Bode took a slug and wedged the beer can in the crotch of his Mossy Oak trousers, to free both hands for steering. Chub leaned against the door, his ponytail leaving an oily smear on the window. He said, "I ain't wearin' no camo."

"Why not, goddammit!"

" 'Cause it makes you look like a fuckin' compost heap."

Bode Gazzer jerked the truck onto the shoulder of the highway. Angrily he stomped the brake.

"You listen – " he began.

"No, you listen!" Chub said, and was upon him in a second.

Bode felt the barrel of the Colt poking the soft part of his throat, right about where his tongue was attached on the inside. He felt Chub's hot beery breath on his forehead.

"Let's not fight," Bode pleaded, hoarsely.

"Won't be a fight. Be a killin'."

"Hey, brother, we're partners."

Chub said, "Then where's ourticket, dickface?"

"The lottery ticket?"

"No, the fucking laundry ticket." ('hub cocked the pistol. "Where's it at?"

"Don't do this."

"I'm countin' to five."

"In my wallet. Inside a rubber."

Chub grinned crookedly. "Lemme see."

"A Trojan. One a them ribbed jobbers, nonlubricated." Bode removed it from his wallet and showed Chub what he'd done the night before – opening the plastic foil with a razor and folding the Lotto ticket inside the rolled-up condom.

Chub returned the gun to his pants and slid back to the passenger side. "That's pretty slick, I gotta admit. Nobody steals another man's rubbers. Steals every other damn thing, but not that."

"Exactly," Bode said. As soon as his heart stopped skipping, he put the truck in gear and eased back on the turnpike.

Chub watched him in a neutral but not entirely innocuous way. He said: "You understand what coulda happened? That we wouldn't be partners no more if I blowed your brains all over this truck and took the Lotto stub for m'self."

Bode nodded tightly. Until now it hadn't occurred that Chub might rip him off. Obviously it was something to think about. He said, "It's gonna work out fine. You'll see."

"OK," said Chub. He opened a beer: warm and fizzy. He closed his eyes and sucked down half the can. He wanted to trust Bode Gazzer but it wasn't always easy. Negro,for God's sake. Why'd he keep on with that word? It troubled Chub, made him wonder if Bode wasn't all he claimed to be.

Then he had another thought. "They a whorehouse in Grange?"

"Who knows," Bode said, "and who cares."

"Just don't forget where you hid our ticket."

"Gimme a break, Chub."

'Be helluva way to lose out on fourteen million bucks, winds up in the sheets of some whorehouse."

Bode Gazzer stared straight ahead at the highway. He said, "Man, you got a wild imagination."

The brains of a goddamn squirrel, but a wild imagination.

Tom Krome didn't wait to unpack; tossed his carry bag on the bed and dashed out. The owner of the bed-and-breakfast was pleased to give directions to the home of Miss JoLayne Lucks, at the corner of Cocoa and Hubbard across from the park. Krome's plan was to drop in with sincere apologies, invite Miss Lucks to a proper dinner, then ease into the interview gradually.

His experience as a visiting journalist in small towns was that some folks would tell you their life story at the drop of a hat, and others wouldn't say boo if your hair was on fire. Waiting on the woman's porch, Krome didn't know what to expect. He had knocked: No reply. He knocked again. Lights shone in the living room, and Krome heard music from a radio.

He walked around to the backyard and rose on his toes, to peer in the kitchen window. There were signs of a finished meal on the table: a setting for one. Coffee cup, salad bowl, a bare plate with a half-nibbled biscuit.

When Krome returned to the porch, the door stood open. The radio was off, the house was still.

"Hello!" he called.

He took a half step inside. The first thing he noticed was the aquarium. The second thing was water on the hardwood floor; a trail of drips.

From down the hall, a woman's voice: "Shut the door, please. Are you the reporter?"

"Yes, that's right." Tom Krome wondered how she knew. "Are you JoLayne?"

"What is it you want? I'm really not up for this."

Krome said, "You all right?"

"Come see for yourself."

She was sitting in the bathtub, with soap bubbles up to her breasts. She had a towel on her hair and a shotgun in her hands. Krome raised his arms and said, "I'm not going to hurt you."

"No shit," said JoLayne Lucks. "I've got a twelve-gauge and all you've got is a tape recorder."

Krome nodded. The Pearlcorder he used for interviews was cupped in his right hand.

"Sure is tiny," JoLayne remarked. "Sit down." She motioned with the gun toward the commode. "What's your name?"

"Tom Krome. I'm with The Register."He sat where she told him to sit. She said, "I've had more company today than I can stand. Is this what it's like to be rich?"

Krome smiled inwardly. She was going to be one helluva story.

"Take out the cassette," JoLayne Lucks told him, "and drop it in the tub."

Krome played along. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. Quit staring."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me you never saw a woman take a bath. Oh my, is it the bubbles? They sure don't last long."

Krome locked his eyes on the ceiling. "I can come back tomorrow."

JoLayne said, "Would you kindly stand up. Good. Now turn around. Get the robe off that hook and hand it to me – without peeking, please."

He heard the slosh of her climbing out of the tub. Then the lights in the bathroom went out.

"That was me," she said. "Don't try anything."

It was so dark that Krome couldn't see his own nose. He felt something sharp at his back.

"Gun," JoLayne explained.

"Gotcha."

"I want you to take off your clothes."

"For Christ's sake."

"And get in the bathtub."

"No!" he said.

"You want your interview, Mr. Krome?"

Until that moment, everything that had happened in the house of JoLayne Lucks was splendid material for Krome's feature story. But not this part, the disrobing-at-gunpoint of the reporter. Sinclair would never be told.

Once Krome was in the water, JoLayne Lucks turned on the lights. She stood the shotgun against the toilet, and knelt next to the tub. "How you feeling?" she asked.

"Ridiculous."

"Well, you shouldn't. You're a good-enough-looking man." She peeled the towel off her head and shook her hair.

Tom Krome roiled the water to churn up more soap bubbles, in a futile effort to conceal his shriveled cock. JoLayne thought that was absolutely adorable. Krome fidgeted self-consciously. He reflected on the difficult and occasionally dangerous situations in which he'd found himself as a reporter – urban riots, drug busts, hurricanes, police shootouts, even a foreign coup. Yet he'd never felt so stymied and helpless. The woman had thought it out very carefully. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Because I was scared of you."

"There's nothing to be scared of."

"Oh, I can see that."

He laughed then. Couldn't help it. JoLayne Lucks laughed, too. "You gotta admit it breaks the ice."

Krome said, "You left the front door open."

"I sure did."

"And that's what you do when you're scared? Leave the door open and wait buck naked in the bath?"

"With a Remington," JoLayne reminded him, "full of nickel turkey load. Gift from Daddy." She ran some hot water into the tub. "You gettin' chilly?"

Krome kept his hands folded across his groin. There was no sense trying to act casual, but he did. JoLayne put her chin on the edge of the tub. "What do you want to know, Mr. Krome?"

"Did you win the lottery?"

"Yes, I won the lottery."

"Why aren't you happy about it?"