gutted the mattress and (box spring, pried up the musty corners of the carpet. Inside Bodean James Gazzer's dresser, Moffitt came across something he'd never before seen: camo-style underwear. There was also a World War II bayonet, a gummy-looking Penthouseand a pile of dunning notices from the National Rifle Association for unpaid dues. Moffitt was certain he had hit pay dirt in the bottom drawer, beneath a tangle of frayed socks, where he uncovered five crisp tickets from the Florida Lotto.
But none of the sequences matched JoLayne's winning numbers, and the date of the drawing was wrong: December 2.
That's tomorrow, thought Moffitt. Unbelievable – the $14 million they stole from her wasn't enough. The fuckers want more.
He pocketed the tickets and, with some dread, moved to the bathroom. A colony of plump carpenter ants had taken over the sink, demonstrating a special fondness for Bodean James Gazzer's toothbrush. Moffitt dove into the medicine chest and emptied the pill bottles. Several had been prescribed to persons other than Mr. Gazzer, who'd undoubtedly stolen them or forged the scrips. Moffitt took his time with a dispenser of Crest and a tube of hemorrhoid cream, which he flattened under a shoe and then opened with a wire cutter.
Nothing.
The vanity held an empty box of Trojan nonlubricated condoms, which intrigued Moffitt. Bodean James Gazzer's apartment showed no signs of a woman's presence – certainly no woman who was worried about catching a disease. Maybe Gazzer was gay, the agent thought, although it seemed unlikely, given the homophobic tendencies of gun nuts. Also, the pornographic videos stacked near the TV set bore heterosexually oriented titles.
Maybe the loon wore rubbers when he jacked off. Or maybe he used them with hookers. In any event, he'd been a busy boy.
The answer to the riddle of the Trojans turned up in a plastic trash can: five foil condom wrappers and a razor blade. Moffitt aligned them on the toilet seat. The condoms were inside the packages, and Moffitt cautiously removed them with a tweezers. Each of them bore visible nicks or slices, which presumably was why they'd been discarded.
Moffitt concentrated on the bright wrappers. Clearly they hadn't been torn open in the ordinary haste of lust. Instead they'd painstakingly been cut along one edge, undoubtedly with the razor blade. Even with such care, Bodean James Gazzer had damaged all five rubbers.
The sixth must have been the winner. Moffitt was pretty sure he knew where it was and what was hidden inside it.
"Fucker," he said aloud.
Mr. Gazzer must be quite the optimist, the agent reflected. Why else would he care whether the condom in which he'd concealed the lottery ticket was usable?
On his way out of the apartment, Moffitt encountered a stout rat gorging itself in the mounds of sugar and cereal on the dinette. His first impulse was to shoot it, but then he thought: Why do Gazzer any favors? With luck, the critter was rabid.
By nature Moffitt was not a mischievous person, but he was inspired by the shabby trappings of hate. He had a nagging image of Bodean Gazzer and his sadistic partner – one would be stretched out in his underwear on the futon, the other might be slouched at the dinette. They'd be slugging down Budweisers, laughing about what they'd done to JoLayne Lucks, trying to remember who'd punched her where. The look in her eyes. The sounds she made.