Her Name Will Be Faith (54 page)

"What?" J. Calthrop White shouted into the
telephone. "What? Rod
Kimmelman?
Disappeared? With one of our camera teams? The building
damaged? How the hell?… A window? Who the hell was the
moron
opened the window?… Blown
in?… Several? Whose fault was that?
I
want to know, by God… Julian Summers? Dead? Look, don't bullshit
me… Shut up, goddamn you, and listen. What was Connors
doing
giving the latest update? I
fired that bastard myself, this morning. And
he was a disgrace to the station, hair blowing about,
eyes staring, tie
under
his ear – who was the goddamned director?… Shut up, Goddamn
you, and listen… Listen!… Okay, goddamn it, you're fired
too.
Give me Kiley .. .

"Kiley, what the hell is all this crap? Windows
blown out, people
disappearing
or being killed… all true, is it? Well you'd better get things
under control down there. Now look here, Kiley, has that
fax gone off to
London?
And the transfer made?… Now you look here, Kiley, I don't
give
a goddamn if everyone else in New York wants his money out, I
want ours out, now. You tell Hatton that if he
doesn't get his ass moving
he's lost
my business. You tell… Christ Almighty!" He stared at the
phone for several seconds, then raised his head to
look at his wife, his
butler, his
chef, and the three upstairs maids, who had gathered in the
downstairs hall of the Long Island mansion.
"He's hung up. The shitting
bastard has hung up on me. Me!"

"James, do remember your blood pressure," his
wife remonstrated.

"Hung up on me," JC screamed. "My own
goddamned employee,
hung up on me."

"Ahem," remarked the butler. He had worked,
briefly, for one of the
royals
in England, and was not prepared to acknowledge even J. Calthrop
White as a god. "It is possible, sir, that the
telephones have ceased to
operate."

JC
stared at him. "Ceased to operate?"

"He means they may no longer
be working," his wife translated.

"Oh, Jesus Christ… you could be right. Where's
Murray?"

"Here,
sir." The uniformed chauffeur, also English, had just come in; now he
stood to attention, cap under his arm.

"Get out the Rolls. I'm going into town. That
goddamned station is
falling apart, and Kiley
isn't worth a damn."

"Now,
sir?" Murray cocked his head. Even on Long Island – the house
overlooked the Sound – the wind was howling
and the trees in the twelve
acres of landscaped garden were slashing
back and forth.

"Now,
you goddamned popeyed idiot," JC shouted.

"James," remonstrated his wife. "I think it
will be a very tiresome
drive, especially if the
reports of traffic tailbacks are true."

"It
could possibly be dangerous," the butler suggested.

"In the Rolls? For Chrissake, that thing is built to
keep out a bullet. I
may
not be back for lunch, dear. Don't wait for me; I'll grab something
from the canteen." He pointed at the butler.
"You're in charge should
this wind get up."

The
butler bowed. "Of course, Mr White."

The chauffeur was holding on to the door of the Rolls with
both hands
– inside the
garage; the steel gates were open. JC climbed inside and the
door was slammed shut. Murray sat behind the wheel.
"I heard on the
radio, sir, that all the
bridges in and out of Manhattan have been closed."

"For Christ's sake," JC snapped. "I am J.
Calthrop White. Do you
suppose anyone is going
to close a bridge to me? Drive, man, drive."

In the sheltered area of the taxi rank, the rain had
dried off the automobile,
long
ago, leaving streaks of oil and dust on the windows and yellow
paintwork. Albert Muldoon had actually awakened half an
hour before,
in a thoroughly bad
temper. His recently repaired radio had failed on
him the previous night, and when he had started off to
drive back to
Manhattan early this
morning he had run into the mother and father of
all traffic jams, with people shouting about the storm
being about to hit
the
city. He had reckoned they were all nuts, but there had been no arguing
with them. So he had made a U-turn and regained the
comparative sanity
of
the airport; there had been flights enough coming in but he was off
duty and so he had slept in his cab. Because of the radio
failure – goddamn
that
asshole of a mechanic who'd said it was fixed when it wasn't – he'd
been unable to call in, but he knew Carrie wasn't going
to worry about
him; he'd been out all
night before.

But now he had overslept, with the result that he was the
only cab on
the rank. All those
other shits had got fares and pulled out… but none
had returned from delivering their passengers? They were
probably
caught in that jam. Serve the bastards right.

Well, he wasn't going anywhere without a fare. He poured
the last of
the coffee from his
vacuum flask, debated about going into the building
for a sandwich, and decided against it: he might just miss
the fare. So he
moved
the cab to the very front of the rank, and sat there, listening
to the wind howling, watching the rain hitting the road
beyond the
drive-through… and
listening, too, to the familiar roaring of airplane
engines;
there was a lot of activity out there.

But where the hell were the passengers? He lit a
cigarette while he
stared
at the glass doors, the empty pavements. Normally, at this hour
of the morning, there'd be hordes of people spewing out of
the terminal
with their bags,
fighting for cabs. But even the rank captain wasn't to be
seen. There was probably some kind of strike on, Muldoon
figured. He
never doubted a fare would eventually
arrive.

The noise of the aircraft taking off died, the doors
opened, and people ran out. But these weren't passengers; they wore the
uniforms of various
airlines
and they were heading for the staff car parks, totally ignoring the
lone taxicab. Muldoon rolled down his window. "Hey,
you!" he bellowed.
"What the hell is
going on? Where are all the goddamned people?"

A ticket clerk paused beside him. "They're all going
someplace else.
Haven't you got a radio?
The Governor has ordered the evacuation of
the
airport. All incoming flights have been diverted, all aircraft on the
ground
have left." He followed the exodus towards the parks.

"What the fucking
hell
is going on?"
Muldoon shouted after him again,
gazing
at the other people, clerks and ground hostesses, security guards
and concessionaires, cleaning women and baggage handlers,
who were
now pouring out of the terminal. "Someone
plant a bomb in there?"

"Haven't you heard of Hurricane Faith, you dumb
asshole?" a police
woman
demanded. "In a couple of hours she's gonna flood this airport
with forty feet of water. You get the hell out of
here." She joined the rush
round the corner.

Muldoon scratched his head as he again mentally cursed
that god
damned mechanic; he'd been
sitting here all night to no purpose. And if
there really was a big storm coming, Carrie would be
scared out of her
wits.
He switched on his ignition and pumped the gas pedal, tooting his
horn
to get through the crowd. Back into that fucking traffic.

The Rolls Royce slithered to and
fro over the road as the wind gusts
became
stronger.

"What the devil is the matter with you?" J.
Calthrop White demanded.
"You been
drinking?"

"It's the wind, Mr White. It really is getting kind
of strong. I wonder
if we shouldn't turn
back."

"Turn back? Look, don't give me any bullshit,
Murray. Put your foot
down."

"I was thinking of the bridge, Mr White. It's going
to be scary up
there."

"So
what, are you afraid of a little wind?"

Murray sighed, and rounded a corner, both hands tight on
the wheel.
At least there were
no other vehicles around – everyone else had more
sense
than even to open a garage door in this weather.

The automobile slithered again, and he got it straight by
using all of
his strength, but
lost it again when by far the strongest gust so far gripped
the high body. "Hell!" Murray gasped, and
pressed his foot flat to the
floor, but the Rolls
still continued to move sideways.

"What
the devil..." shouted J. Calthrop White. But the Rolls was
already off the road, sliding down the parapet to
come to rest in a ditch,
presently dry, but very muddy.

"Sorry, Mr White, I just lost her," Murray
said. The engine was still
running,
and he put the car in low gear and revved, but there was merely
an
enormous upheaval of mud and a grinding noise. "I guess she's stuck."

"For Jesus' sake… you are fired, Murray. I am giving
you 24 hours'
notice. Now get out of here and raise
some help."

"I
don't think I can walk against that wind, Mr White."

"Goddamn it, man!" J. Calthrop White shouted.
"I have given you an
order. Get on with
it."

Murray
sighed, and opened the door.

The tremendous banging on the downstairs door made
Florence sit up.
It
had been so lovely, lying in bed with Bert, all morning, dozing off and waking
up again to listen to the howl of the wind, the distant booming of the seas on
the beach, the crackle of the thunder; that was what being on
holiday
was all about – not having to go out in weather like this.

Eventually she had got up and fetched coffee from the
vending machine
in
the corridor, then she had gone back to bed; it was a very long time
since Bert had been so virile… she was feeling quite
reassured that their
love
life – increasingly disarranged at home by his poker nights with the
boys and his baseball Saturdays and her sometimes having
to stay
overnight at the Donnellys
caring for the children – was still going strong.
Maybe it was something in the violence of the storm
outside had touched
an
elemental chord in his libido – it had certainly touched something in
her.

Then they had slept again, in each other's arms. At some
stage Emmie
had banged on the
bedroom door, and gone on banging even when they
totally ignored her. Emmie didn't have a man, and her idea
of fun was
to go out and look
at the waves. But eventually they had been left
alone until this much more insistent banging… which was
now being
accompanied by the sound of shattering
glass.