Stormy Weather (47 page)

“I shall call you Nurse Nightingale.”

“Why are you so stubborn?”

“I know a doctor in Tavernier.”

“And how do you plan to get there?”

“Walking upright,” Skink replied. “One of the few commendable traits of our species.”

Bonnie told him to quit being ridiculous. “You’re in terrible pain, I can tell.”

“The whole world’s in pain, girl.”

She looked imploringly to Augustine. “Talk to him, please.”

“He’s a grown man, Bonnie. Now hold still.”

He was cleaning her face with his shirt, which he’d wadded up and soaked in the creek. Skink perched on a nearby log, his arms crossed tightly. Moments earlier they’d watched him gobble a dozen Anacins from a plastic bottle he located under the camp tarpaulin. Bonnie boldly swallowed three.

No aspirins were offered to Snapper, who was bound with a corroded tow-truck chain to the buttonwood tree. He was caked with soggy leaves, mulch and dried blood. His cheap suit was filthy and torn. During the struggle, Augustine had made him dig a short trench with his mandible, so his maw was full of stones and loose soil, like a planter. In addition, he was missing an earlobe, which Augustine had
shot off at point-blank range. It was inconceivable to Snapper that such a chickenshit wound could be so excruciating.

Skink said to Augustine: “I thought sure you were going to kill him.”

“It was tempting.”

“My way’s better.”

“After what he did to Jim’s girlfriend?”

“Yes. Even after that.” The governor bowed his head. He was hurting.

Augustine was drained. The adrenaline had emptied out in a clammy torrent. He no longer entertained the idea of murdering Snapper, and doubted if he was even capable of it. An hour ago, yes. Not now. It was probably a good time to leave.

Bonnie studied his expression as he tended her cheeks and brow. “You OK?” she said.

“I don’t know. The way he hurt you—”

“Hey, I asked for it.”

“But you wouldn’t be out here if it weren’t for me.”

Playfully she jabbed a finger in his side. “What makes you so sure? Maybe I’m here because of
him
.”

Skink grinned but didn’t look up. Augustine had to laugh, too. That’s why we’re both here, he thought. Because of him.

“Would it be bad manners,” Bonnie said to Skink, “if I asked what you plan to do with the money.”

His chin came off his chest. “Oh. That.” Grimacing, he rose from the log. “Lester, you awake? Yo, Lester!”

“Ghhhnungggh.”

The governor used his feet to push the Frenchman’s suitcase across the clearing to the buttonwood tree, where he kicked the latches open. Snapper regarded the bundled cash with a mixture of undisguised longing and suspicion. He wondered what sick stunt the fucker was cooking up now.

Only the bills on top were wet. Skink swept them aside with his hands. Bonnie and Augustine walked over to see.

The governor said, “You guys want any of this?” They shook their heads.

“Me, neither,” he muttered. “Just more shit to lug around.” He addressed Snapper: “Chief, I’m sure there was a time in your sorry-ass life when ninety-four grand would’ve come in handy. Believe me when I tell you those days are over.”

Skink took a matchbook from his pocket. He asked Bonnie and Augustine to do the honors. Snapper spewed dirt and thrashed inconsolably against the chains.

The money gave off a rich, sweet scent as it burned.

Later he unlocked the truck chain holding Snapper to the tree. Plaintively Snapper pointed at the red brace fastened in his mouth. Skink shook his head.

“Here’s the deal, Lester. Don’t be here when I get back. Do not fuck with my camp, do not fuck with my books. It’s about to rain like hell, so lie back and drink as much as you can. You’ll need it.”

Snapper didn’t respond. Augustine stepped up. He took out the .38 Special and said, “Try to follow us out, I’ll blow your head off.”

Bonnie shuddered. The governor removed a few items from beneath the tarpaulin and placed them in a backpack. Then he lighted the torch and led the others into the trees.

Snapper had no desire to follow; he was glad the crazy fuckers were gone. A gust churned the cinders at his feet, blew a flurry into his lap. He ran his fingers through the ashes, brought a handful to his nose. It didn’t even smell like money anymore.

Later he awoke to the hard rustle of leaves. The rain came driving down. Snapper took the man’s advice. He filled up on it.

At daybreak he would start his march.

They broke a fresh trail through the hardwoods. Bonnie was worried that Snapper would be able to use it to find his way out. “Not across a lake,” Skink said.

She hooked her fingers in Augustine’s belt as they swam. The governor hoisted the torch, his boots and the backpack over his head, to keep them dry. Augustine was astounded that the man could swim so well with a fractured collarbone. The crossing took less than fifteen minutes, though it seemed an eternity to Bonnie. She was unable to convince herself that crocodiles shunned firelight.

Afterwards they rested on shore. Skink, struggling into his laceless boots: “If he gets out of here, he deserves to be free.”

Augustine said, “But he won’t.”

“No, he’ll go the wrong way. That’s his nature.”

Then Skink was moving again, an orange flame weaving through the trees ahead of them. Bonnie, hurrying to keep up: “So something’ll get him. Panthers or something.”

Augustine said, “Nothing so exotic, Mrs. Lamb.”

“Then what?”

“Time. Time will get him.”

“Exactly!” the governor boomed. “It’s the arc of all life. For Lester we merely hasten the sad promenade. Tonight we are Darwin’s elves.”

Bonnie quickened her pace. She felt happy to be with them, out in the middle of nowhere. Ahead on the trail, Skink was singing to himself. Feeling the horns sprouting from his temples, she supposed.

Two hours later they emerged from the woods. A rip of wind braced them.

“Oh brother,” Augustine said, “any second now.”

With a grimace, Skink removed the backpack. “This is for your hike.”

“It’s not that far.”

“Take it, just in case.”

Bonnie said, “God, your eye.”

A stalk of holly berries garnished the empty withered socket. The governor groped at himself. “Damn. I guess it fell out.”

Bonnie could hardly look at him.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I got a whole box of extras somewhere.”

She said, “Don’t be foolish. Go to the mainland with us.”

“No!”

A mud-gray wall of rain came hissing down the road. Bonnie shivered as it hit them. Skink leaned close to Augustine: “Give it a couple three months, at least.”

“You bet.”

“For what?” Bonnie asked.

“Before I try to find that place again,” Augustine said.

“Why go back?”

“Science,” said Augustine.

“Nostalgia,” said the governor.

The squall doused the torch, which he lobbed into a stand of red mangroves. He tucked his hair under the plastic shower cap and said
good-bye. Bonnie kissed him on the chin and told him to be careful. Augustine gave an affable salute.

For a while they could make out his tall shape, stalking south, under violet flashbursts of high lightning. Then he was gone. The weather covered him like a shroud.

They turned and went the other way. Augustine walked fast on the blacktop, the backpack jouncing on his bare shoulders.

“Hey, the scar is looking good,” Bonnie said.

“You still like it?”

“Beauty.” She could see it vividly whenever the sky lit up. “A corkscrew in the shower—you weren’t kidding?”

“God, I wish,” said Augustine.

They heard a car behind them. As it approached, the headlights elongated their shadows on the pavement. Augustine asked Bonnie if she wanted to hitch a ride. She said no. They stepped off the road to let the car go by.

Soon they reached the tall bridge at Card Sound. Augustine said it was time to rest. He unzipped the backpack to see what the governor had packed: a coil of rope, two knives, four bandannas, a tube of antiseptic, a waterproof box of matches, a bottle of fresh water, chlorine tablets, some oranges, a stick of bug repellent, four cans of lentil soup and a tin of unidentifiable dried meat.

Augustine and Bonnie shared the water, then started up the bridge.

Needles of rain stung Bonnie’s bruises as she climbed the long slope. She tasted brine on the wind, and wasn’t embarrassed to clutch Augustine’s right arm—the gusts were so strong they nearly lifted her off the ground.

“Maybe it’s another hurricane!”

“Not hardly,” he said.

They stopped at the top. Augustine threw the pistol as far as he could. Bonnie peered over the concrete rail to watch the splash, a silent punctuation. Augustine placed his hands firmly on her waist, holding her steady. She liked the way it felt, the trust involved.

Far below, the bay was frothed and corrugated; a treacherously different place from the first time Bonnie saw it. Not a night for dolphins.

She drew Augustine closer and kissed him for a long time. Then she spun him around and groped in the backpack.

“What’re you doing?” he shouted over the slap of the rain.

“Hush.”

When he turned back, her eyes were shining. In her hands was the coil of rope.

“Tie me to the bridge,” she said.

The marriage of
BONNIE BROOKS
and
MAX LAMB
was discreetly annulled by a judge who happened to be a skiing companion of Max Lamb’s father. Max returned to Rodale & Burns, pouring his energies into a new advertising campaign for Old Faithful Root Beer. Spurred by Max’s simpleminded jingle, the company soon reported a 24 percent jump in domestic sales. Max was promoted to the sixth floor and put in charge of an $18 million account for a low-fat malt liquor called Steed.

By the end of the year, Max and
EDIE MARSH
were engaged. They got an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Edie became active in charity circles. Two years after the hurricane, while attending a Kenny G concert to benefit victims of a Colombian mud slide, Edie met the same young Kennedy she’d long ago tried so avidly to debauch. She was mildly amazed when, while greeting her, he slipped a tongue in her ear. Max said it surely was her imagination.

BRENDA ROURKE
recovered fully from her injuries and returned to the Highway Patrol. She requested and received a transfer to northern Florida, where she and
JIM TILE
built a small house on the Ochlockonee River. For Christmas he gave her an engraved gold replica of her mother’s wedding ring, and two full-grown rottweilers from Stuttgart.

After being rescued in the ocean off Islamorada,
AVILA
was taken to Miami’s Krome Detention Center and processed as “Juan Gómez Duran,” a rafter fleeing political oppression in Havana. He was held at Krome for nine days, until a Spanish-language radio station
sponsored his release. In return, brave “Señor Gómez” agreed to share the details of high-seas escape with radio listeners, who were moved by his heart-wrenching story but puzzled by his wildly inaccurate references to Cuban geography. Afterwards Avila packed up and moved to Fort Myers, on the west coast of Florida, where he was immediately hired as a code-enforcement officer for the local building-and-zoning department. During his first four weeks on the job, Avila approved 212 new homes—a record for a single inspector that stands to this day. Nineteen months after the hurricane, while preparing a sacrifice to Chango on the patio of his luxurious new waterfront town house, Avila was severely bitten on the thigh by a hydrophobic rabbit. Too embarrassed to seek medical attention, he died twenty-two days later in his hot tub. In honor of his short but productive tenure as a code inspector, the Lee County Home Builders Association established the Juan Gómez Duran Scholarship Fund.

One day after the state trooper was shot in the parking lot, paramedics again were summoned to the Paradise Palms Motel in the Florida Keys. This time a guest named
LEVON STICHLER
had suffered a mild myocardial infarction. On the ride to the emergency room, the old man deliriously insisted he’d been held captive at the motel by two bossy prostitutes. Doctors at Mariners Hospital notified Levon Stichler’s daughter in Saint Paul, who was understandably alarmed to learn of her father’s hallucinations. After hanging up the phone, she informed her children that Grandpa would be coming to stay for a while.

The gnawed remains of
IRA JACKSON
, identified by X rays, were cremated and interred at a private ceremony on Staten Island. Several Teamster bosses sent flowers, as did the retired comptroller of the Central States Pension Fund. Three weeks after the hurricane, the African lion that attacked Ira Jackson was captured while foraging in a Dumpster behind a Pizza Hut in Perrine. The tranquilized animal was dipped, vaccinated, wormed and nicknamed “Pepperoni.” It is now on display at a wildlife park in West Palm Beach.

The murder of
TONY TORRES
remains unsolved, although police suspect his wife of arranging the crime so that she could hoard the hurricane money from Midwest Casualty. Detectives seeking to question
NERIA TORRES
learned that she’d moved to Belize, leased an ocean-front villa and taken up with an expatriate American fishing guide. A court-ordered inspection of her late husband’s bank records revealed that before leaving the United States, Mrs. Torres moved $201,000 through a single checking account. The house at 15600 Calusa was never repaired and remained abandoned for twenty-two months, until it was finally condemned and destroyed.

Five weeks after the hurricane,
FRED DOVE
went home to Omaha and presented his wife with two miniature dachshunds orphaned by the storm. He,
DENNIS REEDY
and eight other Midwest Casualty adjusters were honored for their heroic work on the Florida crisis-response team. To publicize its swift and compassionate processing of hurricane claims, the company featured the men in a national television commercial that aired during the Bob Hope Christmas Special. Fred Dove was hopeful that
EDIE MARSH
would contact him after the commercial was broadcast, but he never heard from her again.