Carl Hiaasen by Lucky You Page B

“Who wouldn’t love a free trip to Hawaii?”
    Two hours later, he was startled awake by the light graze of fingernails on his cheek.
    Katie
. Krome realized he’d fallen asleep without locking his door. Moron! He sprung upright.
    The room was black. He smelled perfumed soap.
    “Katherine?” Christ, she must’ve run out on her husband!
    “No, it’s me. Please don’t turn on the light.”
    He felt the mattress shift as JoLayne Lucks sat beside him. In the darkness she found one of his hands and brought it to her face.
    “Oh no,” said Krome.
    “There were two of them.” Her voice was thick.
    “Let me see.”
    “Keep it dark. Please, Tom.”
    He traced along her forehead, down her cheeks. One of her eyes was swollen shut—a raw knot, hot to the touch. Her top lip was split open, bloody and crusting.
    “Jesus,” Krome sighed. He made her lie down. “I’m calling a doctor.”
    “No,” JoLayne said.
    “And the cops.”
    “Don’t!”
    Krome felt like his chest would explode. Gently JoLayne pulled him down, so they were lying side by side.
    “They got the ticket,” she whispered.
    It took a moment for him to understand: The lottery ticket, of course.
    “They made me give it to them,” she said.
    “Who?”
    “I never saw them before. There were two of them.”
    Krome heard her swallow, fighting the tears. His head was thundering—he had to do something. Get the woman to a hospital. Notify the police. Interview the neighbors in case somebody saw something, heard something …
    But Tom Krome couldn’t move. JoLayne Lucks hung on to his arms as if she were drowning. He turned on his side and carefully embraced her.
    She shivered and said, “They
made
me give it to them.”
    “It’s OK.”
    “No—”
    “You’re going to be all right. That’s the important thing.”
    “No,” she cried, “you don’t understand.”
    A few minutes later, after her breathing settled, Krome reached over to the bedstand and turned on the lamp. JoLayne closed her eyes while he studied the cuts and bruises.
    “What else did they do?” he asked.
    “Punched me in the stomach. And other places.”
    JoLayne saw his eyes flash, his jaw tighten. He told her: “It’s time to get up. We’ve got to do something about this.”
    “Damn right,” she said. “That’s why I came to you.”

5
    T hey took turns examining themselves in the rearview mirror, Chub swearing extravagantly: “Goddamn nigger bitch, goddamn we shoulda kilt her.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” said Bodean Gazzer.
    They both hurt like hell and looked worse. Chub had deep scratches down his cheeks, and his left eyelid was sliced in half—one ragged flap blinked, the other didn’t. He was soiled with blood, mostly his own.
    He said, “I never seen such fuckin’ fingernails. You?”
    Bode muttered in assent. His face and throat bore numerous purple-welted bite marks. The crazy cunt had also chewed off a substantial segment of one eyebrow, and Bode was having a time plugging the hole.
    In a worn voice, he said: “Important thing is we got the ticket.”
    “Which I’ll hang on to,” Chub said, “just to be safe.” And to make things even, he thought. No way was he about to let Bode Gazzer hold
both
Lotto tickets.
    “Fine with me,” Bode said, though it wasn’t. He was in too much pain to argue. He’d never seen a woman fight so ferociously. Christ, she’d left them looking like gator puke!
    Chub said, “They’re animals. Total goddamn animals.”
    Bode agreed. “White girl’d never fuss like that. Not even for fourteen million bucks.”
    “I’m serious, we shoulda kilt her.”
    “Right. Wasn’t you the one had no interest in jail time?”
    “Bode, go fuck yourself.”
    Chub pressed a sodden bandanna to his tattered eyelid. He remembered how relieved he’d been to learn that the woman who’d hit the lottery numbers was black. What a weight off his shoulders! If she’d been white—especially a white Christian woman, elderly, like his