"I wouldn't have thought so," Decker said.

They watched the cemetery workers tip Bobby Clinch's coffin back into the grave, where it landed with an embarrassing thud. Hastily the diggers picked up their shovels and went to work. Lanie slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses and smoothed her hair. Her motions were elegant, well-practiced in the kind of mirrors you'd never find in Harney. The lady was definitely out-of-town.

"It wasn't what you think. Bobby and me, I mean."

"I don't think anything," Decker said. Why did they always have this compulsion to confess? Did he look like Pat O'Brien? Did he look like he cared?

"He really loved me," Lanie volunteered.

"Of course he did," Decker said. The Corvette was proof. A greater love hath no man than an orange sports car with a T-top and mag wheels.

"I hope you find out what really happened," she said. "That's why you're here, isn't it? Well, you're going to earn your fee on this one."

Then she walked away. R. J. Decker found himself concentrating on the way she moved. It was a dazzlingly lascivious walk, with a sway of the hips that suggested maybe a little booze for breakfast. Decker had done worse things than admire a woman's legs at a funeral, but he knew he should have been thinking about something else. Why, for example, the grieving mistress knew more about him than he knew about her. He got up and strolled after her. When he called her name, Lanie turned, smiled, didn't stop walking. By the time Decker caught up she was already in the Corvette, door locked.

She waved once through the tinted windows, then sped off, nearly peeling rubber over his feet.

When Decker got back to the grave, Ott Pickney was finishing his interview.

He nodded good-bye to Clarisse. "A cold woman," he said to Decker. "Something tells me Bobby spent too much time on the lake."

As they walked to the truck, Decker asked about the fishing rod in the coffin.

"Looked like a beauty," Ott agreed.

"Yes, but I was wondering," Decker said. "Guy goes fishing early one morning, flips his boat, falls in the lake ... "

"Yeah?"

"How'd they ever find the rod?"

Ott shrugged. "Hell, R.J., how do I know? Maybe they snagged it off the bottom."

"Thirty feet of brown water? I don't think so."

"Okay, maybe he didn't bring it with him. Maybe he left it at home."

"But it was his favorite rig."

"What are you getting at?"

"I just think it's odd."

"Bass fanatics like Bobby Clinch got a hundred fishing poles, R.J., a new favorite every day. Whatever catches a lunker."

"Maybe you're right."

"You need to relax," Ott said, "you really do."

They climbed in the Toyota and like clockwork Pickney lit up a Camel. He couldn't do it outdoors, in the fresh air, Decker thought; it had to be in a stuffy cab. He felt like getting out and hiking back to the motel. Give himself some time to think about this Lanie business.

"Clarisse didn't give me diddly for this story," Ott complained. "A bitter, bitter woman. I'd much rather have been interviewing your saucy new friend."

Decker said, "Who was she, anyway?"

"A very hot number," Ott said. "Don't tell me she's already got your dick in a knot."

"She seemed to know who I am. Or at least what I do."

"I'm not surprised."

"She said her name was Lanie."

"Lovely, lovely Lanie," Ott sang.

"Then you know her."

"R.J., everybody knows Lanie Gault. Her brother's one of the biggest bass fishermen in the country."

Dickie Lockhart missed the big funeral because he had to fly to New Orleans and meet with his boss.

The boss was the Reverend Charles Weeb, president, general manager, and spiritual commander of the Outdoor Christian Network, which syndicated Dickie Lockhart's television show.

Lockhart was not a remotely religious person—each Sunday being occupied by fishing—so he'd never bothered to ascertain precisely which denomination was espoused by the Reverend Charles Weeb. Whenever the two men met, Weeb never mentioned sin, God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or any of the A-list apostles. Instead Weeb mainly talked about ratings and revenues and why some of Lockhart's big sponsors were going soft on him. During these discussions the Reverend Charles Weeb often became exercised and tossed around terms like "shithead" and "cocksucker" more freely than any preacher Dickie Lockhart had ever met.

Two or three times a year, Lockhart would be summoned to New Orleans for a detailed review of Fish Fever,Lockhart's immensely popular television show. The Reverend Charles Weeb, who naturally had his own evangelical show on the Outdoor Christian Network, seemed to possess an uncommon interest in Lockhart's low-budget fishing travelogue.

On the day of Bobby Clinch's funeral the two men met in a pink suite in a big hotel on Chartres Street. The room was full of fruit baskets and complimentary bottles of booze. On a credenza by the door stood an odd collection of tiny statuary—plastic dashboard saints that various hotel workers had dropped off so that the Reverend Weeb might bestow a small blessing, if he had time.

"Nutty Catholics," Weeb grumbled. "Only know how to do two things—screw and beg forgiveness."

"Can I have an apple?" Dickie Lockhart asked.

"No," said Charles Weeb. He wore an expensive maroon jogging suit that he'd bought for cash on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. As always, his straw-blond hair looked perfect. Weeb also had straw-blond eyebrows which, Dickie Lockhart guessed, were combed with as much care as the hair.

Weeb propped his Reeboks on the coffee table, slipped on a pair of reading glasses, and scanned the latest Nielsens.

"Not too terrible," he said.

"Thank you," Lockhart said. Meetings were not his strong suit; he was already daydreaming about Bourbon Street, and what might happen later.

"You want to explain Macon?" Charlie Weeb said, peering over the rims.

Lockhart shrank into the sofa. He had no idea what the boss was talking about. Had he missed a fishing tournament? Maybe a promotional gig for one of the top sponsors? Wasn't Macon where Happy Gland Fish Scent was manufactured?

"Macon," Weeb sighed. His tone was that of a disappointed parent. "We lost Macon to that shiteating cocksucker."

"Spurling?"

"Who else!" Weeb crumpled the Nielsens.

Ed Spurling hosted a show called Fishin' with Fast Eddie,which was broadcast by satellite to one hundred and seventeen television stations. One more, counting Macon.

In the fierce battle for TV bass-fishing supremacy, Ed Spurling was Dickie Lockhart's blood rival.

"Macon," Dickie said morosely. Georgia was damn good bass country, too.

"So it's one hundred twenty-five stations to one-eighteen," the Reverend Charles Weeb remarked. "Too damn close for comfort."

"But we've got some overlap," Lockhart noted. "Mobile, Gulfport, and Fort Worth."

Weeb nodded. "Little Rock too," he said.

These were cable systems that carried both bass programs; a few markets could easily support more than one.

"Guess I forgot to tell you," Weeb said. "You lost the dinnertime slot in Little Rock. They bumped you to Sunday morning, after Ozark Bowling."

Lockhart groaned. Spurling's lead-in was Kansas City Royals baseball, a blockbuster. It didn't seem fair.

"You see what's happening," the reverend said darkly.

"But the show's doing good. Did you see the one from Lake Jackson?"

"Shaky lens work." Weeb sneered. "Looked like your video ace had the DTs."

"We do our best," the fisherman muttered, "on a thousand lousy bucks per episode." That was the Fish Feverbudget, excluding Dickie Lockhart's salary. Travel money was so tight that Lockhart drove a Winnebago between locations to save on motels.