Flood Plains (9 page)

“Is your daddy up?”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she remembered the events of the previous day. She looked at Mia, illuminated by the flashlight, and hoped there’d be no tears.

“Do you think he’s okay down there?”

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

She didn’t know how much Mia remembered about what the police did and didn’t do for prisoners during Katrina but hoped it wasn’t much. Besides, maybe it taught the HPD a valuable lesson in restraint.

She’d never called back the police station the night before. After feeling compelled to soften the story for Mia, saying only that Alan had “broken some stuff” at the factory and gotten arrested for it, she had no interest in talking to the man himself.

Let him sweat it out a night in jail.

Also, she’d had that uncle who was always in trouble back in Louisiana. He’d get arrested, his wife and kids would show up in court wearing their shabbiest clothes, and they’d look all sad when their father came out. If they could muster actual tears, he gave them a quarter. When all three of these cousins later ended up in trouble themselves, Zakiyah wondered if they ever appeared in front of the same judges as their daddy.

Regardless, she decided that Alan wouldn’t be allowed to use Mia like that if that was what he had in mind.

“What’s it look like outside?”

“Really wet, but it’s not flooding. The storm hasn’t made it this far up yet.”

Zakiyah nodded. When she’d called back her grandmother after Mia had gone to bed, Sineada had offered her place for Mia to stay if schools did close and Zakiyah needed to work. The only problem was that Sineada was down in Fifth Ward, which meant a long drive down to the city before coming back to Deltech on the north side and a repeat performance twelve hours later, both through a major storm.

Or maybe not. If it got really bad, Zakiyah thought, she could see if Sineada would let Mia spend the night. Yeah, that made the most sense.

“All right. Time to get this day underway.”

•  •  •

After he’d walked two blocks, Muhammad realized that his wife was right to say he was crazy for going to work that day. He’d brought an umbrella, but the rain was coming down like a monsoon, and it was blown to pieces before he’d even reached the bus stop. The stop had a roof, but it did nothing. His clothes were soaked through, and his shoes were so heavy with water it was as if they’d been dipped in cement.

It took him about fifteen minutes of staring down the dark, flooded streets of San Felipe Park to realize that bus service was cut off for the storm. He cursed to himself. When Mukul had explained how much “time and a half” was, Muhammad hadn’t taken into account being unable to reach the factory.

That’s when a taxi cab pulled up to the shelter, sloshing water over the curb as the driver braked. A turban-wearing Sikh rolled down the passenger window and smiled at Muhammad.

“No buses today, my man. Where can I take you?”

“Do you know Deltech Computers up in Clear Creek?”

“Of course. Forty bucks.”

Muhammad shook his head. That would be a quarter of his day’s pay.

“Twenty-five.”

“Thirty and a tip.”

Muhammad knew his pride wouldn’t allow him to skulk home, so he stepped into the back of the cab and was instantly rewarded with warmth.

“Pretty bad today, huh?” the driver asked.

“Pretty bad,” Muhammad replied. “Pretty bad.”

•  •  •

As Zakiyah rolled off the 59 and into Fifth Ward, she began rethinking her decision to leave Mia at Sineada’s house. The entire neighborhood was dark, the power having already been lost there, too. The sewer grates were full of debris, and there was already about eight or nine inches of rushing water in the streets.

If it hadn’t been for the handful of other cars on the road, the drive into the dark city would’ve been downright spooky. Without power and without people, Zakiyah got the impression of neighborhoods filled with empty houses.

“The sky looks crazy!” Mia enthused.

The little girl pointed at the swirling clouds of the hurricane up ahead. The storm hadn’t quite reached downtown Houston but probably would in a couple of hours. Zakiyah told herself that despite the evil-looking skies, Houston wasn’t on the water the way New Orleans was, and Mia would be fine. If they were back in the Ward, she’d have turned the car around and driven north until she ran out of gas.

But in Texas, this was just a heavy rainstorm with ugly winds.

•  •  •

“Remember,
Abuela
is a bit of an oddball, okay?” Zakiyah said. “She might say some crazy stuff, but that’s just the way she is.”

Mia nodded absently. The water spraying up from the wheel wells was much more exciting..

Zakiyah didn’t really know what to think of Sineada’s “second sight.” Her mother had dismissed it, but she had her own problems with Mia’s abuela. To hear her say it, Sineada was the primary reason Zakiyah’s father didn’t stick around much into Zakiyah’s teen years.

Zakiyah turned onto Harper, and her eyes immediately went to the faded “Palms Read, Fortunes Told” sign in the front yard. Ironically, it had been painted by Zakiyah’s father and had a raised palm and several blue stars arranged around the letters. Zakiyah and Mia had been down here a handful of times since they’d come to Houston, including once with Alan. She knew Sineada wished they would come more often, which made her feel slightly guilty for imposing Mia on her out of desperation.

As they pulled onto the driveway, Sineada waved at them from the porch. Zakiyah still couldn’t believe how anyone would seek council from such a stern-looking individual, facial features melting together like an old frog.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!”

Sineada waved Zakiyah and Mia into the house, the pair still managing to get soaked as they hurried through the rain.

“
Buenos dias
, Abuela!”

“Buenos dias, Mia,” Sineada said, ushering her great-granddaughter into the house.

The house. Zakiyah was struck by its eccentric décor every time she crossed its threshold. Immaculately clean, it was filled with antiques but also containing numerous objects that could be interpreted as having some witchy purpose. An old dagger. Framed photos of long-dead ancestors in odd dress. A crow that had suffered at the hands of a not entirely competent taxidermist. Oil painting depicting Houston’s Freedman’s Historical District where slaves took up residence after the Civil War. A rooster’s claw sculpted in gold. A candy dish near the door that either suggested Halloween or that someone had possibly stepped into
Hansel & Gretel
.

Zakiyah knew a lot of this was theatrics to dazzle the customers but even then, it was something to behold. Every time her daughter walked in, she could tell it was mere seconds before she fell under its spell.

“How long has the power been out?” Zakiyah asked, glancing at the candles set up on the kitchen table.

“About an hour,” Sineada replied. “I’d already turned off most everything. Only way I knew was when the refrigerator stopped humming.”

That’s when the previously enthusiastic Mia suddenly seemed to change her mind.

“So what’re we going to do all day?”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find something,” Sineada smiled.

Sineada was just about to suggest a “reading” but realized that might be something Zakiyah was hoping to avoid.

But Zakiyah wasn’t listening. She’d found a framed photograph of Clara, her late mother, sitting with Sineada on the front porch of this very house probably fifty years ago.

“You can take that with you if you’d like,” Sineada offered gently.

“No,” Zakiyah said, bristling a little as she turned away from the picture. “Thank you, though.”

Sineada nodded but was about to press the point when Zakiyah cut her off.

“All right, well, I have to get to work. Thank you for opening up your home for us. I’ll try and call in a few hours.”

Mia came over and gave her mother a hug. Zakiyah was surprised but tried not to act it when she saw Sineada noticing.

“It’s going to be okay today,” Zakiyah told her daughter.

“I hope so.”

Zakiyah dashed back out into the rain. Half a minute later, she was on her way back to the highway, her mind filled with troubled thoughts about her mother, her daughter, and her erstwhile what, boyfriend? Roommate? Baby daddy? She had no idea what to call him anymore.

As soon as she was out of sight, Mia turned to Sineada with an imploring look on her face.

“I need to know how my daddy’s doing,” she said. “Can you find that out?”

Sineada had imagined this was on Mia’s mind since she’d walked in the door. She nodded gingerly and indicated for the little girl to take a seat in the parlor.

“Let me make you a cup of tea and we’ll talk. I’m not making any guarantees, but let’s see what we can divine.”

•  •  •

“The rest of the lines just went down across South Houston. We’re getting nothing.”

Kenneth Veitch looked over at the assistant, Gloria Osorio, who was just coming in from the editorial bullpen.

“Not possible. Someone’s getting information out.”

“Nope,” replied Gloria. “Nothing from the airport on Galveston, nothing from NASA, nothing from any of our affiliates, nothing from the police.”

“This is the twenty-first century,” Kenneth scoffed, his veteran newsman’s cynicism rising to the surface. “Okay, so maybe the telephone lines are down and they’ve lost a few cell towers. We’re still talking about the fourth-largest city in the nation. There’s some kid blogging about this on his Twitter feed, someone’s posting videos, someone’s sending an e-mail. By that, I mean there are probably hundreds of people doing this. The power’s out? People have gas-powered generators. Even if there are failures across ninety-nine percent, those one-percenters start taking their roles that much more seriously.”

“Nope,” repeated Gloria. “There is absolutely nothing coming out of Houston. We’ve been checking all feeds, watching the blackout grow overnight from Galveston up across the mainland on its way to Houston. It’s expanding over a large area.”

Kenneth sank back into his chair to think about this. It was unfathomable to have this much of a communications blackout so far into the Information Age. Even during the last New York City blackout, there’d been signals getting out over official channels. He’d been at KHOU Channel 5 News in Houston when Katrina hit but hadn’t been able to reach the flooded areas for days. He figured this for one of the reasons he was now out in Austin working as a segment producer for their local NBC affiliate, KVRA.

“We’ve been looking for the story that’s going to get us picked up by the big boys, right?” Kenneth said, clicking his television to CNN, where they were covering the Houston hurricane with weather maps and satellite photos. “If the Houston stations aren’t getting the story and the papers aren’t, either, then what’s stopping us from driving down there and doing it ourselves?”

“A hurricane.”

Kenneth rolled his eyes.

“The
Times-Picayune
published all through Katrina and won a Pulitzer for their trouble. We could at least win a regional Emmy or something.”

“The roads are going to be washed out or blocked, Ken. You’ve got the Highway Patrol and the National Guard keeping people from entering danger zones.”

“I’m from Katy. I know all the back roads in and out of Harris County. Getting there won’t be a problem. What I need is someone to come with me. It’s our story for the taking.”

Gloria hesitated.

“What is it?” Kenneth asked.

“Before everything fell apart, we were getting crazy reports. Deaths, but a lot of them. Nine-one-one calls that sounded not like people drowning or getting caught up in the storm, but getting murdered. Weird stories, people seeing all kinds of madness.”

“Storms bring out the worst in people. There’s probably a lot of looting.”

Gloria thought about all this. She liked Ken. He had good instincts—he’d been embedded with the Marines for a while in Iraq and then in Afghanistan. On top of that, she’d heard whispers that station management had thus far been extremely impressed with his hire. Attaching herself to him might not be the worst idea.

“Okay, but we’ll need extra everything. Gas, batteries, food. We should approach this entirely self-contained even with a van.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. See you in the parking garage in ten?”

Gloria nodded, wondering how much she might regret this decision later.

Chapter 11

A
ll told, Alan’s night in County lock-up had made for a pretty shitty sequence of events..

Because of the storm, a bunch of transfers had gotten kicked back to Harris County after it became obvious the prison buses weren’t going to make it all the way out to Huntsville. This meant cells designed to hold three were stuffed with six, seven, or even eight prisoners. Worse, violent offenders were mixed in with non-violent ones, a couple of white-collar busts, and the drunks, which led to almost constant fighting over who could make use of each cell’s actual bunks.

In a different situation, some of the prisoners would be assigned to sleep in the rec areas or even the visitor’s lobby. But with all of the HPD and Harris County sheriffs on high alert due to the storm, there were no extra bodies to guard these men.

After a particularly bloody altercation between a gang member and a male nurse who’d been selling prescriptions on the side, a steady stream of discharges were made. A handful of drunk-and-disorderlies, petty thefts, and even possession cases were shown the door with “order to appear” citations and a couple of vague threats. With the weather as bad as it was, a couple of those released begged to come back in as they had no way of getting home, but were refused.

As word got out about the releases, everyone in the cells began rationalizing how their charges were so minimal that they would be obvious candidates, from those busted with grand theft auto all the way to manslaughter.

Alan figured himself a shoo-in. His wasn’t a violent crime, he hadn’t used a gun, it wasn’t
petty
theft because it was still a high-dollar object, but it wasn’t like he’d stolen a car. Also, unlike just about everybody else next to him, he had no priors.