When Chub reentered the truck, Bode said, "This shit's gotta stop. Where's the boy?"

"I sent him back up the road."

"For what?"

"To finish some bidness. Let's go." Chub, laying the revolver on the front seat between them; Shiner's spot.

"Well, goddamn." Bode could hear the kid's golf spikes clacking on the pavement.

"Jest drive," Chub said.

"Anywheres in particular?"

"Wherever you was goin' is fine. Long as it ain't too fur from Jewfish Creek." Chub launched a brown stream of spit out the window. "Go 'head and ast."

Bode Gazzer said, "OK. How come Jewfish Creek?"

"On account of I like the name."

"Ah." On account of you're a certified moron, Bode thought.

By daybreak they were at a marina in Key Largo, picking out a boat to steal.

Tom Krome's death was announced with an end-of-the-world headline in The Register,but the news failed to shake American journalism to its foundations. The New York Timesdidn't carry the story, while the Associated Press condensed The Register'smelodramatic front-page spread to eleven sober inches. The AP's rewrite desk circumspectly noted that, while the medical examiner was confident of his preliminary findings, the body found in Tom Krome's burned house had yet to be positively identified. The Register'smanaging editor seemed certain of the worst – he was quoted as saying Krome was "quite possibly" murdered as the result of a sensitive newspaper assignment. Pressed for details, the managing editor replied he was not at liberty to discuss the investigation.

Many papers across the United States picked up the Associated Press story and reduced it to four or five paragraphs. A slightly longer version appeared in The Missoulian,the daily that serves Missoula and other communities in the greater Bitterroot valley of Montana. Fortuitously, it was here Mary Andrea Finley Krome had hooked up with a little-theater production of The Glass Menagerie.Although she was not a great fan of Tennessee Williams (and, in any case, preferred musicals over dramas), she needed the work. The prospect of performing in small-town obscurity depressed Mary Andrea, but her mood brightened after she made friends with another actress, a dance major at the state university. Her name was Lorie, or possibly Loretta – Mary Andrea reminded herself to check in the playbill. On Mary Andrea's second morning in town, Lorie or Loretta introduced her to a cozy coffee shop where students and local artists gathered, not far from the new city carousel. The coffee shop featured old stuffed sofas upon which Mary Andrea and her new pal contentedly settled with their cappuccinos and croissants. They spread the newspaper between them.

It was Mary Andrea's habit to begin each morning with an update of entertainment and celebrity happenings, of which several were capsulized in The Missoulian.Tom Cruise was being paid $22 million to star in a movie about a narcoleptic heart surgeon who must attempt a six-hour transplant operation on his girlfriend (Mary Andrea wondered which of Hollywood's anorexic blow-job artists had won the part). Also, it was reported that one of Mary Andrea's least-favorite television programs, Sag Harbor Saga,was being canceled after a three-year run. (Mary Andrea feared it wasn't the last America would see of Siobhan Davies, the insufferable Irish witch who'd beaten her out for the role of Darien, the predatory textile heiress.) And, finally, a drug-loving actor with whom Mary Andrea once had done Shakespeare in the Park was under arrest in New York after disrobing in the lobby of Trump Tower and, during his flight to escape, head-butting the beefeater at the Fifth Avenue entrance. (Mary Andrea took no joy from the actor's plight, for he had shown her nothing but kindness during The Merchant of Venice,when a disoriented June bug had flown into Mary Andrea's right ear and interrupted for several awkward moments Portia's famous peroration on the quality of mercy.)

Having digested, and sagely commented upon, each item in the "People" column, Mary Andrea Finley Krome then turned to the weightier pages of The Missoulian.The headline that caught her attention appeared on page three of the front section: news reporter believed dead in mystery blaze. It wasn't the slain-journalist angle that grabbed Mary Andrea so much as the phrase "mystery blaze," because Mary Andrea adored a good mystery. The sight of her estranged husband's name in the second paragraph was a complete shock. The newspaper drifted from Mary Andrea's fingertips, and she emitted an oscillating groan that was mistaken by fellow coffee drinkers for a New Age meditative technique.

"Julie, you OK?" asked Lorie, or Loretta.

"Not really," Mary Andrea rasped.

"What is it?"

Mary Andrea pressed her knuckles to her eyes and felt genuine tears.

"You need a doctor?" asked her new friend.

"No," said Mary Andrea. "A travel agent."

Joan and Roddy got a copy of The Registerat the Grab N'Go and brought it to Sinclair at the shrine. He refused to read it.

"You're mentioned by name," Joan beseeched, holding up the newspaper for him to see, "as Tom Krome's boss."

Roddy added: "It explains how you're out of town and not available for comment."

"Nyyah nimmy doo-dey!"was Sinclair's response.

The yammering sent a sinusoidal murmur through the Christian tourists gathering along the narrow moat. Some knelt, some stood beneath umbrellas, some perched on folding chairs and Igloo coolers. Sinclair himself lay prone at the feet of the fiberglass Madonna.

Joan was so concerned about her brother's behavior that she considered notifying their parents. She'd read about religious fanatics who fondled snakes, but a turtle fixation seemed borderline deviant. Roddy said he hadn't heard of it either. "But personally," he added, "I'm damn glad it's cooters and not diamondbacks. Otherwise we'd be coffin-shopping."

Sinclair had cloaked himself toga-style in a pale bedsheet, upon which a confetti of fresh lettuce was sprinkled. With surprising swiftness the apostolic turtles scrambled from their sunning stones to ascend the gleaming buffet. Zestfully they traversed Sinclair from head to toe, while he cooed and blinked placidly at the passing clouds. Cameras clicked and video cameras whirred.

Trish and Demencio monitored the visitation from the living room window. She said, "He's really something. You gotta admit."

"Yeah. A fruit basket."

"But aren't you glad we let him stay?"

Demencio said, "A buck's a buck."

"He must've snapped. Stripped a gear."

"Maybe so." Demencio was distracted by a sighting of Dominick Amador, clumping unscrupulously among the pilgrims.

"Sonofabitch. He got him some crutches!"

Trish said, "You know why?"

"I can sure guess."

"Yeah, he finally got his feet drilled. I heard he paid the boy at the muffler shop, like, thirty bucks."

"Psycho," said Demencio.

Then Dominick Amador spotted him in the window and timorously waved a Crisco-filled mitten. Demencio did not return the greeting.

Trish said, "You want me to chase him off?"

Demencio folded his arms. "Now what – who the hell's that?" He pointed at a slender person in a hooded white robe. The person carried a clipboard and moved with clerical efficiency from one tourist to the next.

"The lady from Sebring Street," Trish explained, "the one with the Road-Stain Jesus. She's working on a petition to the highway department."

"Like hell. She's workin' on my customers!"

"No, honey, the state wants to pave over her shrine – "

"Is that my problem? I got a business going here."

"All right," Trish said, and went outside to have a word with the woman. Demencio had always been leery of his competition – he liked to stay ahead of the pack. It bothered him when Dominick or the others came snooping. Trish understood. The miracle racket was no picnic.