Patiently Bode Gazzer explained how suspicious it would be for two best friends to claim equal shares of the same Lotto jackpot, with tickets purchased three hundred miles apart.
"It's better," Bode said, "if we don't know each other. We ain't never met, you and me, far as the lottery bureau is concerned."
" 'K."
"Anybody asks, I bought my fourteen-million-dollar ticket in Florida City, you got yours in Grange. And we never once laid eyes on each other before."
"No problem," Chub said.
"And listen here, we can't show up in Tallahassee together. One of us goes on a Tuesday, the other one maybe a week later. Just to play it safe."
"Then afterwards," said Chub, "we put the money all together."
"You got it."
Chub did the arithmetic aloud. "If those first checks is seven hundred grand, times two is like one million four hunnert thousand bucks."
Bodean Gazzer said, "Before taxes, don't forget." It felt like his skull was cleaving down the middle, an agony made worse by his partner's greasy persistence.
"But what I wanna ast," Chub said, "is who goes first. Cashes out, I mean."
"Difference does it make?"
"I guess none."
They got in the truck and headed down the gravel road toward the Stretch. Chub stared out the window as Bode went on: "I don't like the wait no better'n you. Sooner we get the cash, sooner we get the White Clarion Aryans together. Start serious recruitment. Build us a bomb shelter and whatnot."
Chub lit a cigaret. "So meantime what do we do for money?"
"Good question," Bode Gazzer said. "I wonder if the Negro girl's canceled out her credit card yet."
"Likely so."
"One way to find out."
Chub blew a smoke ring. "I s'pose."
"We're down to a quarter tank," Bode said. "Tell you what. The Shell station up the highway, let's try the self-serve pump. If it spits her Visa, we'll take off."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. No harm done."
Chub said, "And if it takes the card?"
"Then we're golden for one more day."
"Sounds good to me." Chub dragged contentedly. Already he was daydreaming about barbecued chicken wings and a certain blond-haired beauty in satiny orange shorts.
The bank's computer indicated JoLayne's Visa card hadn't been used since the previous afternoon at Hooters.
"Now what?" she asked, waving the receiver.
"Order a pizza," said Tom Krome, "and wait for them to get stupid again."
"What if they don't?"
"They will," he said. "They can't resist."
The pizza was vegetarian, delivered cold. They ate it anyway. Afterwards JoLayne stretched out on her back, locked her arms behind her neck and bent her knees.
"Sit-ups?" Tom Krome asked.
"Crunches," she said. "Wanna help?"
He knelt on the floor and held her ankles. JoLayne winked and said, "You've done this before."
He counted along in his head. After a hundred easy ones, she closed her eyes tight and did a hundred more. He gave her a minute to rest, then said: "That was a little scary."
JoLayne winced as she sat up. She pressed her knuckles to her tummy and said, "Bastards really did a job on me. Normally I can do three-fifty or four."
"I think you should take it easy."
"Your turn," she said.
"JoLayne, please."
Then suddenly Krome was on his back, except she wasn't holding his ankles as a proper sit-up partner would do. Instead she was straddling his chest, pinning his arms.
"Know what I was thinking?" she said. "About what you said earlier, how white or black doesn't matter."
"Weren't we talking about dreams and horses?"
"Maybe youwere."
Deliberately Tom Krome went limp. His goal was to minimize the frontal contact, which was indescribably wonderful. He was also trying to think of a distraction, something to make his blood go cold. Sinclair's face was an obvious choice, but Krome couldn't summon it.
JoLayne was saying, "It's important we should have this discussion ... "
"Later."
"So it doesmatter. White and black."
"JoLayne?"
Now she was nose-to-nose and pressing her body down harder. "Tom, you tell me the truth."
He turned his head away. Total limpness was no longer sustainable.
"Tom?"
"What."
"Are you mistaking this moment for some kind of clumsy seduction?"
"Call me crazy."
JoLayne pulled away. By the time he sat up, she was perched on the bed, cutting him a look. "Back in the shower for you!"
"I thought we had a professional relationship," he said. "I'm the reporter, you're the story."
"So you're the only one who gets to ask questions? That's really fair."
"Ask away, but no more wrestling." Krome, thinking: What a handful she is.
JoLayne cuffed him. "OK, how many black friends do you have? I mean friendfriends."
"I don't have many close friends of any color. I am not what you'd call gregarious."
"Ah."
"There's a black guy at work Daniel, from Editorial. We play tennis every now and then. And Jim and Jeannie, they're lawyers. We get together for dinner."
"That's your answer?"
Krome caved. "OK, the answer is none. Zero black friendfriends."
"Just like I thought."
"But I'm working on it."
"Yes, you are," said JoLayne. "Let's go for a ride."
9
JoLayne's friend was twenty minutes late, the longest twenty minutes of Tom Krome's life. They were waiting at a bar called Shiloh's in Liberty City. JoLayne Lucks was drinking ginger ale and munching on beer nuts. She wore a big floppy hat and round peach-tinted sunglasses. It didn't matter what Tom Krome was wearing; he was the only white person there. Several patrons remarked upon the fact, and not in a welcoming tone.
JoLayne told him to put his notebook on the bar and start writing. "So you look official."
"Good idea," Krome said, "except I left it back in the room."
JoLayne clicked her tongue. "You men, you'd forget your weenies if they weren't glued on."
A gangly transvestite in a fantastic chromium wig approached Krome and offered to blow him for forty dollars.
Krome said, "No, thanks, I've got a date."
"Then I do her fo' free."
"Tempting," said JoLayne, "but I think we'll pass."
With a bony hand, the transvestite gripped one of Krome's legs. "Dolly don't take no for an answer. And Dolly gots a blade in her purse."
JoLayne leaned close to Krome and whispered: "Give him a twenty."
"Not a chance."
"Speak up now," said the Dolly person. Ridiculous fake fingernails dug into Krome's calf. "Come on, big man, let's go out to yo' cah. Bring the fancy lady if you wants."
Krome said, "I like that dress didn't you used to be on Shindig?"The transvestite gave a bronchial laugh and squeezed harder. "Dolly's gettin' the boy 'cited."
"No, just annoyed."
To unfasten the Dolly person's hand from his knee, Krome twisted the thumb clockwise until it came out of the socket. The popping sound silenced the bar. JoLayne Lucks was impressed. She'd have to find out where he'd learned such a thing.
Dropping to his knees, the transvestite prostitute shrieked and pawed at himself with his crooked digit. Lurching to avenge his honor were two babbling crackheads, each armed with gleaming cutlery. They began to argue about who should get to stab the white boy first, and how many times. It was a superb moment for JoLayne's friend to show up, and his arrival cleared the scene. The Dolly person shed a spiked pump during his scamper out the door.
The name of JoLayne's friend was Moffitt, and he made no inquiries about the crackheads or the yowling robber. Moffitt was built like a middleweight and dressed like an expensive lawyer. His gray suit was finely tailored and his checkered necktie was silk. He wore thin-rimmed eyeglasses with round conservative frames, and carried a small cellular telephone. He greeted JoLayne with a hug but scarcely nodded at Tom Krome.