Most surprising: Mary Andrea's tears, which had begun as well-practiced stage weeping, had bloomed into the real deal. Talking about Tom in front of so many people made her truly grief-stricken for the first time since she'd learned about the fire. Even though she was largely fictionalizing their relationship – inventing anecdotes, intimacies and confidences never shared – the act nonetheless thawed Mary Andrea's heart. Tom was, after all, a pretty good guy. Confused (like all men) but decent at the core. It was a pity he hadn't been more adaptable. A damn pity, she thought, blinking away the teardrops.
One person who remained unmoved during the ceremony was the managing editor of The Register.The other was Tom Krome's lawyer, Dick Turnquist, who politely waited until Mary Andrea was finished speaking before he edged through the well-wishers and served her with the court summons.
"We finally meet," he said.
And Mary Andrea, being somewhat caught up in her own performance, assumed he was a fan from the theater who wanted an autograph.
"You're so kind," she said, "but I don't have a pen."
"You don't need a pen. You need a lawyer."
"What?" Mary Andrea, staring in bafflement and dismay at the documents in her hand. "Is this some kind of sick joke? My husband's dead!"
"No, he's not. Not in the slightest. But I'll pass along all the nice things you said about him today. He'll appreciate it." Turnquist spun and walked away.
The managing editor stood frozen by what he'd overheard. Among the onlookers there was a stir, then a bang caused by lacquered pine hitting terrazzo. The managing editor whirled to see his prized Amelia on the lobby floor, where the nonwidow Krome had hurled it. Only inches away: a discarded rosary, coiled like a baby rattler.
The last conscious act of Bodean Gazzer's life was brushing his teeth with WD-40.
In a survivalist tract he'd once read about the unsung versatility of the popular spray lubricant, and now (while exsanguinating) he felt an irrational urge to brighten his smile. Chub pawed through the gear and found the familiar blue-and-yellow can, which he brought to Bode's side, along with a small brush designed for cleaning pistols. Chub knelt in the blood-crusted sand and tucked a camouflage bedroll under his partner's neck.
"Do my molars, wouldya?" Groggily Bode Gazzer opened his mouth and pointed.
"Jesus Willy," Chub said, but he aimed the nozzle at Bode's brown-stained chompers and sprayed. What the hell, he thought. The fucker's dying.
Bode brushed in a listless mechanical way. He spoke from the uncluttered side of his mouth: "You believe this shit? We just lost twenty-eight million bucks to a Negro terrorist and a damn waitress! They got us, brother. NATO and the Tri-Lateral Negroes and the damn com'nists ... You believe it?"
Chub was in a blinding misery, his bandaged shoulder afire. "You know ... you know what I don'tbelieve?" he said. "I don't believe you still won't say 'nigger' after all she done to us. Goddamn, Bode, I wonder 'bout you!"
"Aw, well." Bodean Gazzer's eyelids drooped to half-staff. One hand flopped apologetically, splatting in a puddle of blood. His face was as pallid as a slab offish.
"She shot you. She shotyou, man." Chub hunched over him. "I wanna hear you say it. 'Nigger.' Before you go and croak, I want you to act like a upright God-fearin' member of the white master race and say that HI word just once. Kin you do that for me? For the late, great White Clarion Aryans?" Chub laughed berserkly against the pain.
"Come on, you stubborn little prick. Say it: N-i-g-e-r."
But Bodean James Gazzer was done talking. He died with the gun brush in his cheeks. His final breath was a soft necrotic whistle of WD-40 fumes.
Chub caught a slight buzz from it, or so he imagined. He snatched up the aerosol can, struggled to his feet and staggered into the mangroves to mourn.
28
The pilgrims were restless. They wanted Turtle Boy.
Sinclair wouldn't come out until he had a deal. Shiner's mother sat beside him on the sofa; the two of them holding hands tautly, as if they were on an airplane in turbulence.
The mayor, Jerry Wicks, had rushed to Demencio's house after hearing about the trouble. Trish prepared coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Shiner's mother declined the pancakes in favor of an omelette.
Demencio was in no mood to negotiate, but the crazy fools had him pinned. Something had gone awry with the food-dye formula and his fiberglass Madonna had begun to weep oily brown tears. Hastily he'd hauled the statue indoors and shut down the visitation. Now there were forty-odd Christian tourists milling in the yard, halfheartedly snapping photos of baby turtles in the moat. Sales of the "holy water" had gone flat-line.
"Lemme get this straight." Demencio paced the living room. "You want thirty percent of the daily collection andthirty percent of the concessions? That ain't gonna happen. Forget about it."
Sinclair, still numb and loopy from his revelations, had been taking his cues from Shiner's mother. She pressed a smudged cheek against his shoulder.
"We told you," she said to Demencio, "we'd settle for twenty percent of the concessions."
"What's this 'we' shit?"
"But only if you find a place for Marva," Sinclair interjected. Marva was the name of Shiner's mother.
"A new shrine," Sinclair went on, brushing a clod of lettuce from his forelock, "to replace the one that was paved."
He hardly recognized his own voice, a trillion light-years beyond his prior life. The newsroom and all its petty travails might as well have been on Pluto.
Demencio sagged into his favorite TV chair. "You people got some goddamn nerve. This is mybusiness here. We built it up by ourselves, all these years, me and Trish. And now you just waltz in and try to take over ... "
Shiner's mother pointed out that Demencio's pilgrim traffic had tripled, thanks to Sinclair's mystical turtle handling. "Plus I got my own loyal clientele," she said. "They'll be here sure as the sun shines, buying up your T-shirts and sodey pops and angel food snacks. You two'll make out like bandits if only you got the brains to go along."
Trish started to say something, but Demencio cut her off. "I don't need you people, that's the point. You need me."
"Really?" Shiner's mother, with a smirk. "You got a Virgin Mary leakin' Quaker State out her eyeballs. Who needs who? is my question."
Demencio said, "Go to hell." But the loony witch had a point.
Even in his blissfully detached state, Sinclair wouldn't budge off the numbers. He knew a little something about business – his father ran a gourmet cheese shop in Boston, and there were plenty of times he'd had to play hardball with those blockhead wholesalers back in Wisconsin.
"May I suggest something?" Mayor Jerry Wicks, playing mediator. The manager of the Holiday Inn, fearing a dip in the bus-tour trade, had implored him to intervene. "I've got an idea," said the mayor. "What if ... Marva, let me ask: What would you need in the way of facilities?"
"For what?"
"Another manifestation."
Shiner's mother crinkled her brow. "Geez, I don't know. You mean another Jesus?"
"I think that's the ticket," the mayor said. "Demencio's already got dibs on the Mother Mary. The turtle boy – may I call you Turtle Boy? – he's got the apostles. That leaves a slot wide open for the Christ child."
Shiner's mother wagged a bony finger. "No, not the baby Jesus. The growed-up one is what I favor."
"Fine," said the mayor. "My point is, this place would make a helluva shrine, would it not? Talk about having all your bases covered!" He cocked his chin toward Demencio. "Come on. You gotta admit."