"Try to clean this messy gunshot and stop your bleeding."
"How come?"
"Good question," the woman said.
Craning his head, Chub saw it was attached to a striped, sand-caked body that could not possibly be his. The cock, for example, was puckered to the size of a raspberry; definitely not a millionaire's cock.
Had to be a nightmare is all, a freak-out from the boat glue. That must be how come the nigger girl looks 'zackly like the one they'd robbed upstate, the one clawed the shit outta us with those hellacious electric-looking fingernails.
"You ain't no doctor," Chub said to her.
"No, but I work in a doctor's office. An animal doctor – "
"Jesus Willy Christ!"
" – and you're about the dumbest, smelliest critter I ever saw," the woman said matter-of-factly.
Chub was too weak to hit her. He wasn't even a hundred percent sure he'd heard it right. Delirium slurred his senses.
"Whatcha gone do with all that lottery money, nigger?"
"Well, I thought I'd buy me a Cadillac or two," JoLayne said, "and a giant-screen color TV."
"Don't you talk down to me."
"And maybe a watermelon patch!"
"You gone kill me, girl?" Chub asked.
"Well, it's tempting."
"Why can't you jes answer me straight."
The white guy's face appeared over the woman's shoulder. He whistled and said, "Hey, sport, what happened to your eye?"
Chub exerted himself to make a sneer. "You muss be some kind a nigger-lover."
"Just a beginner," the white man said.
The last thing Chub heard before blacking out was Bodean Gazzer bellowing: "Hey, I changed my mind! You kin let him die! Go 'head and let the asshole die!"
JoLayne Lucks couldn't do it.
Couldn't, although the stench of the robber had brought everything rushing back, the bile to her throat and the stinging to her eyes. All that had happened that night inside her own house – the horrible words they'd used, the casual way they'd punched her, the places on her body where they'd put their hands.
She still could taste the barrel of the man's revolver, oily and cool on her tongue, yet she couldn't let him die.
Even though he deserved it.
JoLayne willed herself to think of Chub as an animal – a sick confused animal, not unlike the raccoon she'd patched up the night before. It was the only way she could suppress her rage and concentrate on the seeping crater in the man's shoulder; cleaning the wound as best she could, squeezing out the whole tube of antibiotic and dressing the pulp with wads of thin gauze.
The bastard finally passed out, which made it easier. Not having to listen to him call her nigger: that sure helped.
At one point, maneuvering to get the tape on, JoLayne wound up with his head in her lap. Instead of feeling repulsed, she was overwhelmed by an anthropological curiosity. Studying Chub's slack unconscious face, she searched for clues to the toxic wellspring. Was the hatred discernible in his deep-set eyes? The angry-looking creases in his sunburned brow? The dull unhappy set of his stubbled jaw? If there was a telltale mark, a unique congenital feature identifying the man as a cruel sociopath, JoLayne Lucks couldn't find it. His face was no different from that of a thousand other white guys she'd seen, playing out hard fumbling lives. Not all of them were impossible racists.
"Are you all right?" Tom Krome, stooping beside her.
"Fine. Brings back memories of my trauma-unit days."
"How's Gomer?"
"Bleeding's stopped for now. That's about all I can do."
"You want to talk with the other one?"
"Most definitely," JoLayne said.
As Krome approached the buttonwood stump, he sensed something was different. He should've stopped right away to figure it out, but he didn't. Instead he picked up the pace, hurrying toward Bodean Gazzer.
By the time Krome saw the limp rope and noticed the prisoner's legs were tucked under his butt – boot heels braced against the tree trunk – it was too late. With a martial cry the stubby thief vaulted from the ground, spearing Krome in the chest. He toppled backward, sucking air yet clinging madly with both fists to the shotgun. From a bed of damp sand he raised his head to see Bode Gazzer running away, into the mangroves.
Running toward the other end of Pearl Key, where Tom and JoLayne had hidden the other boat.
Which was, now, the only transportation off the island.
Krome hadn't slugged anybody for years. The last time it happened was in the Meadowlands stadium, where he and Mary Andrea were watching the Giants play the Cowboys. The temperature was thirty-eight degrees and the New Jersey sky looked like churned mud. Sitting directly behind Tom Krome and his wife were two enormous noisy men from somewhere in Queens. Longshoremen, Mary Andrea speculated with a scowl, although they would later be revealed as commodities brokers. The men were alternating vodka screwdrivers and beer, and had celebrated a Giants field goal by shedding their coats and jerseys and pinching each other's bare nipples until their eyes watered. By the second quarter Krome was scouting the stands for other seats, while Mary Andrea was packing to go home. One of the New Yorkers produced a pneumatic boat horn, which he deployed in sustained bursts six to ten inches from the base of Krome's skull. Irately Mary Andrea wheeled and snapped at the two men, impelling one of them – he sported a beer-flecked walrus mustache, Krome recalled – to comment loudly upon the modest dimensions of Mary Andrea's breasts, a subject about which she was known to be sensitive.
The colloquy quickly degenerated (despite the distraction of a blocked Dallas punt) until one of the men aimed the boat horn at Mary Andrea's flawless nose and let 'er rip. Krome saw no other option but to punch the fat fuck until he fell down. His bosom buddy of course took a wide sloppy swing at Krome's noggin, but Tom had plenty of time to duck (Mary Andrea was way ahead of him) and unleash a solid uppercut to the scrotal region. The decking of the rude men drew flurries of cheers, the other football fans mistaking Krome's outburst for an act of husbandly chivalry. In truth it was pure selfish anger, as Krome demonstrated by grabbing the boat horn, placing it flush against the right ear of fallen Walrus Face, and blasting away until the canister emptied, its plangent blare ebbing with a sequence of comical burps.
Cops arrived, jotted names, arrested no one. Krome himself fractured two knuckles in the fight but had no regrets. Mary Andrea scolded him for flying off the handle, but phoned every one of her friends to brag on him. A month later the Kromes heard from an attorney representing one of the commodities brokers, who claimed to be suffering from chronic headaches, deafness and myriad psychological problems resulting from the beating. A companion lawsuit was being hatched by the other fan, who was said to be in need of delicate surgery for cosmetic repair of a displaced left testicle. Tom Krome's own lawyer strongly advised him to avoid a trial, which he did by agreeing to purchase Giants season tickets for each of the aggrieved brokers and also providing (thanks to the connections of a sportswriter pal) official-looking NFL footballs personally autographed by Lawrence Taylor.
Krome anticipated no such nuisance suits from Bodean Gazzer and would take all steps necessary to prevent the robber from escaping Pearl Key and stranding Tom and JoLayne without a boat. To prevent shooting off his own toes, Krome prudently set down the shotgun before he started running. The redneck had a fifty-yard head start but he wasn't hard to track, crashing through branches like a crazed rhinoceros. Any concealment provided by Gazzer's camouflage outfit was offset by his unstealthiness. The longer-legged Krome was able to gain ground and at no time mistook the fleeing felon for a mangrove tree.
He overtook Gazzer in a clearing and tackled him. The redneck extracted one chunky leg and slammed his boot smartly into Tom Krome's cheekbone. Quickly Gazzer was up and running again. He got to the Boston Whaler, which he was laboring to drag into the water when Krome again overtook him. They went down in a splash, the camouflaged man windmilling his arms.