"Tulsa."
"Good," Skink said. "That's where you're going. As soon as you get there, hop another flight and come back. You got plenty of cash?"
"Yeah, and plastic."
"It's cash you'll need," Skink said. "Most bail bondsmen don't take MasterCard."
Whatever the plan, Decker didn't like it already. "Is it you or me who's going to need bail?"
"Aw, relax," Skink said.
But now it was impossible.
When the stewardess brought the food, Skink glowered from under his cap and snapped: "What in the name of Christ is this slop?"
"Beef Wellington, muffins, a fresh garden salad, and carrot cake."
"How about some goddamn opossum?" Skink said.
The flight attendant's blue buttonlike eyes flickered slightly. "I don't think so, sir, but we may have a chicken Kiev left over from the Atlanta flight."
"How about squirrel?" Skink said. "Squirrel Kiev would be lovely."
"I'm sorry, but that's not on the menu," the stewardess said, the lilt and patience draining from her voice. "Would you care for a beverage this morning?"
"Just possum hormones," Skink said, "and if I don't get some, I'm going to tear this goddamn airplane apart." Then he casually ripped the tray table off its hinges and handed it to the flight attendant, who backpedaled in terror up the aisle.
She was calling for her supervisor when Skink rose from his seat and shouted, "You promised opossum! I called ahead and you promised to reserve a possum lunch. Kosher, too!"
R. J. Decker felt paralyzed. Skink's plan was now evident, and irreversible.
"Fresh opossum—or we all die together!" he proclaimed. By now pandemonium was sweeping the tail section; women and children scurried toward the front of the aircraft while the male passengers conferred about the best course of action. Skink's size, apparel, and maniacal demeanor did not invite heroic confrontation at thirty thousand feet.
To Decker it seemed like every passenger in the airplane had turned around to stare at the lunatic in the flowered shower cap.
The aisle cleared as a man with a badge on his shirt came out of first class and hurried toward the trouble.
"Remember, you don't know me!" Skink whispered to Decker.
"No kidding."
The sky marshal, a short stocky man with a bushy mustache, asked R. J. Decker if he would mind moving up a few rows for the remainder of the flight.
"Gladly," Decker said.
The sky marshal carried no gun, just a short billy club and a pair of handcuffs. He sat down in Decker's seat.
"Are you the man with the opossum?" Skink asked.
"Behave yourself," the sky marshal said sternly, "and I won't have to use these." He jangled the handcuffs ominously.
"Please," Skink said, "I'm a heavily medicated man."
The sky marshal nodded. "Everything is fine now. We're only a half-hour from New Orleans."
Soon the plane was calm again and lunch service was resumed. When Decker turned around he saw Skink and the sky marshal chatting amiably.
After landing in New Orleans, the pilot asked all passengers to remain seated for a few minutes. As soon as the cabin door opened, three city policemen and two federal agents in dark suits boarded the plane and led Skink away in handcuffs and leg irons. On the way out he made a point of kissing one of the flight attendants on the earlobe and warning the pilot to watch out for windshear over Little Rock.
The Rundell brothers watched in fascination.
"Where they taking him?" Ozzie wondered.
"The nuthouse, I hope," said Culver. "Let's get going."
R. J. Decker stayed on the plane to Tulsa. Except for one drunken tourist wearing a Disney World tank top and Pluto ears, it was a peaceful flight.
On the night of January 15, Dickie Lockhart got dog-sucking drunk on Bourbon Street and was booted out of a topless joint for tossing rubber nightcrawlers on the dancers. The worms were a freebie from a national tackle company whose sales reps had come to town for the big bass tournament. The sales reps had given Dickie Lockhart four bags of assorted lures and hooks, plus a thousand dollars cash as incentive to win the tournament using the company's equipment. Dickie blew the entire grand in the French Quarter, buying rock cocaine and rainbow-colored cocktails for exquisitely painted women, most of whom turned out to be flaming he-she's out trolling for cock. In disgust Dickie Lockhart had retreated to the strip joints, where at least the boobs were genuine. The trouble happened when he ran out of five-dollar bills for tips; finding only the slippery rubber nightcrawlers in his pockets, he began flicking them up at the nude performers. In his drunken state he was vastly entertained by the way the gooey worms clung to the dancers' thighs and nipples, and would occasionally tangle in their pubic hair. The nightcrawlers looked (and felt) so authentic that the strippers began shrieking and clawing at their own flesh; one frail acrobat even collapsed and rolled about the stage as if she were on fire. Dickie thought the whole scene was hysterical; obviously these girls had never been fishing. He was mildly baffled when the bouncers heaved him out of the joint (hadn't they seen him on TV?), but took some satisfaction when other patrons booed the rough manner in which he was expelled.
Afterward he had a few more drinks and went looking for his boss, the Reverend Charles Weeb. Drunk was the only condition in which Dickie Lockhart could have made this decision; as a rule one did not pop in on Reverend Weeb unless one was invited.
Dickie lurched up to the top-floor suite of the swank hotel on Chartres Street and pounded on the door. It was almost midnight.
"Who is it?" a female voice asked.
"DEA!" said Dickie Lockhart. "Open the fuck up!"
The door opened and a beautiful long-haired woman stood there; at least she seemed beautiful to Dickie Lockhart. An apparition, really. She was wearing canvas hip waders and nothing else. Her lovely breasts poked out in a friendly way from under the suspenders. For a moment Dickie almost forgot he was supposed to be with the DEA.
"I got a warrant for Charles Weeb," he snarled.
"What's with the fishing pole?" the naked wader asked.
Dickie Lockhart had been carrying a nine-foot boron fly rod all night long. He couldn't remember why. Somebody in a bar had given it to him; another damn salesman, probably.
"It's not a fishing rod, so shut up!"
"Yes, it is," said the woman.
"It's a heroin probe," Dickie Lockhart said. "Now stand back." He brushed past her and marched into the living room of the suite, but the reverend was not there. Dickie headed for the master bedroom, the woman clomping after him in the heavy waders.
"Have you got a warrant?" she asked.
Dickie found the Reverend Charles Weeb lying on his back in bed. Another young woman was on top of him, bouncing happily. This one was wearing a Saints jersey, number 12.
From behind Dickie Lockhart the bare-breasted wader announced: "Charlie, there's a man here to arrest you."
Weeb looked up irritably, fastened his angry eyes on Dickie Lockhart, and said: "Be gone, sinner!"
It occurred to Dickie that maybe it wasn't such a hot idea to stop by unannounced. He went back to the living room, turned on the television, and slumped on the couch. The woman in the waders fixed him a bourbon. She said her name was Ellen O'Something and that she had recently been promoted to executive secretary of the First Pentecostal Church of Exemptive Redemption, of which the Reverend Charles Weeb was founder and spiritual masthead. She apologized for answering the door half-naked, said the waders weren't really her idea. Dickie Lockhart said he understood, thought she looked darn good in them. He told her to watch out for chafing, though, said he spoke from experience.
"Nice fly rod," she remarked.
"Not for bass," Dickie Lockhart said. "The action's too fast for poppers."
The woman nodded. "I was thinking more about streamers," she said. "A Muddler Minnow, for instance. Say a four or a six."