"Why didn't you tell me ?" JoLayne demanded. "What's going on with you?"

"OK." He slipped his arms under her knees and gently rolled her off. She stayed on the bed, stretched out, propped on her elbows.

"I'm waiting, Tom."

He kept his eyes on the ceiling. "Here's what really happened. My editor killed the lottery story, so I resigned. The 'medical leave' stuff is news to me – Sinclair probably made it up to tell the boss."

JoLayne Lucks was incredulous. "You quit your job because of me?"

"Not because of you. Because my editor's a useless, dickless incompetent."

"Really. That's the only reason?"

"And also because I promised to help you."

JoLayne scooted closer. "Listen: You can't quit the newspaper. You absolutely cannot, is that understood?"

"It'll all work out. Don't worry."

"You damn men, I can't believe it! I found another crazy one."

"What's so crazy about keeping a promise."

"Lord," said JoLayne. He was perfectly serious. A cornball, this guy. She said, "Don't move, OK? I'm gonna do something irresponsible."

Krome started to turn toward her, but she stopped him, lightly closing his eyes with one hand.

"You deaf? I told you not to move."

"What is this?" he asked.

"I owe you a kiss," she said, "from last night. Now please be still or I'll bite your lips off."

14

Tom Krome was caught by surprise.

"Well, say something," JoLayne said.

"Wow."

"Something original."

"You taste like Certs."

She kissed him again. "Spearmint flavored. I think I'm hooked on the darn things."

Krome rolled on his side. He could see she was highly amused by his nervousness. "I'm lousy at this part," he said.

"In other words, you'd rather skip the chitchat and get right to the fucking."

Krome felt his cheeks get hot. "That's not what – "

"I'm teasing."

He sat up quickly. She was too much.

"Tom, you were sweet to quit your job. Misguided, but sweet. I figured you deserved a smooch."

"It was ... very nice."

"Try to control yourself," JoLayne said. "Here's what you do now: Get in the car and go home. Back to work. Back to your life. You've done more than enough for me."

"No way."

"Look, I'll be fine. Once Moffitt gets my lottery ticket, I'm outta here."

"Yeah, right."

"I swear, Tom. Back to Grange to be a land baroness."

Krome said, "I don't quit on stories."

"Gimme a break."

"What if Moffitt can't find the ticket?"

JoLayne shrugged. "Then it wasn't meant to be. Now start packing."

"Not a chance. Not until you get your money." He fell back on the pillow. "Suppose you wound up on the wet T-shirt circuit again. I couldn't live with myself."

She laid her head on his chest. "What is it you want?"

"One of those mints would be good."

"From all this, I mean. All this wicked craziness."

"A tolerable ending. That's it," Krome said.

"Makes for a better story, right?"

"Just a better night's sleep."

JoLayne groaned. "You're not real. You can't be."

Krome made a cursory stab at sorting his motives. Maybe he didn't want Moffitt to find the stolen Lotto ticket, because then the adventure would be over and he'd have to go home. Or maybe he wanted to recover the ticket himself, in some dramatic flourish, to impress JoLayne Lucks. It probably wasn't anything noble at all; just dumb pride and hormones.

He said, "You want me to go, I'll go."

"Your tummy's growling. You hungry again?"

"JoLayne, you're not listening."

She lifted her head. "Let's stay like this awhile, right here in bed. See what happens."

"OK," Tom Krome said. She was too much.

Chub was gloating about the getaway. He said they wouldn't have made it if Bode's pickup hadn't been parked in the blue zone, steps from the diner's front door. He said the guy at the counter never saw three handicaps move so goddamn fast.

As the truck cruised toward Homestead, Shiner kept looking to see if they were being chased. Bode Gazzer was taut behind the wheel – he'd been expecting the Negro woman to cancel her credit card, but it jarred him anyway. The manager of the diner would be calling the law, no doubt about that.

"We gotta have a meeting," Bode said. "Soon as possible."

"With who?" Shiner asked.

"Us. The White Clarion Aryans." It was time to start acting like a well-regulated militia. Bode said, "Maybe this afternoon we'll hold a meeting."

Chub leaned forward. "What's wrong with right now?"

"Not in the truck. I can't preside and drive at the same time."

"Hell, you can't piss and whistle at the same time." Chub ran a mossy-looking tongue across his front teeth. "We don't need a damn meeting. We need our Lotto money."

Bode said, "No, man, it's too soon."

Chub took out the .357 and placed it on the floorboard at his feet. "Before somethin' else goes wrong," he said.

Wedged between the squabbling criminals in the front seat, Shiner felt inexplicably safe. Chub was the toughest, and not only because of the guns. Bode could be a hardass, too, but he was more of a thinker; the idea man. Shiner liked his suggestion for a real militia meeting, liked his attention to orderliness and strategy. But before the White Clarion Aryans held a meeting, Shiner wanted to get his tattoo fixed. It couldn't be that difficult, changing the W.R.B.to W.C.A.The screaming eagle was perfect the way it was.

When he inquired about stopping at a tattoo parlor, Chub laughed and said, "Just what you need."

"I'm dead serious."

Bode, stiffening in the driver's seat: "We ain't stoppin' for no such nonsense."

"Please, I got to!"

Chub said, "Aw, look at your damn arm. It's still bruised up from last time, like a rotten banana."

"You don't unnerstand." Shiner's chin dropped as he slid into a sulk.

Not this again, Chub thought. He snatched up the Colt and twisted the barrel into the kid's groin. "Son, you 'bout the whiniest little fuck I ever met."

Shiner's head came up with a jerk. "I'm s-sorry."

"Sorry don't begin to cover it."

Bode told his partner to take it easy. "We're all three of us still jacked up from last night. Tell you what, let's stop over to the trailer and fetch the automatics. Go out by the rock pit and let off some steam."

"Way cool," Shiner said, expectantly.

"Then, after, we'll have a meeting."

Chub said, "Whoop-dee-doo." He put the pistol in his belt. "Fuck the rock pit. I wanna shoot at somethin' that moves. Somethin' bigger 'n' faster than a goddamn turtle."

"Such as?"

"Wait and see," said Chub. "Shoot a Jew, cap a Jap – "

"Pop a wop," Shiner chimed. "Yeah!"

Bode Gazzer hoped his partner's sinister mood would pass before they broke out the serious toys.

Moffitt wasn't supposed to get mad.

He was a pro. He dealt with low-rent shitheads all the time.

But sneaking through the cramped apartment of Bodean James Gazzer, the agent felt his anger rise.

The wall poster of David Koresh, the Waco wacko himself. Moffitt had lost a friend in that fiasco of a raid.

Then there were the bullet holes in the plaster. Empty ammo-clips. Stacks of gun magazines and Soldier of Fortune.Porno videos. A paperback book called The Poacher's Bible.A pepper mill trimmed with a Nazi armband. A how-to pamphlet on fertilizer bombs. A clipped-out cartoon proposing a humorous aspect to the Holocaust. An assortment of NRA patches and bumper stickers. A closetful of camouflage clothes. Tacked to the peeling wallpaper behind the toilet: a Confederate flag. In the bedroom, a calico cross-stitched portrait of David Duke.

Moffitt thought: These guys must've had a blast, working on JoLayne.