"Fourteen million dollars is what he said. That's the same money you helped to steal, right?" Amber poked his arm. "Well?"
Again Shiner turned away, toward the boat. "Did he take your pants? He said he took your pants."
She could scarcely hear him above the wind and the shake of the trees. Shiner said, "He showed 'em to us. Them orange ones."
"He didn't takeanything. I gave him the damn shorts." Amber put the light on his face. "Don't worry, it's all right."
"You say so."
"I'm a big girl."
"Yeah, but he's crazy," Shiner said.
A string of cold drops landed on Amber's forehead. Glancing up, she noticed a shiny bulge in the skin of the tarpaulin, where the water had puddled on the other side.
She told Shiner: "Watch out, it's dripping on your Tex." Turning the flashlight on the gun.
"It's T-e-c, not T-e-x." He dried the stubby barrel on one of his sleeves.
"You still worried about helicopters?"
"Naw," Shiner said.
"The money?"
"Right." He sniffed sarcastically.
"Where'd you guys get so much?" Amber asked. "Rob Fort Knox or something?"
"Try a lottery ticket."
"You're kidding."
"It was easy."
"Well, tell me about it," Amber said.
And Shiner did.
Tom Krome couldn't get to sleep in the slashing storm. The shadows swayed in the wind, and it got chilly without a fire. He and JoLayne bundled beneath the boat canvas, raindrops popping on the stiff fabric.
"I'm freezing," she said.
"This is nothing."
JoLayne briskly rubbed her hands on the knees of her jeans.
Tom said, "Incredible. It was sunny all day."
"Florida," she said.
"You like it down here?"
"I like what's left."
"Ever been to Alaska?"
"Nope," she said. "They got black folks up there?"
"I'm not sure. Let me get back to you on that."
They took out the marine chart and tried to figure out where they were. Tom guessed it was one of three keys in the middle of Florida Bay Calusa, Spy or Pearl. They wouldn't know for sure until they got enough daylight to see the horizon.
"Not that it really matters. They're all uninhabited," Tom said.
JoLayne nudged him. A tall, long-necked bird was perched regally on the stern of the Whaler. It cocked its head and studied them with blazing yellow eyes. Rain dripped off the tip of its lancelike beak.
"Great blue," JoLayne whispered.
The bird was really something. Tom said, "Hey, big guy. What's up?"
The heron took off, croaking and bellowing across the treetops.
JoLayne said, "He's pissed. We must be in his spot."
"That, or something spooked him."
They listened for movement in the mangrove. The shotgun was positioned under the canvas at JoLayne's feet.
She said, "I don't hear a thing."
"Me, neither."
"They're not exactly Green Berets, these guys. They won't be sneaking around in this weather."
"You're right," said Tom.
To pass the time until the skies cleared, they compared futures. He told her his plan to move to Alaska and write a novel about a man whose wife wouldn't divorce him, no matter what he did. JoLayne said she liked the premise.
"It could be very funny."
"Funny wasn't the direction I was going," Tom said.
"Oh."
"I had a darker tone in mind."
"I see. More Cheever than Roth."
"Neither," he said, "I was thinking along the lines of Stephen King."
"A horror story?"
"Sure. The Estrangement.What do you think?"
JoLayne said, "Scary."
She told him her idea to make a nature preserve of Simmons Wood. She intended to speak to a lawyer about inserting a conservation easement in her deed, so the property could never be developed.
"Even after I'm dead," she said. "That'll fix the greedy bastards."
"Will you stay in Grange?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"On whether there's any other black folks in Alaska," she said. "Doesn't have to be many one would be fine, as long as it's Luther Vandross."
"Might as well aim high," Tom said.
"Hey, I'm inviting myself, in case you hadn't noticed."
He wondered if she was serious. It sounded like it.
"Try to control yourself, Tom."
"I was just thinking it's too good to be true." He slipped an arm around her.
"You mean it?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing."
"Let's say I do. Say we both mean it," JoLayne said. "What happens if we don't find the lottery ticket? If we're broke and bummed out."
"We'll go anyway. Don't you want to see a grizzly before they're all gone ?"
JoLayne loved the thought of a northern wilderness, but she wondered about the redneck quotient. Alaska was almost as famous for its shitkickers as for its wildlife.
Tom said, "And the place is loaded with eagles, according to what I've read."
"That would be something."
She fell asleep with her head against his shoulder. He remained awake, listening for intruders. With his free arm he moved the Remington closer. A cool gust made him shiver. Sixty-three degrees, he thought, and already my bones are cold. Perhaps the Kodiak scenario needed more thought. Also, he'd gotten the impression JoLayne wasn't bowled over by his idea for the divorce novel. He had a feeling she was humoring him.
He was tinkering with the plot when he was startled by flapping behind him the stately heron, returning. This time it stood on the bow of the boat. Tom Krome saluted. The bird paid no attention; a small silvery fish wriggled in its beak.
Nice work, Krome thought, especially in a deluge.
Then the heron did something unexpected. It let go of the fish, which bounced off the slick deck and landed on the grass-covered beach. The bird made no move to retrieve its meal. Instead it froze like an iron weather vane, its head erect and its snakelike neck extended.
Uh-oh, Krome said to himself. What does it hear?
He didn't have to wait long. Between the stutter of the gunshots and the woman's scream, the great blue flared its wings and took off. This time it flew away from the island, into the teeth of the squall, and this time it made no sound.
Amber had never witnessed gunfire.
She'd heard it before, of course; everyone who lived in Dade County knew the sound of a semiautomatic. Yet she'd never actually seen a flame-blue muzzle flash until Shiner cut loose with the TEC-9. Her shriek was involuntary but hair-raising, cutting like a sickle through the respective stupors of Bodean Gazzer and Chub. Spewing curses, they lumbered bleary-eyed into the clearing first Bodean Gazzer, brandishing the .380 stolen off the Colombian motorist; then Chub, in his droopy underwear, stoned and waving the Colt.
Shiner met them at the edge of the clearing. "I seen somebody! I did!" He radiated uncertainty and shame.
Bode snatched the TEC-9 and turned to Amber. "Tell the damn truth," he said.
"There wassomething out there. I heard it."
"A man? A critter?"
"I couldn't say it's too dark."
Chub said, "Un-fucking-believable." He coughed up something that landed near Shiner's feet.
The kid knew he was in trouble. After the earlier fiasco at the trailer, the colonel had given him a stern lecture about wasting ammo. "It was a human bean," Shiner insisted in a mumble. "A nigger is what it looked like, a small un."
Impatiently Bode Gazzer motioned for the flashlight. Amber handed it to him. He ordered everyone to stay put and stalked into the trees. Ten minutes later he returned to report finding no signs of a human prowler, Negro or otherwise.
"Figgers." It was Chub growling. With a difficulty born of distaste and insobriety, he was attempting to insert his legs and arms into a set of Bode's camos. His own clothes were soaked by the rain, and he was freezing his ass off in the Jockey shorts.
Amber saw Shiner's stock sliding and tried to help. "It was making all kinds of noise. Right over there." Pointing where Shiner had fired.
"Yeah, I bet it did," said Bode Gazzer. From the pocket of his parka he produced a bloodied tuft of brown fur. "Got this off a leaf."