JoLayne shook her head. "This isn't the interview, Mr. Krome. This is the preinterview."
"But Miss Lucks "
"Fourteen million dollars is a mountain of money. I believe it will attract a bad element." She reached into the water deftly insinuating her hand under Tom Krome's butt and yanked the drain plug out of the bathtub.
"Dry off and get dressed," she told him. "How do you like your coffee?"
4
Demencio was carrying out the garbage when the red pickup rolled to a stop under the streetlight. Two men got out and stretched. The shorter one wore pointed cowboy boots and olive-drab camouflage, like a deer hunter. The taller one had a scraggy ponytail and sunken drugged-out eyes.
Demencio said: "Visitation's over."
"Visitation of what?" asked the hunter.
"The Madonna."
"She die?" The ponytailed one spun toward his friend. "Goddamn, you hear that?"
Demencio dropped the garbage bag on the curb. "I'm talking about Madonna, the Virgin Mary. Jesus' mother."
"Not the singer?"
"Nope, not the singer."
The hunter said, "What's a 'visitation'?"
"People travel from all over to pray at the Madonna's statue. Sometimes she cries real tears."
"No shit?"
"No shit," said Demencio. "Come back tomorrow and see for yourself."
The ponytailed man said, "How much you charge?"
"Whatever you can spare, sir. We take donations only." Demencio was trying to be polite, but the two men made him edgy. Hicks he could handle; hard-core rednecks scared him.
The strangers whispered back and forth, then the camouflaged one spoke up again: "Hey, Julio, we in Grange?"
Demencio, feeling his neck go tight: "Yeah, that's right."
"Is there a 7-Eleven somewheres nearby?"
"All we got is the Grab N'Go." Demencio pointed down the street. "About half a mile."
"Thank you kindly," said the hunter.
"Double for me," said the ponytailed man.
Before the pickup drove away, Demencio noticed a red-white-and-blue sticker on the rear bumper: mark fuhrman for president.
Definitely not pilgrims, Demencio thought.
Chub was intrigued by what the Cuban had said. A statue that cries? About what?
"You'd cry, too," said Bodean Gazzer, "if you was stuck in a shithole town like this."
"So you don't believe him."
"No, I do not."
Chub said, "I seen weepin' Virgin Marys on TV before."
"I've seen Bugs Bunny on TV, too. That make him real? Maybe you think there's a real rabbit that sings and dances dressed up in a fucking tuxedo "
"Ain't the same thing." Chub was insulted by Bode's acid sarcasm. Sometimes his friend seemed to forget who had the gun.
"Here we are!" Bode declared, waving at a flashing sign that spelled out grab n'go. He parked in the handicapped space by the front door and flipped on the dome light inside the truck. From a pocket he took out the folded clipping from The Miami Herald.The story said the second winning lottery ticket had been purchased "in the rural community of Grange." The winner, it reported, hadn't yet come forward to claim his or her share of the prize.
Bode read this aloud to Chub, who said: "Can't be many Lotto joints in a town this size."
"Let's ask," said Bode.
They went into the Grab N'Go and picked up two twelve-packs of beer, a cellophane bag of beefalo jerky, a carton of Camels and a walnut coffee cake. While the clerk rang them up, Bode inquired about Lotto tickets.
"How many you want? We're the only game in town," the clerk said.
"Is that a fact." Bode Gazzer gave a smug wink at Chub.
The clerk was eighteen, maybe nineteen. He was heavyset and freshly sunburned. He had a burr cut and a steep pimpled nose. A plastic tag identified him as shiner.
He said, "Maybe you guys heard this store had the winning ticket yesterday."
"Go on!"
"God's truth. I sold it to the woman myself."
Bode Gazzer lit a cigaret. "Right here? No way."
Chub said, "Sounds like a line a shit to me."
"No, I swear." With a finger the clerk crossed his heart. "Girl name of JoLayne Lucks."
"Yeah? How much she win?" Chub asked.
"Well, first it was twenty-eight million, but come to find out she's gotta split it. Someone else had the same numbers, is what the news said. Somebody down around Miami."
"Is that a fact." Bode paid for the beer and groceries. Then he tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter. "Tell you what, Mister Shiner. Give me five Quick Picks, assuming you still got the magic touch."
The clerk smiled. "You come to the right place. Town's famous for miracles." He pulled the tickets from the Lotto machine and handed them to Bodean Gazzer.
Chub said, "She a local gal, this Joleen?"
"Lives acrost from the park. And it's JoLayne."
Chub, scratching his neck: "I wonder if she's lookin' for a husband."
The clerk grinned and lowered his voice. "No offense, sir, but she's a little too tan for you."
They all had a laugh. Bode and Chub said goodbye and walked out to the truck. For a while the two men sat in the cab, drinking beer, gnawing on jerky, not speaking a word.
Finally Chub said, "So it's just like you said."
"Yup. Just like I said."
"Goddamn. A Negro."With both hands Chub tore into the coffee cake.
"Eat quick," Bode told him. "We got work to do."
Tom Krome spent three hours with JoLayne Lucks. To call it an interview was a stretch. He'd never met anyone, politicians and convicts included, who could so adroitly steer conversation in a wrong direction. JoLayne Lucks held the added advantages of soft eyes and charm, to which Krome easily succumbed. By the end of the evening, she knew everything important there was to know about him, while he knew next to nothing about her. Even the turtles remained an enigma.
"Where'd you get them?" he asked.
"Creeks. Hey, I like your wristwatch."
"Thanks. It was a gift."
"From a lady friend, I'll bet!"
"My wife, a long time ago."
"How long you been married?"
"We're divorcing ... " And away he'd go.
At half past ten JoLayne's father called from Atlanta. She apologized for not picking up when he'd phoned earlier. She said she'd had company.
When Tom Krome rose to leave, JoLayne told her father to hang on. She led Krome to the door and said it had been a pleasure to make his acquaintance.
"May I come back tomorrow," he asked, "and take some notes?"
"Nope."
She gave him a gentle nudge. The screen door slapped shut between them.
"I've decided," she said, "not to be in your newspaper."
"Please."
"Sorry."
Tom Krome said, "You don't understand."
"Not everybody wants to be famous."
He felt her slipping away. "Please. One hour with the tape recorder. It'll be fine, you'll see."
That was the lie, of course. No matter what Krome wrote about JoLayne Lucks winning the lottery, it wouldn't be fine. Nothing positive could come from telling the whole world you're a millionaire, and JoLayne was smart enough to know it.
She said, "I'm sorry for your trouble, but I prefer to keep my privacy."
"You really don't have a choice." That was the part she didn't understand.
JoLayne stepped closer to the screen. "What do you mean?"
Krome shrugged apologetically. "There's going to be a story in the papers, one way or another. This is news. This is the way it works."
She turned and disappeared into the house.
Krome stood on the porch, contemplating the hum and bubble of the aquarium pump. He felt like a shitheel, but that was nothing new. He took out one of his business cards and wrote on the back of it: "Please call if you change your mind."
He inserted the card in the doorjamb and returned to the bed-and-breakfast. In his room he saw a note on the dresser: Katie had phoned. So had Dick Turnquist.
Krome sat heavily on the edge of the bed, pondering the slim likelihood that his New York divorce lawyer had tracked him down in Grange, Florida, on a Sunday night to deliver good tidings. He waited twenty minutes before making the call.