In a tone of solemn indignation, Chub accosted the fearful young Colombian: "You fuckers sneak into this country, steal our jobs and then take over our golf courses. If I might ast, Mister Roberto Stockbroker, what's next? You gone run for President?"
Shiner was so stirred that he patriotically kicked the car, the golf cleats leaving a flawless perforation. Bode Gazzer, however, showed no sign of indignation.
Chub set aside the rifle and seized Roberto Lopez by the collar. "OK, smart-ass," Chub said, recalling Bode's piercing roadside interrogation of the migrant workers, "gimme the fourteenth President of the U.S.A."
Tightly the young Colombian answered, "Franklin Pierce."
"Ha! Frankie who?"
"Pierce."Bode's voice dripped bitterness. "President Franklin Pierce is right. The man got it right."
Deflated, Chub stepped back. "Jesus Willy Christ."
"I'm outta here," Bodean Gazzer said, and headed toward the pickup truck. Chub vented his disappointment by punching the luckless stockbroker in the nose, while Shiner concentrated his energies on the exterior of the Mustang.
To elude the process servers hired by her estranged husband, Mary Andrea Finley Krome began calling herself "Julie Channing," a weakly veiled homage to her two all-time-favorite Broadway performers. So determined was Mary Andrea to resist divorce court that she went a step further: At a highway rest stop outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming, she cut her bounteous red hair and penciled in new full eyebrows. That same afternoon she drove into town and unsuccessfully auditioned for a ragged but rousing production of Oliver Twist.
Back in Brooklyn, the resourceful Dick Turnquist had compiled from the World Wide Web a list of theater promoters in the rural western states. He faxed to each one a recent publicity shot of Mary Andrea Finley Krome, accompanied by a brief inquiry hinting at a family emergency back East – had anyone seen her? The director in Jackson Hole was concerned enough to reply, by telephone. He said the woman in the photograph bore a keen resemblance to an actress who had, only yesterday, read for the parts of both Fagin and the Artful Dodger. And while Miss Julia Channing's singing voice was perfectly adequate, the director said, her Cockney accent needed work. "She could've handled Richard the Second," the director explained, "but what I needed was a pickpocket."
By the time Dick Turnquist retained and dispatched a local private investigator, Mary Andrea Finley Krome was already gone from the mountain town.
What impressed Turnquist was her perseverance for the stage life. Knowing she was being pursued, Mary Andrea continued to make herself visible. And although changing one's professional name might tax the ego, as subterfuge it was pretty feeble. Mary Andrea could have melted into any city and taken any anonymous job – waitress, receptionist, bartender – with only a negligible decline of income. Yet she chose to keep acting despite the risk of discovery and subpoena. Perhaps she was indomitably committed to her craft, but Turnquist believed there was another explanation: Mary Andrea needed the attention. She craved the limelight, no matter how remote or fleeting.
Well, Turnquist reflected, who didn't.
She could call herself whatever she wanted – Julie Channing, Liza Bacall, it didn't matter. The lawyer knew he would eventually catch up to the future ex – Mrs. Krome and compel her presence in the halls of justice.
He therefore was not at all distressed when The Registercalled to inform him that Tom Krome had died in a suspicious house fire. Having only an hour earlier chatted with his client, alive and uncharred in a Coral Gables motel, Turnquist realized the newspaper was about to make a humongous mistake. It was about to devote its entire front page to a dead man who wasn't.
Yet the lawyer chose not to edify the young reporter on the end of the line. Turnquist was careful not to lie outright; it wasn't required. Conveniently the young reporter failed to ask Turnquist if he'd spoken to Tom Krome that day, or if he had any reason to believe Tom Krome was not deceased.
Instead the reporter said: "How long had you known each other? What are your fondest memories? How do you think he'd like to be remembered?"
All questions that Dick Turnquist found it easy to answer. He didn't say so, but he was grateful to The Registerfor saving him further aggravation in tracking Mary Andrea Finley Krome. Once she heard the news, she'd naturally assume she could stop running, Tom's dying would get her off the hook, litigation-wise, and she'd have no reason to continue the dodge. Mary Andrea had always been less concerned with saving the marriage than with avoiding the stigma of divorce. The last true Catholic, in her estranged husband's words.
She was also a ham. Dick Turnquist expected Mary Andrea would get the first plane for Florida, to play the irresistible role of grief-stricken widow – sitting for poignant TV interviews, attending weepy candlelight memorials, stoically announcing journalism scholarships in her martyred spouse's name.
And we'll be waiting for her, thought Dick Turnquist.
On the phone, the reporter from The Registerwas winding up the interview. "Thanks for talking with me at such a difficult time. Just one more question: As Tom's close friend, how do you feel about what's happened?"
The lawyer answered, quite truthfully: "Well, it doesn't seem real."
On the morning of December 2, Bernard Squires telephoned Clara Markham in Grange to inquire if his generous purchase offer had been conveyed to the sellers of Simmons Wood.
"But it's only been three days," the broker said.
"You haven't even spoken to them?"
"I've put in a call," Clara fudged. "They said Mr. Simmons is in Las Vegas. His sister is on holiday down in the islands."
Bernard Squires said, "They have telephones in Las Vegas, I know for a fact."
Normally Bernard was not so impatient, but Richard "The Icepick" Tarbone urgently needed to make a covert withdrawal from the union pension accounts. The nature of the family emergency was not confided to Bernard Squires, and he pointedly exhibited a lack of curiosity on the matter. But since the Florida real estate purchase was crucial to the money laundering, The Icepick had taken a personal interest in expediting the deal. None of this could be frankly communicated by Bernard Squires to Clara Markham, who was saying:
"I'll try to reach them again this morning. I promise."
"And there are no other offers?" Bernard asked.
"Nothing on the table," said Clara, which was strictly the truth.
As soon as the man from Chicago hung up, she dialed the number in Coral Gables that JoLayne had given her. A desk clerk at the motel said Miss Lucks and her friend had checked out.
With heavy reluctance Clara Markham then phoned the attorney handling the estate of the late Lighthorse Simmons. She described the pension fund's offer for the forty-four acres on the outskirts of Grange. The attorney said three million sounded like a fair price. He seemed sure the heirs would leap at it.
Clara was sure, too. She felt bad for her friend, but business was business. Unless JoLayne Lucks found a miracle, Simmons Wood was lost.
An hour later, when Bernard Squires' telephone rang, he thought it must be Clara Markham calling with the good news. It wasn't. It was Richard Tarbone.
"I'm sicka this shit," he told Squires. "You get your ass down to Florida."
And Squires went.
They'd checked out of the Comfort Inn shortly after Moffitt's visit. The agent had come straight from the redneck's apartment. His tight-lipped expression told the story: no Lotto ticket.
"Damn," JoLayne had said.
"I think I know where it is."
"Where?"
"He hid it in a rubber. The camo guy."
"A rubber." JoLayne, pressing her knuckles to her forehead, trying not to get grossed out.