The colloquy quickly degenerated (despite the distraction of a blocked Dallas punt) until one of the men aimed the boat horn at Mary Andrea's flawless nose and let 'er rip. Krome saw no other option but to punch the fat fuck until he fell down. His bosom buddy of course took a wide sloppy swing at Krome's noggin, but Tom had plenty of time to duck (Mary Andrea was way ahead of him) and unleash a solid uppercut to the scrotal region. The decking of the rude men drew flurries of cheers, the other football fans mistaking Krome's outburst for an act of husbandly chivalry. In truth it was pure selfish anger, as Krome demonstrated by grabbing the boat horn, placing it flush against the right ear of fallen Walrus Face, and blasting away until the canister emptied, its plangent blare ebbing with a sequence of comical burps.

Cops arrived, jotted names, arrested no one. Krome himself fractured two knuckles in the fight but had no regrets. Mary Andrea scolded him for flying off the handle, but phoned every one of her friends to brag on him. A month later the Kromes heard from an attorney representing one of the commodities brokers, who claimed to be suffering from chronic headaches, deafness and myriad psychological problems resulting from the beating. A companion lawsuit was being hatched by the other fan, who was said to be in need of delicate surgery for cosmetic repair of a displaced left testicle. Tom Krome's own lawyer strongly advised him to avoid a trial, which he did by agreeing to purchase Giants season tickets for each of the aggrieved brokers and also providing (thanks to the connections of a sportswriter pal) official-looking NFL footballs personally autographed by Lawrence Taylor.

Krome anticipated no such nuisance suits from Bodean Gazzer and would take all steps necessary to prevent the robber from escaping Pearl Key and stranding Tom and JoLayne without a boat. To prevent shooting off his own toes, Krome prudently set down the shotgun before he started running. The redneck had a fifty-yard head start but he wasn't hard to track, crashing through branches like a crazed rhinoceros. Any concealment provided by Gazzer's camouflage outfit was offset by his unstealthiness. The longer-legged Krome was able to gain ground and at no time mistook the fleeing felon for a mangrove tree.

He overtook Gazzer in a clearing and tackled him. The redneck extracted one chunky leg and slammed his boot smartly into Tom Krome's cheekbone. Quickly Gazzer was up and running again. He got to the Boston Whaler, which he was laboring to drag into the water when Krome again overtook him. They went down in a splash, the camouflaged man windmilling his arms.

Krome felt a lifetime of emotional detachment dissolve in a stream of bubbles and galvanizing, uncontrollable fury. It was the first purely murderous impulse of his life, and for a split second it gave a perverse clarity to all the murderous acts he'd written about for newspapers. Krome understood that he ought to be terrified, but he felt only a primitive rage. He wrapped Bodean Gazzer in a brutal headlock and held him underwater with the gravest intention. When a wildly flung elbow struck Krome in the throat, he realized that he was (at age thirty-five) engaged in his first life-or-death struggle.

He would have preferred it more neatly choreographed, like the altercation at Giants Stadium, but that was unusual. In his work Krome had attended enough crime scenes to know that violence was seldom cinematic. Usually it was clumsy, careless, chaotic: a damn mess.

Exactly like this, he thought. If I can't get my head up even for half a second, I'm probably going to drown.

In four lousy feet of water, I'm going to drown.

They'd stirred up so much marl that Krome couldn't see anything but a greenish haze in suspension. He released his hold on Gazzer's neck but they remained tangled – he and the crook, no longer fighting each other but flailing for air.

As the mortal darkening began, words came unspooled in Tom Krome's brain.

REPORTER FOUND DEAD ...

REPORTER BELIEVED DEAD FOUND DEAD ...

REPORTER BELIEVED DEAD FOUND DEAD ON MYSTERY ISLAND .

Krome thinking: Headlines!

He pictured them vividly as they would appear in the paper, below the fold of the front page. He beheld a vision of scissors flashing, the article about his drowning meticulously being clipped by a faceless someone_ his father, Katie, JoLayne or even Mary Andrea (strictly for insurance purposes).

Tom Krome envisioned the span of his life condensed to one shitty, potentially ungrammatical newspaper caption. The prospect was more depressing than death itself.

With a last measure of strength, he pulled away from Bodean Gazzer and thrashed to the surface. Wheezing and half choked, Krome now saw that the darkness was spreading not in his mind but in the water; a deep-reddish cloud, lustrous and undulant around his legs.

Blood.

Krome thinking: God, don't let it be mine.

One moment Bode Gazzer had the boat, the next he was being heaved in the drink. He'd been outrun, naturally; the curse of short legs and tar-gummed lungs. Thank you, Mom and Dad. Thank you, Philip Morris.

Who else could he blame?

Chub, for being stoned, blind-horny and incompetent.

The government, for allowing Negro terrorists to purchase Lotto tickets.

And his own bad fortune, for unknowingly robbing and assaulting a card-carrying member of the feared Black Tide, whatever the hell that was; a woman who obviously used her NATO cohorts to track the White Clarion Aryans to the remotest of islands so she could pick off his troops one by one, like baby harp seals.

Not me, Bode vowed, submerging in the grasp of the Negro woman's white accomplice. Nosir, you ain't leavin' me out here to starve with that sorry-ass Chub.

Major, my ass. Major fuckup is more like it.

Bode battled with no style but loads of determination. The heavy shit-kicker boots were an encumbrance, filling rapidly with saltwater – he might as well have strapped cinder blocks to his feet. Nor was the sodden camo suit an ideal choice for swimwear, but Bode coped as well as he could. Having been choked two or three times before, in prison fights, he recognized the onset of oxygen deprivation.

The white guy was stronger than Bode Gazzer expected, so Bode undertook a strategy of mad pawing and thrashing. The effect was to muddy the bay bottom so thoroughly that Bode initially failed to see the stingray lying there, as flat as a cocktail tray.

Like most criminals who relocate to South Florida, Bodean Gazzer had spent little time familiarizing himself with the native fauna. He was keenly aware that lobsters had a weakness for lobster traps, but otherwise his knowledge of marine wildlife was sketchy. A minimal amount of scholarship – say, a visit to the Seaquarium – would have provided two lifesaving facts about the common southern stingray.

One: It doesn't actually sting. The detachable barb on the end of its tail, although coated with an infectious mucus, is used defensively as a lance.

Two: Should one encounter a ray dozing in the shallows, the worst possible thing to do is kick it.

Which is what Bodean Gazzer (mistaking it for an extremely large flounder) did. The agony he experienced was the result of the stingray barb penetrating deep flesh. The blood he saw in the water jetted from his own femoral artery.

Once Bode poked up for air, he saw the white guy wading doggedly in pursuit of the boat, which was drifting away. Bode aimed himself toward dry land but discovered he couldn't stand upright, much less walk. A chill shook him to the marrow, and suddenly he felt woozy.

What now? he thought. Then he keeled sideways.

"Wake up," JoLayne said to the moaning redneck.

"It might be too late," Tom Krome told her.