Sex in a Sidecar (6 page)

Gina turned south. The closest bridge off the island was a mile north. Eight miles south into the storm was the next bridge. “Why?” I tugged her sleeve. The stupid bitch! This was no time to go back for some trinket or her favorite pair of canvas shoes. Whatever she'd left behind could be replaced and I'd be happy to do it in triplicate if she'd just get us off the friggin' island. Being from the north, she surely had no idea about falling trees and banks of sand that would grab your tires and not let go.

Both of her hands were welded onto the steering wheel. She hunched forward, up over the wheel, staring through the brief rabbit hole the wipers made into the driving rain and sand. Visibility was only about a car length and drifts of sand already spilled onto the road, slowing the car and throwing it sideways as we hit into them.

“Gina,” I screamed. “Turn around.”

She kept her eyes locked on her tiny view of the world over the dash.

“All right,” I screamed. “But hurry!” The clock said forty-four minutes after twelve. How long did we have before Myrna really hit? One hour? An hour and a half? Sure as hell not enough time for a leisurely drive.

At the south bridge I got another shock.

“Left! Turn left,” I screeched at her. I reached over and tried to pull the wheel towards the bridge. Gina yanked just as hard to the right and straight-legged the gas.

We shot past the turnoff, past safety. “Are you crazy?”

I surrendered the wheel and watched out the back window, seeing a safety net slipping away, and desperate to go back.

I swung back to Gina. “Let me out,” I demanded, my hand already on the door handle. She didn't slow down. “Please, let me out.” Frantic, I tried to assess my chances. If I jumped I'd land in a jungle of underbrush or smash into a tree. Not a good idea.

She drove wildly, too fast for conditions, frantically. “Why?' I yelled at her, tugging at her clothing.

She turned to look at me. Now it was her turn to plead. “Please.”

I could read that word on her lips but no more.

What? What did she want from me? Why had she kidnapped me? And where the hell were we going? It came down to this, I was trapped in a car with a mad woman and we were driving into a hurricane. For a brief moment I wondered if she was trying to commit suicide and taking her with me. A farfetched idea even for me but my friend Gina had well and truly lost it! That much was clear.

Now that we had passed the exit, Gina slowed to a crawl. She glanced over at me and I realized she was crying. “My god, you're as scared as me, aren't you?”

It was shocking. She wasn't just some crazy woman running into danger instead of away from it: she didn't want to do what she was doing, didn't want to be there anymore than I did.

I leaned close to Gina. Her hair brushed my lips. “Please,” I screamed in her ear. “Turn around.” She shook her head. Tears ran down her face. Crouched up over the wheel, gripping it for dear life, Gina drove south, towards the most exclusive part of Cypress Island, while the wind screamed and raged against the car, trying to get at us.

“If onlys” crowded my brain; banging into each other. I should have known from the way she went on in the bar the woman was unbalanced but she'd always been the epitome of normal, a nice woman, easy to talk to and fun to be around. Not now.

A palm frond thudded into the right front fender and up onto the hood. Gina jerked the wheel left into the lane for oncoming traffic. I grabbed the wheel and pulled hard to the right, not that there was likely to be anyone left out here to crash into. The palm frond screeched across the hood and disappeared into the underbrush on the left.

We entered South Beach. Millionaire's Row as the locals called it. The homes here are set far apart and well back from the narrow twisting road. Vegetation grows thick for privacy around the million-dollar estates. Now it protected us from the worst of the wind and visibility increased momentarily. Not that that was a good thing, because Gina drove faster and wilder. I tugged on the seat belt to reassure myself and braced a hand against the door.

The road twisted and turned, following the shoreline or the whim of some early settler. Underbrush crowded up against the edges of the pavement. There were no shoulders; no place to pull off or pass. Here and there, the road took sharp erratic turns around trees that sported red warning markers to alert drivers at night to their presence. Trees, tortured by the screaming wind, whipped about and narrowed the road further. The conditions of the picturesque road, normally viewed as quaint and endearing, now seemed criminally insane.

The rain pounded harder. Debris blew up in front of us, leaves and branches and palm fronds, thudding into the car, getting caught in the wipers and plastering themselves against the windows. The wipers were losing their battle, pushing an endless wall of water back and forth across the windshield. I searched desperately for landmarks. The wind and rain changed everything but we must be pretty close to the end of the island and about to run out of road.

The car slowed. Gina leaned to the right staring out the side window past me, searching the underbrush for something. We crept along so close to the right-hand side of the road that branches raked the Audi. Gina didn't care.

A small white sign for the Bath and Tennis Club appeared. Gina came nearly to a stop. “Is this it?” I yelled. I saw her give a slight nod, but I wasn't sure if it was in answer to my question or one of her own. She drove faster, with more confidence, passing the entrance to the Bath and Tennis Club, in the grip of some powerful emotion that not even fear or caution could override.

Suddenly, she hit the brake. The car slowed but not enough to make the narrow right-hand turn. The Audi crashed into the bushes at the edge of the lane. Branches screeched along the car's side. The seat belt tightened across my chest when the car caught in the sand, jerked free, then shot to the left side of the drive. I clutched the door rest, bracing myself against the dash as the car slued and swayed erratically before righting itself, only to hit a ridge of fresh sand which nearly brought the Audi to a stop before it broke loose and shot forward. Palmettos scratched along its side. I winced. “Big Red isn't the only vehicle that'll need painting when this is over,” I shouted.

Gina, of course, couldn't hear me.

The powerful engine dragged us through heavy sand to the front of an older house, a low ranch from the fifties, built on a small artificial hill to keep it above the tides. The turquoise clapboard with bright raspberry shutters should've looked gay and welcoming. It didn't. Instead it hovered menacingly over us, with angry black clouds rolling in behind it.

Gina circled the small turnaround in front of the house, leaving the nose of the car pointing out to the road and putting a large clump of overgrown lady palms between the house and us. “What are we doing here?” I yelled.

Gina put the car in park, leaving it running, and stared through the window at the underbrush, frozen in place.

“What are we doing here?” I yelled again. I grabbed her arm to get her attention.

She turned to me. “Sorry…” I lip-read. That was perfectly clear.

Well great! “Don't be sorry, ” I screamed in reply. “Just get us the hell out of here.” I stabbed my forefinger in the direction of the road.

She shook her head in denial and opened her door. Blowing sand and rain filled the car. Instinctively I raised my hands to protect my face, flinching away from the attack of the storm. When I lowered them, Gina was gone.

I screamed curses and fought with my twisted seat belt. The belt snapped back into its holster and I dove for the door. I stopped. If Gina wanted to die out here, that was fine, but there was no need for me to join her. Scrabbling behind the wheel, I put it in drive and started forward. But before I'd gone ten feet I braked. Why couldn't life be simple?

The wind caught the door, smashing it back against the hinge, and dragged me from the car. I launched myself sideways as the door crashed shut above me.

I got to my feet. Ragged landscaping hid the house. I didn't seem to have any choice but to go after Gina. In my three-inch wooden platform heels, one step forward, one back and one sideways, I stumbled towards the house. Particles of biting sand scoured my face and filled my nose and eyes.

At the house there was still no sign of Gina. I clung to the railing and pulled myself up the front steps through sand that obscured the risers to a big wraparound veranda bare of furniture. Either the owners had put the tables and chairs away or they'd blown out east to Lake Okeechobee.

I turned the knob and rattled the front door. It was locked. Plywood had been nailed over the windows. I went left around the house to the side facing the gulf. My platform sandals sunk in the six inches of sand covering the floor. I stepped out of them, hugging them to my chest with my left arm while my right hand tried to keep my hair out of my eyes.

On the gulf side, sand was piled a third of the way up the raw plywood covering sliding doors. I searched the sand at my feet, like some ancient Indian scout looking for tracks. How long would it take the wind to bury any sign of another person? A minute? Two seconds? No way anyone had gone in or come out this entrance. So where was she?

The wind bounced me along the house to the north side. Here a large Australian pine, uprooted from the property line, had crashed down onto the veranda. Back the way I came, past the front door and around to the north corner of the house to where the same great pine tree stopped me. There was no sign of Gina, no open doors, no tracks and no Gina. Was it possible that the tree had fallen as she stood here? Screaming her name, I searched under the branches. Not a scrap of blue denim or pale skin.

I was more terrified than I'd ever been in my life. I called for God and my mother. Only the wind answered.

I was done looking for Gina, done waiting. I stumbled back to the front of the house. Not even guilt could keep me there any longer. The storm carried me down the steps, carried me around the circle to the car. But there was no car.

This just couldn't be happening. I turned in a complete circle, sure that I'd see the car. Or Gina. Nothing.

I ran around the lady palms. I was positive Gina was driving around in the circle looking for me. But there was no car and no Gina. It took me two trips around the circle to convince myself I was alone with no way off the island. I sat on the steps to put on my crazy sandals that had seemed so much fun in the store. I tied the colorful ribbons tight around my ankles. The wind whipped my hair across my face and stole away my tears.

Panic and adrenalin, helped by hurricane-force winds, propelled me, half-running, half-flying down the drive. The drifts of sand across the driveways showed slight depressions where the Audi had plowed through them. I stumbled after the tire tracks to the road. I expected her to be there, waiting for me.

She wasn't. I was alone. Alone and on foot and Myrna was coming to visit.

I swung wildly north and south, searching for the Audi. There was no sign of another human being. I ran north, working strictly on instinct now, no reasoning on the best course of action: just acting out of blind panic and a need for human contact. Being alone was nearly as frightening as the thought of the hurricane about to pound the island. I didn't want to be alone. No matter what came; I wanted to be with someone.

Out on South Beach the houses are set far apart at erratic intervals, following no planning commission guidelines, they shelter where their owners wish them to be, without rhyme or reason. Few houses can be seen from the road, even when the greenery isn't being whipped about, so I may have passed driveways without knowing it. I just kept pounding north, head down and gasping for air.

But then I saw a flagstone driveway meeting the pavement. I stopped and wiped the rain and hair from my face, searching the house for signs of life. Or better yet, signs of a vehicle. It was the Keaton mansion, still closed for the off-season, a pale yellow stucco with all the doors and windows covered by steel shutters, impossible to get into with bare hands and worse yet, no car left in the drive. But then why would there be? The Keatons wouldn't be back until the season began in the New Year.

I went on, more for lack of a better plan than in hopes of finding help. At one of those
S
bends in the road, where it curves to avoid a tree, I found the white Audi. It sat in the middle of the street, with the driver's door swung wide. Hope and joy sang along my veins.

Then I saw why the Audi had stopped. A palm tree had blown out of the ground, its roots spread bare for the rain to wash. A red triangular warning marker, nailed to the side of the tree, shone up through the rain, mocking me.

In front of the car I saw something else. Gina was laid out like she'd been crucified, feet together and arms outstretched. I wobbled forward and knelt beside her. “Gina,” I screamed. “Gina.” I shook her. It was too late. Even I could see that. She was cold, as cold as the rain, and her empty blue eyes were staring up at the turbulent sky. Rain slicked her hair to her head making her gay plastic barrettes look cruelly fresh and bright. With sodden clothes clinging to her body, Gina looked smaller, shrunken even and suddenly younger. She reminded me of a huge Halloween scarecrow abandoned in November. I rolled her over across my knees, took her in my arms, brushing water off her face and hair, crooning softly to her, “It's okay, it's okay.” But it was a lie. She was never going to be okay again. Holding her and rocking her, I gave into grief and self-pity. When it passed, I had a few harsh words with myself. I didn't know how much time I had left before Myrna arrived but not enough to sit on my behind wailing. I sat up straight. Gina's head flopped sideways, leaving a huge blotch of blood on my shirt.

The back of her head had been crushed in. Someone else had to be out here, no falling branch had done this damage. I searched the underbrush, looking for the monster waiting to jump out at me.

Maybe it was shock or maybe I don't deal real well with emergencies but it never occurred to me not to take Gina with me. Fear gave me strength. I got my hands under her arms, locking them across her chest and dragged her back to the car. Gina wasn't light. I leaned her up against the car. Her legs splayed and her head slumped. While I opened the back door I held her upright with my hip and one arm, an undignified thing to do to a corpse.

Grunting and twisting and tugging, I got Gina into the car and then I went to tackle the tree.

The top of the palm was wedged in-between two laurels. I shoved it. I pulled it. I even tried to roll it out of the way but the tree was going nowhere.

I started the Audi. Gently, I put the big car up against the palm and tried to push it forward. Nothing happened. I backed up and took a real good run at the palm, hoping to break through. The tree held. I did it again. And again the palm held. The third time convinced me it wasn't going to budge. There was no way I could drive through the dense underbrush and go around the fallen tree. I had one silly thought about finding boards to build a ramp and taking the car over the tree.

The truth was, I had a car but it was no good to me, the Audi was going nowhere. Neither was Gina. The clock said one-thirty. I turned off the key. How long did I have? An hour? No more. And where was Gina's murderer?