Carl Hiassen - Double Whammy

"You've put on some weight," Lanie said. "It's good weight, though, don't worry."

Decker turned on the television, looking for Letterman. He stopped flipping channels when he found one of those dreadful syndicated game shows. He sat down heavily and pretended to watch the tube.

"Do I look any different?" Lanie asked. She didn't say it as if she were begging a compliment.

"You look great," Decker said, turning from the TV.

"Believe it or not, I think I've still got the swimsuit I wore for the pictures."

On this detail Decker's memory was clear. Yellow one-piece thong, the kind that required some touch-up shaving.

Lanie said, "You screwed one of the other models, didn't you?"

Decker sighed.

"She was talking about it on the drive back to Boca."

"I hope she was kind," Decker said. Diane was her name. A very nice lady. Hadn't seemed like the magpie type, but here you had it. He'd kept a phone number, except now she was married to a large Puerto Rican police captain. Her number was filed under S, for suicide.

Lanie Gault kicked her sandals off and sat cross-legged on the bedspread. She wore a fruity-colored sleeveless top and white shorts. Her arms and legs, even the tops of her feet, were a golden tan. So were her neck and chest, the part Decker could see. He wondered about the rest, wondered if it was worth a try. Bad timing, he decided.

"Can we turn that shit down, please?" Lanie said. On the television a young couple from Napa had just won an Oldsmobile Cutlass, and the audience was going nuts.

Decker twisted down the volume.

She said, "Look, I'm sorry about this morning. I'd had a couple martinis to get me going."

"Don't blame you," Decker said.

"I must have sounded like a coldhearted whore, which I'm not."

Decker went along with it. "It was a tough funeral," he said, "especially with the wife there."

"You said it."

"Before you tell me about Bobby," Decker said, "I'd like to know how you knew about me. About why I was here." He guessed it was her brother but he wanted to make sure.

"Dennis called me," Lanie said.

"Why?"

"Because he knows I've got a personal interest. Or maybe he's just feeling guilty about Bobby and wants me to know he's not giving up on it."

Or maybe he wants you to try me out, Decker thought.

Lanie said, "I met Bobby Clinch at a bass tournament in Dallas two summers ago. I was doing outdoor layouts for the Neiman-Marcus catalog—beach togs, picnic wear, stuff like that. Dennis happened to be in town for this big tournament, so I drove out to the reservoir one afternoon, just to say hi. Must have been sixty boats, a hundred guys, and they all looked exactly the same. They dressed alike, walked alike, talked alike, chewed tobacco alike. All dragging fish to be weighed. Afterward they gathered around this tall chalkboard to see who was ahead in the points. Christ, I thought I'd died and gone to redneck hell."

"Then Bobby came along."

"Right," Lanie said. "He said hello, introduced himself. It sounds corny, but I could tell he was different from the others."

"Corny" was not the word for how it sounded. Decker listened politely anyway. He figured there was a love scene coming.

Lanie said, "That night, while the rest of the guys were playing poker and getting bombed, he took me out on the reservoir in his boat, just the two of us. I'll never forget, it was a crescent moon, not a cloud anywhere." She laughed gently and her eyes dropped. "We wound up making it out on the water. In the bow of Bobby's boat was this fancy pedestal seat that spun around ... and that's what we did. Lucky we didn't capsize."

This girl, Decker thought, has a wondrous imagination.

"Bobby wasn't one of these full-time tournament freaks," Lanie said. "He had a good job laying cable for the phone company. He fished four, maybe five pro events a year, so he wasn't a serious threat to anybody. He had no enemies, Decker. All the guys liked Bobby."

"So what made him different?" Decker asked.

"He enjoyed himself more," Lanie said. "He seemed so happy just to be out there ... and those were the best nights for us, after he'd spent a day on the lake. Even if he hadn't caught a thing, he'd be happy. Laughing, oh brother, he'd laugh at the whole damn ritual. Bobby loved fishing, that's for sure, but at least he saw how crazy it looked from the outside. And that's more than I can say for my brother."

R. J. Decker got up and switched off the TV. This was the part he'd been waiting for.

"Did Dennis tell you exactly why he hired me?"

"No," Lanie said, "but it can only be one thing. The cheating."

As if it were no secret.

"Dennis knows Dickie Lockhart's been rigging the tournaments," she said. "It's all he talks about. At first he actually tried to hire some killers. He said that's what Hemingway would have done."

"No, Hemingway would have done it himself."

"About six months ago Dennis flew down two mob guys from Queens. Offered them eighty-five grand to bump off Dickie and grind the body into puppy chow. My brother didn't know one of the creeps was working for the feds—Sal something-or-other. He blabbed the whole crazy story. Luckily no one at the FBI believed it, but for a while Dennis was scared out of his pants. At least it cured him of the urge to kill Dickie Lockhart. Now he says he'll settle for an indictment."

"So your brother's next move," R. J. Decker said, "was to hire me."

Lanie shook her head. "Bobby."

Decker had been hoping she wouldn't say that.

"Dennis met Bobby on the pro circuit and they hit it off right away. They even fished together in a few of the buddy tournaments, and always finished in the loot. Dennis told Bobby his suspicions about Lockhart and offered him a ton of money to get the proof."

"What could Bobby do that your brother couldn't do himself?"

"Snoop," Lanie said, "inconspicuously. Everybody knows Dennis has a hard-on for Dickie Lockhart. Dickie knows it too, and he's damn careful with Dennis around. So my brother's plan was to pull out of the next few tournaments—claim the family business as an excuse—and hope that Dickie got careless."

"With Bobby Clinch watching every move."

"Exactly."

Decker asked, "How much money did Dennis offer him?"

"Plenty. Bobby wasn't greedy, but he wanted enough to be able to get out of his marriage. See, he wanted Clarisse to have the house, free and clear. He'd never just walk out on her and the kids."

R. J. Decker wasn't exactly moved to tears. Lanie's story was murky, and Decker was ready to say goodnight.

"Did your brother know about you and Bobby?" he asked.

"Sure he did. Dennis never said a word, but I'm sure he knew." Lanie Gault put her hands under her chin. "I thought he might bring it up, after Bobby was killed. Just a note or a phone call—something to let on that he knew I was hurting. Not Dennis. The sonofabitch has Freon in his veins, I'm warning you. My brother wants to nail Dickie Lockhart and if you happen to die in the chase he won't be sending a wreath to the funeral. Just another replacement. Like you."

The possibility of being murdered over a dead fish did not appeal to R. J. Decker's sense of adventure. He had photographed men who had died for less, and many who had died for more. Over the years he had adopted a carrion fly's unglamorous view of death: it didn't really matter how you got that way, it stunk just the same.

"You think Lockhart killed your boyfriend?" Decker asked Lanie.

"Who else would do it?"

"You're sure it was no accident?"

"Positive," Lanie said. "Bobby knew every log in that lake. He could've run it blindfolded."

Decker was inclined to believe her. "Who owns Dickie's TV show?" he asked.

"The Outdoor Christian Network. You heard of it?"