Stormy Weather Read online

  "Oh, I'm sure it'll jolt the FBI into action. Especially the poetry."

  "Actually I think it's from a book."

  "What does it mean?" she asked.

  Augustine reached across her lap and placed the .38 Special in the glove compartment. "It means," he said, "your husband probably isn't as safe as he thinks."

  By and large, the Highway Patrol troopers based in northern Florida were not overjoyed to learn of their temporary reassignment to southern Florida. Many would have preferred Beirut or Somalia. The exception was Jim Tile. A trip to Miami meant precious time with Brenda Rourke, although working double shifts in the hurricane zone left them scarcely enough energy to collapse in each other's arms.

  Jim Tile hadn't counted on an intrusion by the governor, but it wasn't totally surprising. The man worshipped hurricanes. Ignoring his presence would have been selfish and irresponsible; the trooper didn't take the friendship that lightly, nor Skink's capacity for outstandingly rash behavior. Jim Tile had no choice but to try to stay close.

  In the age of political correctness, a large black man in a crisply pressed police uniform could move at will through the corridors of white-cracker bureaucracy and never once be questioned. Jim Tile took full advantage in the days following the big storm. He mingled authoritatively with Dade County deputies, Homestead police, firelighters, Red Cross volunteers, National Guardsmen, the Army command and antsy emissaries of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Between patrol shifts, Jim Tile helped himself to coffee and A-forms, 911 logs, computer printouts and handwritten incident reports– he scanned for nothing in particular; just a sign.

  As it happened, though, madness flowed rampant in the storm's wake. Jim Tile leafed through the paperwork, and thought: My Lord, people are cracking up all over town.

  The machinery of rebuilding doubled as novel weapons for domestic violence. Thousands of hurricane victims had stampeded to purchase chain saws for clearing debris, and now the dangerous power tools were being employed to vent rage. A gentleman with a Black 8c Decker attempted to truncate a stubborn insurance adjuster in Homestead. An old woman in Florida City used a lightweight Sears to silence a neighbor's garrulous pet cockatoo. And in Sweetwater, two teen-aged gang members successfully detached each other's arms (one left, one right) in a brief but spectacular duel of stolen Homelites.

  If chain saws ruled the day, firearms ruled the night. Fearful of looters, vigilant home owners unloaded high-caliber semiautomatics at every rustle, scrape and scuff in the darkness. Preliminary casualties included seven cats, thirteen stray dogs, two opossums and a garbage truck, but no actual thieves. Residents of one rural neighborhood wildly fired dozens of rounds to repel what they described as a troop of marauding monkeys– an episode that Jim Tile dismissed as mass hallucination. He resolved to limit his investigative activities to daytime hours, whenever possible.

  Nearly all the missing persons reported to authorities were locals who had fled the storm and lost contact with concerned relatives up North. Most turned up safe at shelters or in the homes of neighbors. But one case caught Jim Tile's attention: a man named Max Lamb.

  According to the information filed by his wife, the Lambs drove to Miami on the morning after the hurricane struck. Mrs. Lamb told police that her husband wanted to see the storm damage. The trooper wasn't surprised-the streets were clogged with out-of-towners who treated the hurricane zone as a tourist attraction.

  Mr. Max Lamb had left his rental car, in pursuit of video. It seemed improbable to Jim Tile that anybody from Manhattan could get lost on foot in the flat simple grid of a Florida subdivision. The trooper's suspicions were heightened by another incident, lost deep in the stack of files.

  A seventy-four-year-old woman had called to say she had witnessed a possible assault. It was summarized in two short paragraphs, taken over the telephone by a dispatcher:

  "Caller reports suspicious subject running along 10700 block of Quail Roost Drive, carrying another subject over his shoulder. Subject One is described as w/m, height and weight unknown. Subject Two is w/m, height and weight unknown.

  "Caller reports Subject B appeared to be resisting, and was possibly nude. Subject A reported to be carrying a handgun with a flashing red light (??). Search of area by Units 2334 and 4511 proved negative."

  Jim Tile knew of no pistols with blinking red lights, but most hand-held video cameras had one. From a distance, a frightened elderly person might mistake a Sony for a Smith & Wesson.

  Maybe the old woman had witnessed the abduction of Mr. Max Lamb. Jim Tile hoped not. He hoped the Quail Roost sighting was just another weird Dade County roadside altercation and not the act of his volatile swamp-dwelling friend, who was known to hold ill-mannered tourists in low esteem.

  The trooper made a copy of Mrs. Lamb's report and slipped it in his briefcase along with several others. When he had some free time, he'd try to interview her.

  There was only twenty minutes left for lunch with Brenda, before both of them had to start another shift. Being able to see her, even briefly, was well worth the ordeal of working the batty streets of South Florida.

  Jim Tile was most displeased, therefore, to personally witness the hijacking of a Salvation Army truck while he was driving to the Red Lobster restaurant where Brenda waited. The trooper was obliged to give chase, and by the time it was over he'd missed his luncheon date.

  As he disarmed and handcuffed the truck hijacker, Jim Tile wondered aloud why anybody with half a brain would use a MAC-10 to steal a truck full of secondhand clothes. The young man said his original intention was to spray-paint a gang insignia on the side of the Salvation Army truck, but before he could finish his tagging the driver took off. The young man explained that he'd had no choice, as a matter of self-respect, but to pull his submachine gun and, yo, steal the motherfucking truck.

  As Trooper Jim Tile assisted the talkative hijacker into the cage of his patrol car, he silently vowed to redouble his efforts to persuade Brenda Rourke to transfer out of this hellhole called Miami, to a more civilized hellhole where they could work together.

  Snapper was proud of how he'd acquired the Jeep Cherokee, but Edie Marsh showed no interest in his conquest.

  "What's the story?" Snapper pointed at the dachshunds.

  "Donald and Maria," Edie said, annoyed. The animals were pulling her back and forth across Tony Torres's front yard and peeing with wild abandon. Edie was amazed at the power in their stubby Vienna-sausage legs.

  "By the way," she said, straining against the leashes, "it took that asshole all of three minutes before he grabbed my tits."

  "Big deal, so you win the bet."

  "Take these damn dogs!"

  Snapper backed away. Numerous encounters with police German shepherds had left him with permanent scars, physical and mental. Over the years, Snapper had become a cat person.

  "Just let 'em go," he said to Edie.

  The moment she dropped the leashes, the two dachshunds curled up at her feet.

  "Beautiful," Snapper said with a grunt. "Hey, look what I found." He flashed the chrome-plated pistol he'd taken from the gangsters. Palming the cheap gun, he noticed the chambers were empty. "Damn spades," he said, heaving it into the murky swimming pool.

  Edie Marsh told Snapper about the tough guy with the New York accent who came for Tony Torres. "You picked a peachy time to disappear," she added.

  "Shut the fuck up."

  "Well, Tony's gone. Even his damn beach chair. Figure it out yourself."

  "Shit."

  "He won't be back," Edie said gravely. "Not in one piece, anyway."

  A concrete block occupied the spot where Tony's chaise had been. Snapper cursed his rotten timing. The ten grand was history. Even in the unlikely event that the salesman returned, he'd never pay. Snapper had fucked up big-time; he wasn't cut out to be a bodyguard.

  He said, "I don't guess you got a new plan."

  A siren drowned Edie's reply, which she punctuated with a familiar hand gesture. An ambulan
ce came speeding down Calusa Drive. Snapper figured it was carrying Baby Raper to the hospital, for some unusual surgery. Snapper wouldn't be surprised to read about it in a medical journal someday.

  He spotted Tony Torres's Remington shotgun, broken into pieces on the driveway. Snapper thought: It's definitely time to abort the mission. Tomorrow he'd call Avila about the roofer's gig.

  "I'll give you a lift," he said to Edie Marsh, "but not those damn dogs."

  "Jesus, I can't just leave 'em here."

  "Suit yourself." Snapper scooped three Heinekens from Tony's ice cooler, got in the souped-up Cherokee and drove off without so much as a wave.

  Edie Marsh tethered Donald and Maria to a sprinkler in the backyard. Then she entered the ruined shell of the salesman's house, to check for items of value.

  Skink ordered Max Lamb to disrobe and climb a tree. Max did as he was told. It was a leafless willow; Max sat carefully on a springy limb, his bare legs dangling. Beneath him Skink paced, fulminating. In one hand he displayed the remote-control unit for the electronic training collar.

  "You people come down here-fucking yupsters with no knowledge, no appreciation, no interest in the natural history of the place, the ancient sweep of life. Disney World-Christ, Max, that's not Florida!" He pointed an incriminating finger at his captive. "I found the ticket stubs in your wallet, Tourist Boy."

  Max was rattled; he'd assumed everybody liked Disney World. "Please," he said to Skink, "if you shock me now, I'll fall."

  Skink pulled off his flowered cap and knelt by the dead embers of the campfire. Max Lamb was acutely worried. Coal-black mosquitoes swarmed his pale plump toes, but he didn't dare slap at them. He was afraid to move a muscle.

  All day the kidnapper's spirits had seemed to improve. He'd eyen taken Max to a rest stop along the Tamiami Trail, so Max could call New York and leave Bonnie another message. While Max waited for the pay phone, Skink had dashed onto the highway to collect a fresh roadkill. His mood was loose, practically convivial. He sang during the entire airboat ride back to the cypress hammock; later he merely chided Max for not knowing that Neil Young had played guitar for Buffalo Springfield.

  Max Lamb believed himself to be blessed with a winning personality, a delusion that led him to assume the kidnapper had grown fond of him. Max felt it was only a matter of time before he'd be able to shmooze his way to freedom. He put no stock in Skink's oral biography, and regarded the man as an unbalanced but moderately intelligent derelict; in short, a confused soul who could be won over with a thoughtful, low-key approach. And wasn't that an advertiser's forte-winning people over? Max believed he was making progress, too, with tepid conversation, pointless anecdotes and the occasional self-deprecatory joke. Skink certainly acted calmer, if not serene. Three hours had passed since he'd last triggered the canine shock collar; an encouraging lull, from Max's point of view.

  Now, for reasons unknown, the one-eyed brute was seething again. To Max Lamb, he announced: "Pop quiz."

  "On what?"

  Skink rose slowly. He tucked the remote control in a back pocket. With both hands he gathered his wild hair and knotted it on one side of his head, above the ear-a misplaced mop of a ponytail. Then he removed his glass eye and polished it with spit and a crusty bandanna. Max became further alarmed.

  "Who was here first," Skink asked, "the Seminoles or the Tequestas?"

  "I, uh-I don't know." Max gripped the branch so hard that his knuckles turned pink.

  Skink, replacing the artificial eyeball, retrieving the remote control from his pocket: "Who was Napoleon Bonaparte Broward?"

  Max Lamb shook his head, helplessly. Skink shrugged. "How about Marjory Stoneman Douglas?"

  "Yes, yes, wait a minute." The willow limb quivered under Max's nervous buttocks. "She wrote The Yearling'."

  Moments later, regaining consciousness, he found himself in a fetal ball on a mossy patch of ground. Both knees were scraped from the fall. His throat and arms still burned from the dog collar's jolt. Opening his eyes, Max saw the toes of Skink's boots. He heard a voice as deep as thunder: "I should kill you."

  "No, don't—"

  "The arrogance of coming to a place like this and not knowing—"

  "I'm sorry, captain."

  "-not caring to learn—"

  "I told you, I'm in advertising."

  Skink slipped a hand under Max Lamb's chin. "What do you believe in?"

  "For God's sake, it's my honeymoon." Max was on the slippery ledge of panic.

  "What do you stand for? Tell me that, sir."

  Max Lamb cringed. "I can't."

  Skink chuckled bitterly. "For future reference, you got your Marjories mixed up. Rawlings wrote The Yearling; Douglas wrote River of Grass. I got a hunch you won't forget."

  He cleaned the bloody scrapes on Max's legs and told him to put on his clothes. His confidence fractured, Max dressed in arthritic slow motion. "Are you ever going to let me go?"

  Skink seemed not to have heard the question. "Know what I'd really like," he said, stoking a new fire. "I'd like to meet this bride of yours."

  "That's impossible," Max said, hoarsely.

  "Oh, nothing's impossible."

  Among the stream of outlaws who raced south in the feverish hours following the hurricane was a man named Gil Peck. His plan was to pass himself off as an experienced mason, steal what he could in the way of advance deposits, then haul ass back to Alabama. The scam had worked flawlessly against victims of Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, and Gil Peck was confident it would work in Miami, too.

  He arrived in a four-ton flatbed carrying a small but authentic-looking load of red bricks, which he'd ripped off from an unguarded construction site in Mobile-a new cancer wing for a pediatric hospital. Gil Peck had caught the festive groundbreaking on TV. That afternoon he'd backed up the flatbed, helped himself to the bricks and driven nonstop to South Florida.

  So far, business was booming. Gil Peck had collected almost twenty-six hundred dollars in cash from half a dozen desperate home owners, all of whom expected him to return the following Saturday morning with his truckload of bricks. By then, of course, Gil Peck would be northbound and gone.

  By day he worked the hustle, by night he scavenged hurricane debris. The big flatbed conveyed an air of authority, and no one questioned its presence. Even after curfew, the National Guardsmen waved him through the flashing barricades.

  Many valuables had survived the storm's thrashing, and Gil Peck became an expert at mining rubble. An inventory of his two-day bounty included: a bagel toaster, a Stairmaster, a silver tea set, three offbrand assault rifles, a Panasonic cellular telephone, two pairs of men's golf spikes, a waterproof kilogram package of hashish, a brass chandelier, a scuba tank, a gold class ring from the University of Miami (1979), a set of police handcuffs, a collection of rare Finnish pornography, a Michael Jackson hand puppet, an unopened bottle of 100-milligram Darvocets, a boxed set of Willie Nelson albums, a Loomis fly rod, a birdcage and twenty-one pairs of women's bikini-style panties.

  Exploring the demolished remains of a mobile-home park, Gil Peck was a happy fellow. There was a bounce to his step as he followed the yellow beam of the flashlight from one ruin to another. Thanks to the Guard, the Highway Patrol and the Dade County police, Gil Peck was completely alone and unmolested in the summer night; free to plunder.

  And what he spied in the middle of a shuffleboard court made his greedy heart flutter with joy: a jumbo TV dish. The hurricane undoubtedly had uprooted it from some millionaire's estate and tossed it here, for Gil Peck to salvage. With the flashlight he traced the outer parabola and found one small dent. Otherwise the eight-foot satellite receiver was in top condition.

  Gil Peck grinned and thought: Man, I must be living right. A dish that big was worth a couple-grand, easy. Gil Peck thought it might fit nicely in his own backyard, behind the chicken coops. He envisioned free HBO for the rest of his natural life.

  He walked around to the other side to make sure there was no additional
damage. He was shocked by what his flashlight revealed: Inside the TV dish was a dead man, splayed and mounted like a butterfly.

  The dead man was impaled on the cone of the receiver pipe, but it wasn't the evil work of the hurricane. His hands and feet had been meticulously bound to the gridwork in a pose of crucifixion. The dead man himself was obese and balding, and bore no resemblance to the Jesus Christ of Gil Peck's strict Baptist upbringing. Nonetheless, the sight unnerved the bogus mason to the point of whimpering.

  He switched off the flashlight and sat on the shuffle-board court to steady himself. Stealing the TV saucer obviously was out of the question; Gil Peck was working up the nerve to swipe the expensive watch he'd spotted on the crucified guy's left wrist.

  Except for kissing his grandmother in her casket, Gil Peck had never touched a corpse before. Thank God, he thought, the guy's eyes are closed. Gingerly Gil Peck climbed into the satellite dish, which rocked under the added weight. Holding the flashlight in his mouth, he aimed the beam at the dead man's gold Cartier.