Stormy Weather Read online

  The old man said, "My wife's ashes blew away in the hurricane."

  "Yeah, well, if I come across a blue bottle—"

  "What the hell could they do to me?" Levon Stichler wore a weird quavering smirk. "For killing him, what could they do? I'm seventy-one goddamn years old– what, life in prison?-Big deal. I got nothing left anyhow."

  Ira Jackson said, "I was you, I'd put it out of my mind. Scum like Torres, they usually get what they deserve."

  "Not in my world," said Levon Stichler. But the widow Jackson's son had taken the wind out of his sails. "Hell, I don't know how to find the sonofabitch anyhow. Do you?"

  "Wouldn't have a clue," Ira Jackson said.

  Levon Stichler shrugged in resignation, and returned to the heap that once was his home. Ira Jackson watched him poking through the rubble, stooping every so often to examine a scrap. All around the trailer court, other neighbors of the late Beatrice Jackson could be seen hunched and scavenging, picking up pieces.

  Her son opened his wallet, which contained: six hundred dollars cash, a picture of his mother taken in Atlantic City, three fake driver's licenses, a forged Social Security card, a stolen Delta Airlines frequent flyer card, and numerous scraps of paper with numerous phone numbers from the 718 area code. The wallet also held a few legitimate business cards, including one that said:

  Antonio Torres

  Senior Sales Associate

  PreFab Luxury Homes

  (305) 555-2200

  The trailer salesman had jotted his home number on the back of the business card. Ira Jackson kicked through his mother's storm-soaked belongings until he found a Greater Miami telephone directory. The salesman's home number matched the one belonging to an A. R. Torres at 15600 Calusa Drive. Ira Jackson tore the page from the phone book. Carefully he folded it to fit inside his wallet, with the other important numbers.

  Then he drove his fraudulently registered Coupe de Ville to a convenience store, where he purchased a Rand McNally road map of Dade County.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The vagabond monkey chose to forgo the airboat experience. Max Lamb was given no choice. The one-eyed man strapped him to the passenger seat and off they went at fifty miles an hour, skimming the grass, cattails and lily pads. For a while they followed a canal that paralleled a two-lane highway; Max could make out the faces of motorists gaping at him in his underwear. It didn't occur to him to signal for help; the electrified dog collar had conditioned total passivity.

  Riding high in the driver's perch, the man who called himself Skink sang at the top of his lungs. It sounded like "Desperado," an old Eagles tune. The familiar melody surfed above the ear-splitting roar of the air-boat's engine; more than ever, Max Lamb believed he was in the grip of a madman.

  Soon the airboat made a wide turn away from the road. It plowed a liquid trail through thickening marsh, the sawgrass hissing against the metal hull. The hurricane had bruised and gouged the swamp; smashed cypresses and pines littered the waters. Skink stopped singing and began to emit short honks and toots that Max Lamb assumed to be either wild bird calls or a fearsome attack of sinusitis. He was afraid to inquire.

  At noon they stopped at a dry hammock, its once-lush branches now skeletal from the storm. Skink tied the airboat to a knuckled stand of roots. Evidence of previous campfires reassured Max Lamb that other humans had been there before. The kidnapper didn't bother to tie him; there was no place to run. With Skink's permission, Max put on his clothes to protect himself from the horseflies and mosquitoes. When he complained of being thirsty, Skink offered his own canteen. Max took a tentative swallow.

  "Coconut milk?" he asked, hopefully.

  "Something like that."

  Max suggested that wearing the shock collar was no longer necessary. Skink whipped out the remote control, pushed the red button and said: "If you've got to ask, then it's still necessary."

  Max jerked wordlessly on the damp ground until the pain stopped. Skink caught a mud turtle and made soup for lunch. Tending the fire, he said, "Max, I'll take three questions."

  "Three?"

  "For now. Let's see how it goes."

  Max warily eyed the remote. Skink promised there would be no electronic penalty for dumb queries. "So fire away."

  Max Lamb said, "All right. Who are you?"

  "My name is Tyree. I served in the Vietnam conflict, and later as a governor of this fair state. I resigned because of disturbing moral and philosophical conflicts. The details would mean nothing to you."

  Max Lamb failed to mask his disbelief. "You were governor? Come off it."

  "Is that question number two?"

  Impatiently, Max fingered the dog collar. "No, the second question is: Why me?"

  "Because you made a splendid target of yourself. You with your video camera, desecrating the habitat."

  Max Lamb got defensive. "I wasn't the only one taking pictures. I wasn't the only tourist out there."

  "But you were the one I saw first." Skink poured hot soup into a tin cup and handed it to his sulking prisoner. "A hurricane is a holy thing," he said, "but you treated it as an amusement. Pissed me off, Max."

  Skink lifted the pot off the hot coals and tipped it to his lips. Steam wisped from his mouth, fogging his glass eye. He put the pot down and wiped the turtle drippings from his chin. "I was tied up on a bridge," he said, "watching the storm roll out of the ocean. God, what a thing!"

  He stepped toward Max Lamb and lifted him by the shirt, causing Max to drop the soup he had not touched.

  Skink hoisted him to eye level and said: "Twenty years I waited for that storm. We were so close, so goddamn close. Two or three degrees to the north, and we're in business...."

  Max Lamb dangled in the stranger's iron clasp. Skink's good eye glistened with a furious, dreamy passion. "You're down to one question," he said, returning Max to his feet.

  After settling himself, Max asked: "What happens now?"

  Skink's stormy expression dissolved into a smile. "What happens now, Max, is that we travel together, sharing life's lessons."

  "Oh." Max's eyes cut anxiously to the airboat.

  The governor barked a laugh that scattered a flock of snowy egrets. He tousled his prisoner's hair and said, "We go with the tides!"

  But a despairing Max Lamb couldn't face the prospect of true adventure. Now that it seemed he would not be murdered, he was burdened by another primal concern: If I don't get back to New York, I'm going to lose my job.

  Edie Marsh was daydreaming about teak sailboats and handsome young Kennedys when she felt the moist hand of Tony Torres settle on her left breast. She cracked an eyelid and sighed.

  "Quit squeezing. It's not a tomato."

  "Can I see?" Tony asked.

  "Absolutely not." But she heard the squeaky shift of weight as the salesman edged the chaise closer.

  "Nobody's around," he said, fumbling with her buttons. Then an oily laugh: "I mean, you are my wife."

  "Jesus." Edie felt the sun on her nipples and looked down. Well, there they were-the pig had undone her blouse. "Don't you understand English?"

  Tony Torres contentedly appraised her breasts. "Yeah, darling, but who's got the shotgun."

  "That's so romantic," Edie Marsh said. "Threaten to shoot me-there's no better way to put a girl in the mood. Fact, I'm all wet just thinking about it." She pushed his hand away and rebuttoned her blouse. "Where's my shades," she muttered.

  Tony cradled the Remington across his belly. Sweat puddled at his navel. He said, "You will think about it. They all do."

  "I think about cancer, too, but it doesn't make me horny." To Edie, the only attractive thing about Tony Torres was his gold Cartier wristwatch, which was probably engraved in such a gaudy way that it could not be prudently fenced.

  He asked her: "Have you ever been with a bald man?"

  "Nope. You ever seen venereal warts?"

  The salesman snorted, turning away. "Somebody's in a pissy mood."

  Edie Marsh dug the black Ray-Bans out of
her purse and disappeared behind them. The shotgun made her nervous, but she resolved to stay cool. She tried to shut out the summer glare, the ceaseless drone of chain saws and dump trucks, and the rustle of Tony Torres reading the newspaper. The warmth of the sun made it easy for Edie Marsh to think of the duned shores at the Vineyard, or the private beaches of Manalapan.

  Her reverie was interrupted by footsteps on the sidewalk across the street. She hoped it was Snapper, but it wasn't. It was a man walking two small dachshunds.

  Edie felt Tony's hand on hers and heard him say, "Darling, would you squirt some Coppertone on my shoulders?"

  Quickly she rose from the chair and crossed the road. The man was watching his dachshunds pee on the stem of a broken mailbox. He held both leashes in one hand, loosely. There was a melancholy slump to his shoulders that should have disappeared with the approach of a pretty woman, but did not.

  Edie Marsh told him the dogs were adorable. When she stooped to pet them, the dachshunds simultaneously rolled over and began squirming like worms on a griddle.

  "What're their names?"

  "Donald and Maria," the man replied. He wasn't tall, but he was built like a furnace. He wore a peach knit shirt and khaki slacks. He said to Edie: "You live at that house?"

  She saw Tony Torres eyeing them from the chaise. She asked the stranger if he was from the Midwest Casualty insurance company. He motioned sarcastically toward the dogs and said, "Sure. And my associates here are from Merrill Lynch."

  The dachshunds were up, wagging their butts and licking at Edie's bare ankles. The man jerked his double chin toward Tony Torres and said, "You related to him? A wife or sister maybe."

  "Please," Edie Marsh said, with an exaggerated shudder.

  "OK, then I got some advice. Take a long fuckine walk."

  Edie's mind began to race. She looked in both directions down the street, but didn't see Snapper.

  The man said, "The hell you waiting for?" He handed her the two leashes. "Go on, now."

  Augustine awoke to the smell of coffee and the sounds of a married woman fixing breakfast in his kitchen. It seemed a suitable time to assess the situation.

  His father was in prison, his mother was gone, and his dead uncle's wild animals had escaped among unsuspecting suburbanites. Augustine himself was free, too, in the truest and saddest sense. He had absolutely no personal responsibilities. How to explain such a condition to Bonnie Lamb?

  My father was a fisherman. He ran drugs on the side, until he was arrested near the island of Andros. My mother moved to Las Vegas and remarried. Her new husband plays tenor saxophone in Tony Bennett's orchestra.

  My most recent ex-girlfriend was a leg model for a major hosiery concern. She saved her modeling money and bought a town house in Brentwood, California, where she fellates only circumcised movie agents, and the occasional director.

  But what about you? Mrs. Lamb will ask. What do you do for a living?

  I read my bank statements.

  And Mrs. Lamb will react with polite curiosity, until I explain about the airplane accident.

  It happened three years ago while flying back from Nassau after visiting my old man in Fox Hill Prison. I didn't realize the pilot was drunk until he T-boned the twin Beech into the fuselage of a Coast Guard helicopter, parked inside a hangar at the Opa-Locka airport.

  Afterwards I slept for three months and seventeen days in the intensive care unit of Jackson Hospital. When I awoke, I was rich. The insurance carrier for the charter-air service had settled the case with an attorney whom I did not know and to this day have never met. A check for eight hundred thousand dollars appeared, and much to my surprise, I invested it wisely.

  And Mrs. Lamb, if I'm reading her right, will then say: So what is it you do?

  Honestly, I'm not certain....

  The conversation, over bacon and French toast, didn't go precisely as Augustine had anticipated. At the end of his story, Bonnie Lamb looked over the rim of her coffeecup and asked: "Is that where you got the scar-from the plane crash?"

  "Which scar?"

  "The Y-shaped one on your lower back."

  "No," said Augustine, guardedly. "That's something else." He made a mental note not to walk around without a shirt.

  Later, clearing the kitchen table, Bonnie asked about his father.

  "Extradited," Augustine reported, "but he much prefers Talladega to the Bahamas."

  "Are you two close?"

  "Sure," said Augustine. "Only seven hundred miles."

  "How often do you go to see him?"

  "Whenever I want to get angry and depressed."

  Augustine often wished that the plane crash had wiped out his memory of that last visit at Fox Hill Prison, but it hadn't. They were supposed to talk about the extradition, about lining up a half-decent lawyer in the States, about maybe cutting a deal with prosecutors so that the old man might actually get out before the turn of the century.

  But Augustine's father wanted to talk about something else when his son came to see him. He wanted a favor.

  –Bollock, you remember Bollock? He owes me a piece of a shipment.

  –The answer is no.

  –Come on, A.G. I got lawyers to pay. Take Leaker and Ape along. They'll handle Bollock. Not the money, though. That I want in your hands only.

  –Dad, I don't believe this. I just don't believe it....

  –Hey, go down to Nassau harbor. See what they done to my boat! Ape says they stripped the radar and all the electric.

  –So what. You didn't know how to use it anyway.

  –Listen, wiseass, I was taking fire. It was the middle of the goddamn night.

  –Still, it's not easy to park a sixty-foot long-liner in nine inches of water. How exactly did you manage that?

  –Watch your tone, son!

  –Grown man, hangin' out with guys called Leaker and Ape. Look where it got you.

  –A.G., I'd love to keep strollin' down memory lane, but the guard says we're outta time. So will you do it? Go see Henry Bollock down on Big Pine. Get my slice and stick it in the Caymans. What's the harm?

  –Pathetic.

  –What?

  –I said, you're pathetic.

  –So I'll take that as a "no," you won't do this for me?

  –Jesus Christ.

  –You disappoint me, boy.

  –And I'm proud of you, too, Dad. I bust my buttons every time your name comes up.

  And Augustine recalled thinking, as he sat in the Beechcraft on the runway at Nassau: He's hopeless, my old man. He won't learn. He'll get out of prison and go right back to it.

  A son looks a man square in the eye and calls him pathetic, pathetic, any other father would curse or cry or take a punch at the kid. Not mine. By God, not when there's drug money needs collecting. So how about it, A.G.?

  Fuck him, thought Augustine. Not because of what he'd done or what he'd been hauling, but because his stupid selfish greed had outlived the crime. Fuck him, Augustine thought, because it's hopeless. He was supposed to raise me, god dammit, I wasn't supposed to raise him.

  And then the plane took off.

  And then the plane went down.

  And nothing was ever the same about the way Augustine saw the world, or his place in it. Sometimes he wasn't sure if it was the accident that had changed him, or the visit with his father at Fox Hill Prison.

  At FBI headquarters, Bonnie Lamb spent an hour talking with maddeningly polite agents. One of them dialed her answering machine and dubbed Max's queer kidnap message. They urged her to notify the Bureau as soon as she received a credible ransom demand. Then, and only then, would a kidnap squad take over the case. The agents instructed Bonnie to check her machine often and be careful not to erase any tapes. They expressed no strong views about whether she ought to remain in Miami and search for her husband, or return to New York and wait.

  The agents let Bonnie Lamb borrow a private office, where she tried with no luck to reach Max's parents, who were traveling in Europe. Next Bonnie phone
d her own parents. Her mother sounded sincere in her alarm; her father, as usual, sounded helpless. He half-heartedly offered to fly to Florida, but Bonnie said it wasn't necessary. All she could do was wait for Max or the kidnapper to call again. Bonnie's mother promised to FedEx some cash and an eight-by-ten photograph of Max, for the authorities.

  Bonnie Lamb's last call was to Peter Archibald at the Rodalp 8c Burns advertising agency in Manhattan. Max Lamb's colleague was shocked at Bonnie's news, but vowed to maintain the confidentiality requested by the FBI. When Bonnie passed along her husband's frantic instructions about the cigaret billboard, Peter Archibald said: "You married a real trouper, Bonnie."