Stormy Weather Read online

  "That's Tony on the left," Edie said with a dry, edgy laugh.

  "Nice grouper. Where'd he catch it?"

  "The ocean." Where else? thought Edie.

  "And who's this?" The insurance man retrieved another frame off the floor. The glass was cracked, and the picture was puckered from storm water. It was a color nine-by-twelve mounted inside gold filigree: Tony Torres with his arm around the waist of a petite but heavy-breasted Latin woman. Both of them wore loopy champagne smiles.

  "His sister Maria," Edie blurted, sensing the game was about to end.

  "She's in a wedding gown," Fred Dove remarked, with no trace of sarcasm. "And Mister Torres is wearing a black tuxedo and tails."

  Edie said, "He was the best man."

  "Really? His hand is on her bottom."

  "They're very close," said Edie, "for a brother and sister." The words trailed off in defeat.

  Fred Dove's shoulders stiffened, and his tone chilled. "Do you happen to have some identification? A driver's license would be good. Anything with a current photograph."

  Edie Marsh said nothing. She feared compounding one felony with another.

  "Let me guess," said the insurance man. "All your personal papers were lost in the hurricane."

  Edie bowed her head, thinking: This can't be happening again. One of these days I've got to catch a break. She said, "Shit."

  "Pardon?"

  "I said 'shit.' Meaning, I give up." Edie couldn't believe it-a fucking wedding picture! Tony and the unfaithful witch he planned to rip off for half the hurricane money. Too bad Snapper bolted, she thought, because this was ten times better than Sally Jessy.

  "Who are you?" Fred Dove was stern and official.

  "Look, what happens now?"

  "I'll tell you exactly what happens—"

  At that moment, the electric generator ran out of gasoline, dying with a feeble series of burps. The light-bulb went dim and the television went black. The house at 15600 Calusa became suddenly as quiet as a chapel. The only sound was a faint jingle from the backyard, where the two dachshunds squirmed to pull free of their leashes.

  In the darkness, Fred Dove reached for his flashlight. Edie Marsh intercepted his wrist and held on to it. She decided there was nothing to lose by trying.

  "What are you doing?" the insurance man asked.

  Edie brought his hand to her mouth. "What's it worth to you?"

  Fred Dove stood as still as a statue.

  "Come on," Edie said, her tongue brushing his knuckles, "what's it worth?"

  The insurance man, in a shaky whisper: "What's what worth-not calling the police? Is that what you mean?"

  Edie was smiling. Fred Dove could tell by the feel of her lips and teeth against his hand.

  "What's this house insured for?" she asked.

  "Why?"

  "One twenty? One thirty?"

  "One forty-one," said Fred Dove, thinking: Her breath is so unbelievably soft.

  Edie switched to her sex-kitten voice, the one that had failed to galvanize the young Palm Beach Kennedy. "One forty-one? You sure, Mister Dove?"

  "The structure, yes. Because of the swimming pool."

  "Of course." She pressed closer, wishing she weren't wearing a bra but suspecting it didn't much matter. Poor Freddie's brakes were already smoking. She feathered her eyelashes against his neck and felt him bury his face in her hair.

  The insurance man labored to speak. "What is it you want?"

  "A partner," Edie Marsh replied, sealing the agreement with a long blind kiss.

  Sergeant Cain Darby took his weekends with the National Guard as seriously as he took his regular job as a maximum-security-prison guard. Although he would have preferred to remain in Starke with the armed robbers and serial killers, duty called Cain Darby to South Florida on the day after the hurricane struck.

  Commanding Darby's National Guard unit was the night manager of a Days Inn, who sternly instructed the troops not to fire their weapons unless fired upon themselves. From what Cain Darby knew of Miami, this scenario seemed not entirely improbable. Nonetheless, he understood that a Guardsman's chief mission was to maintain order in the streets, assist needy civilians and prevent looting.

  The unit's first afternoon was spent erecting tents for the homeless and unloading heavy drums of fresh drinking water from the back of a Red Cross trailer. After supper, Cain Darby was posted to a curfew checkpoint on Quail Roost Drive, not far from the Florida Turnpike. Darby and another Guardsman, the foreman of a paper mill, took turns stopping the cars and trucks. Most drivers had good excuses for being on the road after curfew-some were searching for missing relatives, others were on their way to a hospital, and still others were simply lost in a place they no longer recognized. If questions arose about a driver's alibi, the paper-mill foreman deferred judgment to Sergeant Darby, due to his law-enforcement experience. Common violators were TV crews, sightseers, and teenagers who had come to steal. These cars Cain Darby interdicted and sent away, to the Turnpike ramp.

  At midnight the paper-mill foreman returned to camp, leaving Sergeant Darby alone at the barricade. He dozed for what must have been two hours, until he was startled awake by loud snorting. Blearily he saw the shape of a large bear no more than thirty yards away, at the edge of a pine glade. Or maybe it was just a freak shadow, for it looked nothing like the chubby black bears that Cain Darby routinely poached from the Ocala National Forest. The thing that he now thought he was seeing stood seven feet at the shoulders.

  Cain Darby closed his eyes tightly to clear the sleep. Then he opened them again, very slowly. The huge shape was still there, a motionless phantasm. Common sense told him he was mistaken-they don't grow thousand-pound bears in Florida! But that's sure what it looked like....

  So he raised his rifle.

  Then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted headlights barreling down Quail Roost Drive. He turned to see. Somebody was driving toward the roadblock like a bat out of hell. Judging by the rising chorus of sirens, half the Metro police force was on the chase.

  When Cain Darby spun back toward the bear, or the shape that looked like a bear, it was gone. He lowered the gun and directed his attention to the maniac in the oncoming truck. Cain Darby struck an erect military pose in front of the candy-striped barricades-spine straight, legs apart, the rifle held at a ready angle across the chest.

  A half mile behind the truck was a stream of flashing blue and red lights. The fugitive driver seemed undaunted. As the headlights drew closer, Sergeant Darby hurriedly weighed his options. The asshole wasn't going to stop, that much was clear. By now the man had (unless he was blind, drunk or both) seen the soldier standing in his path.

  Yet the vehicle was not decelerating. If anything, it was gaining speed. Cain Darby cursed as he dashed out of the way. If there was one thing he found intolerable, it was disrespect for a uniform, whether it belonged to the Department of Corrections or the National Guard.

  So he indignantly cranked off a few rounds as the idiot driver smashed through the barricade.

  No one was more stunned than Cain Darby to see the speeding truck overshoot the Turnpike ramp and plunge full speed into a drainage canal; no one except the driver, Gil Peck. The sound of gunfire had destroyed his ragged reflexes, particularly his ability to locate the brake pedal. He couldn't believe some peckerwood Guardsman was shooting at him.

  What did not surprise Gil Peck, considering his heavy cargo of stolen bricks, was how swiftly the flatbed sunk in the warm brown water. He squeezed through the window, swam to shore and began weeping at his own foul luck. All his hurricane booty was lost, except for the package of hash, which bobbed to the surface at the precise moment the first police car arrived.

  Yet the drugs weren't the most serious of Gil Peck's legal concerns. As he was being handcuffed, he declared: "I didn't kill him!"

  "Kill who?" the officer asked.

  "The guy, you know. The guy at the trailer park." Gil Peck assumed that's why the cops were chasing him-they'd fo
und the body'of the crucified man.

  But they hadn't. Gil Peck's nausea worsened. He should've kept his damn mouth shut. Now it was too late. Pink and blue bikini panties began to float up, like pale jellyfish, from the bed of the sunken truck.

  The officer said: "What guy at what trailer park?"

  Gil Peck told him about the dead man impaled in the TV dish. As other policemen arrived, Gil Peck repeated the story, and also his impassioned denials of guilt. One of the officers asked Gil Peck if he would take them to the body, and he agreed.

  After the paramedics checked him for broken bones, the thief was toweled off and deposited in the back-seat cage of a Highway Patrol car. The trooper at the wheel was a large black man in a Stetson. On the way to the trailer court, Gil Peck delivered yet another excited monologue about his innocence.

  "If you didn't do it," the trooper cut in, "why'd you run?"

  "Scared, man." Gil Peck shivered. "You should see."

  "Oh, I can't wait," the trooper said.

  "You a Christian, sir?"

  It was amazing, thought the trooper, how quickly the handcuffs induced spiritual devoutness. "Anyone read you your rights?" he asked the truck driver.

  Gil Peck thrust his face to the mesh of the cage. "If you're a Christian, you gotta believe what I'm sayin'. It wasn't me that crucified the poor fucker."

  But Jim Tile hoped with all his Christian heart that it was. Because the other prime suspect was someone he didn't want to arrest, unless there was no choice.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Skink eavesdropped leisurely while Max Lamb made two calls. The phone booth was at a truck stop on Krome Avenue, the fringe of the Everglades. Longbeds overloaded with lumber, sheet glass and tar paper streamed south in ragged convoys to the hurricane zone. Nobody glanced twice at the unshaven man on the phone, despite the collar around his neck.

  When Max Lamb hung up, Skink grabbed his arm and led him to the airboat, beached on the bank of a muddy canal. Skink ordered him to lie in the bow, and there he remained for two hours, his cheekbone vibrating against the hull. The howl of the aviation engine filled his ears. Skink was no longer singing harmony. Max Lamb wondered what he'd done to further annoy his abductor.

  They stopped once. Skink left the airboat briefly and returned with a large cardboard box, which he set in the bow next to Max. They traveled until dusk. When Skink finally lifted him to his knees, Max was surprised to see the Indian village. They didn't stay long enough for Max to negotiate the return of his video camera. Skink borrowed a station wagon, put the box in the back, and buckled his prisoner on the passenger side. There was no sign of the monkey, and for that Max Lamb was grateful.

  Skink put on the shower cap and started the car. Max needed to pee but was afraid to ask. He was no longer confident that he could talk his way out of the kidnapping.

  "Is something wrong?" he asked.

  Skink shot him a stony look. "I remember your wife from the hurricane video. Hugging two little Cuban girls."

  "Yes, that was Bonnie."

  "Beautiful woman. You zoomed in on her face."

  "Can we stop the car," Max interrupted, squirming, "just for a minute?"

  Skink kept his eyes on the road. "Your bride's got a good heart. That much is obvious from the video."

  "A saint," Max agreed. He jammed both hands between his legs; he'd tie his dick in a Windsor before he'd wet himself in front of the governor.

  "Why she's with you, I can't figure. It's a real puzzler," Skink said. He braked the car sharply. "Why didn't you try to phone her tonight? You call your buddy in New York. You call your folks in Milan-fucking-Italy. Why not Bonnie?"

  "I don't know where she is. That damn answering machine—"

  "And the crap about you and her having a fight—"

  "I didn't want Peter to worry," Max said.

  "Well, God forbid." Skink jammed the transmission into Park and flung himself out the door. He reappeared in the beam of the headlights, a hoary apparition crouched on the pavement. Max Lamb craned to see what he was doing.

  Skink strolled back to the station wagon and tossed a dead opossum on the seat next to Max, who gasped and recoiled. A few miles later, Skink added a truck-flattened coachwhip snake to the evening's menu. Max forgot about his bladder until they made camp at an abandoned horse barn west of Krome.

  The horses were gone, scattered by the storm; the owners had come by to retrieve the saddles and tack, and to scatter feed in case any of the animals returned. Max Lamb stood alone in the musky darkness and relieved himself torrentially. He considered running, but feared he wouldn't survive a single night alone in nature. In Max's mind, all Florida south of Orlando was an immense swamp, humidly teeming with feral beasts. Some had claws and poisonous fangs, some drove air-boats and feasted on roadkill. They were all the same to Max.

  Skink appeared at his side to announce that dinner soon would be served. Max followed him into the stables. He asked if it was wise to make a campfire inside a barn. Skink replied that it was extremely dangerous, but cozy.

  Max Lamb was impressed that the odor of horseshit could not be vanquished by a mere Force Four hurricane. On a positive note, the fragrance of dung completely neutralized the aroma of boiled opossum and pan-fried snake. After supper Skink stripped to his boxer shorts and did two hundred sit-ups in a cloud of ancient manure dust. Then he retrieved the large cardboard box from the car and brought it inside the barn. He asked Max if he wanted a cigaret.

  "No, thanks," Max said. "I don't smoke."

  "You're kidding."

  "Never have," Max said.

  "But you sell the stuff—"

  "We do the advertising. That's it."

  "Ah," Skink said. "Just the advertising." He picked his trousers off the floor and went through the pockets. Max Lamb thought he was looking for matches, but he wasn't. He was looking for the remote control to the shock collar.

  When Max regained his senses, he lay in wet molder-ing hay. His eyeballs were jumping in their sockets, and his neck felt tingly and hot. He sat up and said, "What'd I do?"

  "Surely you believe in the products you advertise."

  "Look, I don't smoke."

  "You could learn." With a pocketknife, Skink opened the cardboard box. The box was full of Bronco cigarets, probably four dozen cartons. Max Lamb failed to conceal his alarm.

  The kidnapper asked how he could be sure of a product until he tested it himself. Grimly Max responded: "I also do the ads for raspberry-scented douche, but I don't use the stuff."

  "Careful," said Skink, brightly, "or you'll give me another brainstorm." He opened a pack of Broncos. He tapped one out and inserted it between Max's lips. He struck a match on the wall of the barn and lit the cigaret.

  "Well?"

  Max spit out the cigaret. "This is ridiculous."

  Skink retrieved the soggy Bronco and replaced it in Max's frowning mouth. "You got two choices," he said, fingering the remote control, "smoke or be smoked."

  Reluctantly Max Lamb took a drag on the cigaret. Immediately he began to cough. It worsened as Skink tied him upright to a post. "You people are a riddle to me, Max. Why you come down here. Why you act the way you do. Why you live such lives."

  "For God's sake—"

  "Shut up now. Please."

  Skink dug through the backpack and took out a Walkman. He chose a damp corner of the barn and put on the headphones. He lighted what appeared to be a joint, except it didn't smell like marijuana.

  "What's that?" Max asked.

  "Toad." Skink took a hit. After a few minutes, his good eye rolled back in his head and his neck went limp.

  Max Lamb went through the Broncos like a machine. Whenever Skink opened an eye, he tapped a finger to his neck-a menacing reminder of the shock collar. Max smoked and smoked. He was finishing number twenty-three when Skink shook out of the stupor and rose.

  "Damn good toad." He plucked the Bronco from Max's mouth.

  "I feel sick, captain."

  Skink unt
ied him and told him to rest up. "Tomorrow you're going to leave a message for your wife. You're going to arrange a meeting."

  "What for?"

  "So I can observe the two of you together. The chemistry, the starry eyes, all that shit. OK?"

  Skink went outside and crawled under the station wagon, where he curled up and began to snore. Max coughed himself to sleep in the barn.