“But do you have any money in the bank?” Jack said as an idea hit him.

“Naw. Pretty much everthing gets spent just for livin’.”

“Okay, then. What say I pay you a thousand bucks to take me to this lagoon?”

“A thousand?” Carl laughed. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

“Nope. Five hundred when we leave, and another five when we get back. That sound fair to you?”

Carl licked his lips. “Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“But they’s gonna be awful mad if they find I brung an outsider to the lagoon.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Jack flipped up the back of his shirt to show Carl the Glock. “I’ll get you back home. I promise. And anyway, if we go in the afternoon, won’t they all be in town, begging?”

“Come to think of it, yeah. Specially this bein’ Friday.”

“What’s so special about Friday?”

He shrugged. “Lotsa people round here get paid on Thursdays, and on Fridays they’re happy the work week’s over, so they’re looser with their change. Saturday’s pretty much the same. But Sunday’s usually a bust.”

“Spent too much on Saturday night, right?”

“Yeah. Or they just come from church and did some givin’ there. Monday’s even worse.” He scratched his jaw. “So yeah. We should have the lagoon pretty much to ourselfs this afternoon.”

“Then that’s when we’ll go. A quick trip for a quick look-see. In and out. Easiest thousand you ever made.”

Carl took a breath. “Okay. But since my car ain’t workin’, you gotta drive me down to the waterside.” He began picking up his golf balls. “Guess I better get movin’. Gotta get home, gotta find us a boat.”

“How’d you get here without a car?”

“Bike. How else?”

More power to you, pal, Jack thought. Maybe the thousand would let Carl repair his junker Honda.

He got directions to Carl’s trailer park—it was the one Jack had seen between the auto body place and the limestone quarry—and continued his jog.

2

Semelee stood with Luke a couple dozen feet from Devil’s gator hole and watched. The big gator lay half sunk in the water at the shady end, his eyes closed. The water around his left flank wound was tinged red. At first she thought he was dead, but then she saw his sides pull in a little as he took a breath.

“He’s still bleeding,” Luke said.

“I know,” she said through her clenched teeth. “I got eyes.”

She felt so on edge this morning she wanted to take a bite out of somebody.