Demencio dropped to a crouch, to secure better eye contact with the dreamy turtle boy. "Can I get you anything – soda? Half a sandwich?"

"Nuh-uh," Sinclair said.

"You wanna stay for supper? Trish is doing one of her angel foods for dessert."

"Sure," said Sinclair. He was too drowsy for the walk to Roddy and Joan's house.

"Sleep over, if you like. There's a daybed in the spare room," Demencio offered, "and plenty of clean sheets to wear, in case you wanna hang around tomorrow."

Sinclair had given no thought whatsoever to the future, but for the moment he couldn't imagine parting with the holy cooters.

Demencio said, "Plus I got a surprise for you."

"Ah."

"But you gotta promise not to faint or nothin', OK?"

Demencio ran into the house and came out lugging the aquarium, which he placed at Sinclair's feet. In breathless reverence Sinclair gazed at the freshly painted turtles; he reached out, tenuously fingering the air, like a child trying to touch a hologram.

Demencio said, "Here you go. Enjoy!"

When he tipped the tank on one side, thirty-three newly sanctified cooters swarmed forth to join the others in the moat. Sinclair joyfully scooped up several and held them aloft. He tossed back his chin and began to croon, "Muugghhh meeechy marta-a-mamma,"a subconscious rendition of the classic mugger meets match against martial-arts mom.

Demencio edged away from the ranting turtle boy and returned to the house. Trish was in the kitchen with the cake mix. "Did you ask about the T-shirts? Will he give us permission?"

Her husband said, "The guy's so far gone, he'd let us yank out his kidneys if we wanted."

"So I should fix up the guest room?"

"Yeah. Where are the car keys?" Demencio patted his pockets. "I gotta make a lettuce run."

Also disengaging from the newspaper business was Tom Krome, though in the opposite manner of his editor and without the mystic balm of reptiles. While Sinclair escaped transcendentally from the headlines, Krome had become one of them. He'd hurled himself into a tricky cascade of events in which he was a central participant, not a mere chronicler.

He'd become a news story. Off the sidelines and into the big game!

Joining JoLayne Lucks meant Krome couldn't write about her mission; not if he still cared about the tenets of journalism, which he did. Honest reporters could always make a good-faith stab at objectivity, or at least professional detachment. That was now impossible regarding the robbery and beating of a black woman in Grange, Florida. Too much was happening in which Tom Krome had sway, and there was more to come. Absolved of his writerly duties, he felt liberated and galvanized. It was an especially good buzz for someone who'd been declared dead on the front page.

Yet Krome still caught himself reaching for the spiral notebook he no longer carried. Sometimes he could still feel its stiff, rectangular shape in his back pocket; a phantom limb.

Like now, for instance. Watching the bad guys.

Ordinarily Krome would've had the notebook opened on his lap. Hastily jotting in what Mary Andrea once described as his "serial killer's scrawl."

5 pm Jewfish

Camo, Ponytail fueling boat.

Arguing – about what?

Buying beer, food, etc.

Joined by 2 people, unidentiy. m and f.

He bald and barefoot. She blond w orange shorts.

Who?

These observations compiled automatically in Torn Krome's brain as he sat with JoLayne in the scuffed old Boston Whaler she'd rented. Both of them were stiff and tired from a long night aboard the cramped skiff. They'd closed the gap on the rednecks, only to watch the stolen ski boat plow sensationally into a shallow grass bank. It was the first of several detours, as the robbers would spend hours pinballing from one nautical obstruction to another. Tom and JoLayne, astounded at their quarry's incompetence, followed at a prudent distance.

Now their skiff was tied to a PVC stake at the mouth of a shallow inlet. The makeshift mooring afforded a partially obstructed view of the busy docks at Jewfish Creek, where the rednecks finally had managed an uneventful landing.

Krome grumbling, for the second time: "I should've got some binoculars."

JoLayne Lucks saying she didn't need any. "It's the kid. I'm sure of it."

"What kid?"

"Shiner. From the Grab N'Go."

"Hey ... you might be right." Krome, cupping both hands at his eyes to cut the glare.

JoLayne said, "The rotten little shit. That explains why he lied about my Lotto ticket. They gave him a piece of the action."

All things considered, Krome thought, she's taking it well.

"Guess what else," she said. "The girl in the shorts and T-shirt? – it looks like the Hooters babe."

Krome broke into a grin. "The one they were hitting on the other night. Yes!" He could see them boarding the stolen boat: Bodean Gazzer first, followed by the skinhead Shiner, then the ponytailed man, tugging the blond woman behind him.

Pensively JoLayne said, "That's four of them and two of us."

"No, it's fantastic!" Krome kissed her on the forehead. "It's the very best thing that could happen."

"Are you nuts?"

"I'm talking about the babe. Her being there changes everything."

"The babe."

"Yes.Whatever grand plan these guys had, it's in tatters as of this moment!"

JoLayne had never seen him so excited. "In one small boat," he said, "we've got three smitten morons and one beautiful woman. Honey, there's an incredible shitstorm on the horizon."

She said, "I'm inclined to be insulted by what you just said. On behalf of all womanhood."

"Not at all." He untied the Whaler from the trees. "It's men I'm talking about. The way we are. Look at those googans and tell me they know how to cope with a girl like that."

JoLayne realized he was right: The stolen boat had become a time bomb. Any kind of a dispute would set the men off – over cigarets, the last cold beer ... or a stolen lottery ticket.

Krome said, "We needed these boys to be distracted. I would say our prayers have been answered."

"Then God bless Hooters." JoLayne jerked her chin toward the docks. "Tom, they're heading back this way."

"So they are."

"Shouldn't we duck?"

"Naw," Krome said. "Just stay cool until they go past. Turn toward me, OK?"

"Hold on a second. Is this another kiss?"

"A long romantic one. To make sure they don't see our faces."

"Aye, aye, captain."

Judge Arthur Battenkill Jr. was an intelligent man. He knew Champ Powell's remains would eventually be identified. A medium-rare lump of tissue was already on its way to the FBI for DNA screening, or so the judge had heard.

A dead law clerk in the torched house of your wife's lover was not easy to explain, especially if the lover was to return and make an issue of the arson. Which that bastard Tom Krome likely would.

Arthur Battenkill knew his judicial career would soon end in scandal if he didn't take the bull by the horns. So, being as practical as he was smart, he began making plans to quit the bench and leave the country.

Starting over would be expensive. As a matter of convenience, the judge decided that the insurance carrier for Save King Supermarkets should pay for his new life in the Bahamas, or wherever he and Katie chose to relocate. This meant placing a call to Emil LaGort's lawyer.

Emil LaGort was a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit filed in Arthur Battenkill's court. In fact, Emil LaGort was a plaintiff in numerous lawsuits from Apalachicola to Key West – a habitual fraud, a renowned slip-and-fall artist. He was also seventy-four years old, which meant that one of these days he would reallyslip and fall.