Chub was rolling down the window to call her name when none other than Tony himself drove up in a new jet-black Mustang convertible. Amber got in, and the car sped away.
"What the fuck?" said Chub, despairingly.
"Forget about it."
"Asshole must be loaded to 'ford two cars."
Bode Gazzer said, "For Christ's sake, it's probably a rental. Now forget about it."
Half drunk, Bode struggled to back the pickup out of the handicapped slot. He paid no attention to the blue Honda on the other side of the lot, and failed to notice when the same car swung into traffic behind them, southbound on Highway One.
Before the two rednecks broke into her home and attacked her, JoLayne Lucks had in her entire adult life been struck by only two men. One was black, one was white. Both were boyfriends at the time.
The black man was Robert, the police officer. He'd slapped JoLayne across the face when, with ample evidence, she accused him of extorting sex from female motorists. The very next morning Robert found a live pygmy rattlesnake curled up in his underwear drawer, a discovery that impelled him to hop and screech about the bedroom. JoLayne Lucks gingerly collected the snake and released it in a nearby pasture. Later she teased Robert about his girlish reaction, noting that the bite of a pygmy rattler was seldom fatal to humans. That night he slept with his service revolver cocked on the bedstand, a practice he diligently maintained until he and JoLayne parted company.
The white man who hit her was, of all people, Neal the codependent chiropractor. It had happened one night when JoLayne was an hour late getting home from Jackson Memorial Hospital, a delay caused by a short-tempered cocaine importer with personnel problems. Four multiple-gunshot victims had arrived simultaneously in the emergency room, where JoLayne was on duty. Although the shooting spree was the lead story on the eleven o'clock news, Neal the chiropractor remained unconvinced. He preferred to believe JoLayne was late because she'd been dallying with a handsome thoracic surgeon, or possibly one of the new anesthesiologists. In a jealous tantrum, Neal threw a wild punch that glanced harmlessly off JoLayne's handbag. She was upon him instantly, breaking his nose with two stiff jabs. Soon Neal the chiropractor was sniveling for forgiveness. He rushed out and bought JoLayne a diamond tennis bracelet, which she returned to him in mint condition on the night they broke up.
So she was not accustomed to being struck by men of any color; did not invite it, would not tolerate it, and believed with every fiber in swift, unmitigated retribution. Which is why she couldn't get her mind off the shotgun in the trunk of Tom Krome's Honda.
"You got a plan yet?" she said. "Because I've got one if you don't."
Krome said, "I'm sure you do."
He'd dropped back to put some distance between them and the red pickup truck, which was weaving slightly and accelerating in unpredictable bursts. The driver was bombed – even a rookie patrolman could have spotted it. Krome didn't want the rednecks to crash into anybody, but he also didn't want them to get pulled over on a DUI. Who knew what they might do to a cop? And if they allowed themselves to be tossed in jail, it might be weeks before they got out, depending on how many felony warrants were outstanding. JoLayne Lucks didn't have that much time.
Krome's plan was to follow the two men to where they lived, and to case the place.
"In other words, we're stalking," JoLayne said.
Krome hoped her tone was one of impatience and not derision. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the goal was to retrieve your Lotto ticket. If you'd rather just shoot these morons and go home, let me know so I can bail out."
She raised her hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"You're angry. I'd be angry, too."
"Furious," she said.
"Stay cool. We're close."
"You memorized the license tag?"
"I told you before. Yes," Krome said.
"Hey, they're speeding up again."
"So I noticed."
"Don't lose 'em."
"JoLayne!"
"Sorry. I'll shut up now."
They tailed the truck all the way to Homestead. On the way, it stopped three times along the side of the highway, where one or both of the rednecks nonchalantly got out to urinate. Whenever that happened, Krome kept driving. Once he got ahead, he'd quickly pull over in an unlit spot and wait for the pickup to pass by again. Eventually the rednecks turned east off Highway One, then south on a dirt road that bisected a tomato farm. Here there was no other traffic – only a rolling dust cloud kicked up by the truck. The dust smelled faintly of pesticide.
JoLayne poked her head from the car and pretended to drink the air. "Green acres! Men of the soil!" she exclaimed.
Krome slowed and turned off the headlights, so the rednecks wouldn't spot them in the rearview. After a few miles the tomato fields gave way to palmetto scrub and Dade County pines. Gradually the road turned and ran parallel to a wide drainage canal. Across the rippled water, JoLayne was able to make out the shapes of rough shacks, small house trailers and abandoned cars.
A half mile ahead on the dirt road, the pickup's brake lights flashed brightly through the whorls of dust. Krome immediately stopped the Honda and killed the engine. The silence announced that the driver of the truck had done the same.
Krome said, "Nice neighborhood."
"It's not exactly Star Island." JoLayne touched his arm. "Can we please open the trunk now?"
"In a second."
They couldn't see the red truck, but they heard the doors slam. Then came a man's voice, booming down the canal through the darkness.
JoLayne whispered: "What's that all about?"
Before Tom Krome could answer, the night was split open by gunfire.
Alone in the middle of nowhere, Shiner had wigged out. The noises were the same as those in the woods outside Grange – frogs, crickets, raccoons – but here every peep and rustle seemed louder and more ominous. Shiner couldn't stop thinking about all those NATO troops bivouacked in the Bahamas.
Just eighty miles that away,Bodean Gazzer had said, pointing, acrost the Gulf Stream.
Stunted as it was, Shiner's imagination had no difficulty conjuring a specter of blue-helmeted enemy soldiers poised on an advancing flotilla. He became consumed with the idea that the United States of America might be invaded at any minute, while Bode and Chub were off drinking beer.
Acting against orders, Shiner got the AR-15 out of Chub's mobile home and climbed a trellis to the flimsy roof. There, in his moldy bush hat and new camouflage parka, he waited. And while he couldn't see as far as the Bahama Islands, he had an excellent view of the dirt road and the farm canal.
By land or by sea, Shiner thought, let the fuckers try.
The rifle felt grand in his hands; it took the edge off his nerves. He wondered what types of guns the NATO communists were carrying. Russian, Bode Gazzer had speculated, or North Korean. Shiner decided to swipe one off the first soldier he shot, for a souvenir. Maybe he'd chop off an ear, too – he'd heard of such grisly customs during his three weeks in the army, from a drill sergeant who'tl been to Nam. Shiner didn't know what he would do with a severed NATO ear, but he'd surely put it someplace where his Ma wouldn't find it. Same with the guns. Ever since she'd found the Road-Stain Jesus, his mother had been down on guns.
After an hour on the roof, Shiner was overcome by a stabbing hunger. Stealthily he climbed down and foraged in Chub's refrigerator, where he located two leathery slices of pepperoni pizza and a tin of boneless sardines. These Shiner carried back to his sentry post. He forced himself to eat slowly and savor each bite – once the invasion began there'd be no more pizza for a long, long time.