And when JoLayne Lucks learned she'd won the Florida lottery, she knew immediately what to do with the money: She would buy Simmons Wood and save it.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, working up the numbers on a pocket calculator, when she heard a sharp knock from the porch. She figured it must be Tom, the newspaperman, giving it one more shot. Who else would be so brash as to drop by at midnight?

The screen door opened before JoLayne got there. A stranger stepped into her living room. He was dressed like a hunter.

Krome asked, "Did you find her?"

"Yes," said Dick Turnquist.

"Where?"

"I hesitate to tell you."

"Then don't," said Krome. He lay on the sheets with his fingers interlocked behind his head. To keep the receiver at his ear he'd propped it in the fleshy pocket above his collarbone. Years of talking to editors from motel rooms had led him to perfect a supine, hands-free technique for using the telephone.

Turnquist said, "She's checked herself into rehab, Tom. Says she's hooked on antidepressants."

"That's ridiculous."

"Says she's eating Prozacs like Pez."

"I want her served."

"Tried," Turnquist said. "The judge says leave her alone. Wants a hearing to find out if she is of'diminished mental capacity.' "

Krome cackled bitterly. Turnquist was sympathetic.

Mary Andrea Finley Krome had been resisting divorce for almost four years. She could not be assuaged with offers of excessive alimony or a cash buyout. I don't want money, I want Tom.No one was more baffled than Tom himself, who was acutely aware of his deficiencies as a domestic companion. The dispute had been brutally elongated because the case was filed in Brooklyn, which was, with the possible exception of Vatican City, the worst place in the world to expedite a divorce. Further complicating the procedure was the fact that the estranged Mrs. Krome was an accomplished stage actress who was capable, as she demonstrated time and again, of convincing the most hard-bitten judge of her fragile mental condition. She also had a habit of disappearing for months at a time with obscure road shows – most recently it was a musical adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs– which made it difficult to serve her with court summonses.

Tom Krome said, "Dick, I can't take much more."

"The competency hearing is set two weeks from tomorrow."

"How long can she drag this out?"

"You mean, what's the record?"

Krome sat up in bed. He caught the phone before it hit his lap. He put the receiver flush to his lips and said loudly: "Does she even have a goddamn lawyer yet?"

"I doubt it," said Dick Turnquist. "Get some rest, Tom."

"Where is she?"

"Mary Andrea?"

"Where's this rehab center?" Krome asked.

"You don't want to know."

"Oh, let me guess. Switzerland?"

"Maui."

"Fuck."

Dick Turnquist said things could be worse. Tom Krome said he didn't think so. He gave the lawyer permission to round up a couple of expert witnesses on Prozac for the upcoming hearing.

"Shouldn't be hard," Krome added. "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 arm as if she were drowning. He turned on his side and carefully embraced her.

She shivered and said, "They mademe 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."

They 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 bothLotto 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's 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 granny – Chub knew he wouldn't have had the guts to go through with the robbery. Much less slug her in the face and the privates, as was necessary with that wild JoLayne bitch.

And a white girl, you shove a pistol in her lips and she'll do whatever she's told. Not this one.

Where's the ticket?

Not a word.

Where's the goddamn ticket?

And Bode Gazzer saying, "Hey, genius, she can't talk with a gun in her mouth."

And Chub removing it, only to have the woman spit all over the barrel. Then she'd spit on him, too.

Leaving Chub and Bode to conclude there wasn't a damn thing they could do to this person, in the way of rape or torture, to make her give up that ticket.