Weeb said, "Your show needs a damn good jolt."

"I caught three ten-pounders at Lake Jackson!"

"Spurling's got a new theme song," Weeb went on. "Banjos. Mac Davis on the vocals. Have you heard it?"

Lockhart shook his head. He wasn't much for arguing with the boss, but sometimes pride got the best of him. He asked Charles Weeb, "Did you see the latest BBRs?"

Published by Bass Blastersmagazine, the Bass Blasters Ratings (BBR) ranked the country's top anglers. The BBR was to bass fishing what the Nielsens were to the TV networks.

"Did you notice who's number one?" Dickie Lockhart asked. "Again?"

"Yeah." Weeb took his sneakers off the coffee table and sat up. "It's a good fucking thing, too, because right now all we got going for us is your name, Dickie. You're a winner and viewers like winners. 'Course, I see where Mr. Spurling won himself a tournament in mid-Tennessee—"

"The minor leagues, Reverend Weeb. I smoked him at the Atlanta Classic. He finished eighth, and no keepers."

Weeb stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from his expensive jogging suit. Then he sat down again. "As I said, we're very pleased you're on top. I just hate to see you slipping, that's all. It happens, if you're not careful. Happens in business, happens in fishing too. One and the same."

Weeb tore open a fruit basket and tossed Lockhart an apple. Lockhart felt like telling Weeb how much his jogging suit looked like K-Mart pajamas.

The Reverend Charles Weeb said, "This is the majors, Dickie. If you don't win, you get benched." He took off his glasses. "I truly hope you keep winning. In fact, I strongly recommend it."

On this matter, of course, Dickie Lockhart was way ahead of him.

Decker honked twice as he drove up to Skink's shack. Short, polite honks. The last thing he wanted to do was surprise a man in a shooting mood.

The shack had a permanent lean, and looked as if a decent breeze could flatten it. Except for the buzz of horseflies, the place stood silent. Decker stuck his hands in his pockets and walked down to the lake. Across the water, several hundred yards away, a sleek boat drifted with two fishermen, plugging the shoreline. Every time one of them cast his lure, the shiny monofilament made a gossamer arc over the water before settling to the surface. The pointed raspberry hull of the fishermen's boat glistened under the noon sun. Decker didn't even bother to try a shout. If Skink were fishing, he'd be alone. And never in a boat like that.

Decker trudged back to the shack and sat on the porch. Seconds later he heard a cracking noise overhead, and Skink dropped out of an old pine tree.

He got up off the ground and said, "I'm beginning not to despise you."

"Nice to hear," Decker said.

"You didn't go inside."

"It's not my house," Decker said.

"Precisely," Skink grumped, clomping onto the porch. "Some people would've gone in anyway."

Daylight added no nuances or definition to Skink's appearance. Today he wore camouflage fatigues, sunglasses, and a flowered shower cap from which sprouted the long braid of silver-gray hair.

He poured coffee for Decker, but none for himself.

"I got fresh rabbit for lunch," Skink said.

"No thanks."

"I said fresh."

"I just ate," Decker said unconvincingly.

"How was the funeral?"

Decker shrugged. "Did you know Robert Clinch?"

"I know them all," Skink said.

"Lanie Gault?"

"Her brother's the big tycoon who hired you."

"Right." Decker had been relieved when Ott had told him that Dennis Gault was Lanie's brother. A husband would have been disconcerting news indeed.

Decker said, "Miss Gault thinks there's something strange about the way Bobby Clinch died."

Skink was on his haunches, working on the fire. He didn't answer right away. Once the tinder was lit, he said, "Good rabbit is tough to come by. They tend to get all the way smushed and there's no damn meat left. The best ones are the ones that just barely get clipped and knocked back to the shoulder of the road. This one here, you'd hardly know it got hit. Meat's perfect. Might as well dropped dead of a bunny heart attack." Skink was arranging the pieces on a frypan.

"I'll try a bite or two," Decker said, surrendering.

Only then did Skink smile. It was one of the unlikeliest smiles Decker had ever seen, because Skink had perfect teeth. Straight, flawless, blindingly white ivories, the kind nobody is born with. TV-anchorman-type teeth—Skink's were that good.

Decker wasn't sure if he should be comforted or concerned. He was still thinking about those teeth when Skink said: "I was at the Coon Bog Saturday morning."

"When it happened?"

"Right before."

"They said he must've been doing sixty knots when the boat flipped."

Skink basted the sizzling rabbit with butter. He looked up and said, "When I saw the boat, it wasn't moving."

"Was Clinch alive?"

"Hell, yes."

Decker said, "Then the accident must have happened after you left."

Skink snorted.

"Did he see you?" Decker asked.

"Nope. I was kneeling in the trees, skinning out a rattler. Nobody saw me." He handed Decker a hunk of fried meat.

Decker blew on it until it cooled, then took a small bite. It was really very good. He asked, "What made you notice Clinch?"

"Because he wasn't fishing."

Decker swallowed the meat, and out came a quizzical noise.

"He wasn't fishing," Skink repeated, "and I thought that was damn strange. Get up at dawn, race like mad to a fishing hole, then just poke around the lily pads with a paddle. I was watching because I wanted to see if he'd find what he was looking for."

"Did he?"

"Don't know. I left, had to get the snake on ice."

"Christ," Decker said. He reached into the frypan and gingerly picked out another piece of rabbit. Skink nodded approvingly.

Decker asked, "What do you make of it?"

Skink said: "I'm working for you, is that right?"

"If you'll do it, I sure need the help."

"No shit." The pan was empty. Skink poured the gloppy grease into an old milk carton.

"Bass were slapping over that morning," he said, "and not once did that fucker pick up a rod and cast. Do you find that strange?"

"I suppose," Decker said.

"God, you need a lesson or two," Skink muttered. "Guys like Clinch love to catch bass more than they love to screw. That's the truth, Miami. You put 'em on a good bass lake at dawn and they get hard.So the question is, why wasn't Bobby Clinch fishing on the Coon Bog last Saturday?"

Decker had nothing to offer.

"You want to hear something even stranger?" Skink said. "There was another boat out there too, and not far away. Two guys."

Decker said, "And they weren't fishing either, were they, captain?"

"Ha-ha!" Skink cawed. "See there—those rabbit glands went straight to your brain!"

Decker's coffee had cooled, but it didn't matter. He gulped the rest of it.

Skink had become more animated and intense; the cords in his neck were tight. Decker couldn't tell if he was angry or ecstatic. Using a pocket knife to pick strings of rabbit meat from his perfect teeth, Skink said: "Well, Miami, aren't you going to ask me what this means?"

"It was on my list of questions, yeah."

"You'll hear my theory tonight, on the lake."

"On the lake?"

"Your first communion," Skink said, and scrambled noisily back up into the big pine.

Ott Pickney had left Miami in gentle retreat from big-city journalism. He knew he could have stayed at the Sunfor the rest of his life, but felt he had more or less made his point. Having written virtually nothing substantial in at least a decade, he had nonetheless departed the newspaper in a triumphant state of mind. He had survived the conversion to cold type, the advent of unions, the onslaught of the preppy cubs, the rise of the hotshot managers. Ott had watched the stars and starfuckers arrive and, with a minimum of ambition, outlasted most of them. He felt he was living proof that a successful journalist need not be innately cunning or aggressive, even in South Florida.