Stormy Weather (23 page)

“Take some Mylanta.”

“I did,” Bonnie lied. “Maybe it was the boat ride.”

“You’ll feel better later.”

“I’m sure I will.”

He said he’d get her a room near the airport. “Take a long nap,” he suggested, “and catch an evening flight.”

“Sounds good.”

Poor Max, she thought. He hasn’t got a clue.

Bonnie Brooks’s father worked in the circulation department of the Chicago
Tribune
, and her mother was a buyer for Sears. They had an apartment in the city and a summer cabin on the boundary waters in Minnesota. Bonnie, an only child, had mixed memories of family vacations. Her father was an unadventurous fellow for whom the northern wilderness held no allure. Because he couldn’t swim and was allergic to deerflies, he avoided the lakes. Instead he stayed in the cabin and assembled model airplanes; classic German Fokkers were his passion. The tedious hobby was made more so by her father’s chronic ham-fistedness, which turned the simplest glue job into high drama. Bonnie and her mother stayed out of the way, to avoid being blamed for disturbing his concentration.

While her father toiled over the model planes, Bonnie’s mother paddled her across the wooded lakes in an old birch canoe. Bonnie remembered those happy mornings—trailing her fingertips in the chilly water, feeling the sunlight warm the back of her neck. Her mother was not the stealthiest of paddlers, but they saw their share of wildlife—deer, squirrels, beavers, the occasional moose. Bonnie recalled asking, more than once, why her folks had bought the cabin if her father was so averse to the outdoors. Her mother always explained: “It was either here or Wisconsin.”

Bonnie Brooks attended Northwestern University and, to her father’s puzzlement, majored in journalism. Soon she embarked on her first serious romance, with a divorced adjunct professor who claimed to have won prizes for his reportage of the Vietnam War. The absence of plaques in the professor’s office Bonnie naively attributed to modesty. For Christmas she decided to surprise him with a framed, laminated copy of his front-page scoop about the mining
of Haiphong harbor. Yet when Bonnie searched the college’s microfilm of the San Francisco
Chronicle
, for whom her lover had supposedly worked, she found not a single bylined story bearing his name. Demonstrating the blood instincts of a seasoned reporter, she contacted the newspaper’s personnel department and (using harmless subterfuge) was able to determine that the closest her heroic seducer had ever come to Southeast Asia was the copy desk of the
Chronicle’
s Seattle bureau.

Bonnie Brooks acted decisively. First she dumped the jerk, then she got him fired from the university. Subsequent boyfriends were more loyal and forthcoming, but what they lacked in dishonesty they made up for with indolence. Bonnie’s mother grew tired of cooking them meals and deflecting their halfhearted offers to help dry the dishes. She couldn’t wait for her daughter to graduate from school and find herself a grown-up man.

Good or bad, jobs in journalism were hard to come by. Like many of her classmates, Bonnie Brooks wound up writing publicity blurbs and press releases. She went to work first for the City of Chicago Parks Department and then for a baby-food company that was eventually purchased by Crespo Mills Internationale. There Bonnie was promoted to the job of assistant corporate publicist. The title was attached to a salary that ten tough years in most city newsrooms wouldn’t have earned. As for the writing, it was as elementary as it was unsatisfying. In addition to pablums and breakfast cereals, Crespo Mills manufactured whipped condiment spreads, peanut butter, granola bars, cookies, crackers, trail mix, flavored popcorn, bread sticks and three styles of croutons. In no time, Bonnie Brooks ran out of appetizing adjectives. Attempts at lyrical originality were discouraged by her Crespo supervisors; during one especially dreary streak, she was required to use the word “tasty” in fourteen consecutive press releases. When Max Lamb asked her to marry him and move to New York, Bonnie didn’t hesitate to quit her job.

Max could take only a few days off from work, so they decided to take their honeymoon at Disney World—a corny choice, but Bonnie figured anything was better than Niagara Falls. She knew that a waterfall, no matter how grandiose, wouldn’t hold Max’s interest. Neither, it turned out, did Mickey Mouse. Two days at the Magic Kingdom and Max was as antsy as a cat burglar.

Then the hurricane blew in, and he just
had
to go see.…

Bonnie had wanted to stay in Orlando, stay cuddled under the scratchy motel sheets and make love while the rain drummed on the windows. Why wasn’t that enough for him?

She’d almost asked that very question as they sat in the dark on Augustine’s patio after the adventure in Stiltsville. And later, on the way to the airport. And again, standing at the Delta gate, when he’d hugged her in a loose and distracted way, his hair and shirt reeking of cigarets.

But Bonnie hadn’t asked. The moment wasn’t right; he was a man with a purpose. A grown-up man, just like her mother wanted her to find. Except her mother thought Max was an asshole. Her father, well, he thought Max Lamb was a fine young fella. He thought all Bonnie’s boyfriends had been fine young fellas.

She wondered what her father would think of her now, on the way to a hospital, scrunched in the front seat of a pickup truck between a one-eyed, toad-smoking kidnapper and a plane-crash survivor who juggled skulls.

Brenda Rourke’s head was fractured in three places, and one of her cheeks needed reconstruction. She was bleeding under the right temporal bone, but doctors had managed to stanch it. A plastic surgeon had repaired a U-shaped gash on her forehead, stitching the loose flap above the hairline.

Bonnie Lamb had never seen such terrible wounds. Even the governor seemed shaken. Augustine fastened his eyes on his shoetops—the sounds and smells of the hospital were too familiar. He felt parched.

Jim Tile held both of Brenda’s hands in one of his own. Her eyes were open but unfocused; she had no sense of anyone besides Jim at her bedside. She was trying to talk through the drugs and the pain; he leaned closer to listen.

After a while he straightened, announcing in a low, angry voice, “The bastard stole her ring. Her mother’s wedding ring.”

Skink slipped from the room so quietly that Bonnie and Augustine didn’t notice immediately. There was no trace of him outside the door, but a rush of blue and white uniforms attracted them to the end of the hall. The governor was in the nursery, strolling among the newborns. He carried an infant in the crook of each arm. The babies slept soundly, and he studied them with profound sadness. To Bonnie
Lamb he appeared harmless, despite the rebellious beard and the grubby combat pants and the army boots. A trio of husky orderlies conferred at a water fountain; apparently a negotiation had already been attempted, with poor results. Calmly Jim Tile entered the nursery and returned the infants to their glass cribs.

Nobody intervened when the trooper led Skink out of the hospital, because it looked like a routine arrest; another loony street case hauled to the stockade: Jim Tile, his arm around the madman, walking him briskly down the maze of pale-green corridors; the two of them talking intently; Bonnie and Max dodging wheelchairs and gurneys and trying to keep up.

When they reached the parking lot, Jim Tile said he had to go to work. “The President’s coming, and guess who gets to clear traffic.”

He folded a piece of paper into Skink’s hand and got into the patrol car. Wordlessly Skink settled in the bed of Augustine’s pickup and lay down. His good eye was fixed on the clouds, and his arms were folded across his chest.

Augustine asked Jim Tile: “What do we do with him?”

“That’s entirely up to you.” The trooper sounded exhausted.

Bonnie Lamb asked about Brenda Rourke. Jim Tile said the doctors expected her to pull through.

“What about the guy who did it?”

“They haven’t caught him,” the trooper replied, “and they won’t.” He strapped on the seat belt, locked the door, adjusted his sunglasses. “Place used to be something special,” he said absently. “Long, long time ago.”

A feral cry rose from the bed of the pickup truck. Jim Tile blinked over the rims of his shades. “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Lamb. You and your husband do what’s right. The captain, he’ll understand.”

Then the trooper drove off.

On the way to the airport hotel, where Max Lamb had reserved a day room for her, Bonnie slid across the front seat and rested her cheek on Augustine’s shoulder. He was dreading this part, saying good-bye. It was always easier as a bitter cleaving, when suitcases snapped shut, doors slammed, taxis screeched out of the driveway. He checked the dashboard clock—less than three hours until her flight.

Through the back window of the truck, Bonnie saw that Skink had pulled the flowered cap over his face and drawn himself into a loose-jointed variation of a fetal curl.

She said, “I wonder what’s on that piece of paper.”

“My guess,” said Augustine, “it’s either a name or an address.”

“Of what?”

“It’s just a guess,” he said, but he told her anyway.

That night he didn’t have to say good-bye, because Bonnie Lamb didn’t go home to New York. She canceled her flight and returned to Augustine’s house. Her phone messages for Max were not returned until after midnight, when she was already asleep in the skull room.

Shortly after noon on August 28, the telephone in Tony Torres’s kitchen started ringing.

Snapper told Edie Marsh to get it.

“
You
get it,” she said.

“Real funny.”

Snapper couldn’t walk; the blow from the crowbar had messed up his right leg. He was laid out in the BarcaLounger with his knee packed in three bags of ice, which Edie had purchased for fifty dollars on Quail Roost Drive from some traveling bandit in a fish truck. The fifty bucks came out of Snapper’s big score against the Whitmarks. He didn’t tell Edie Marsh how much money remained in his pocket. He also didn’t mention the trooper’s gun in the Cherokee, in the event she blew her top again.

The phone continued ringing. “Answer it,” Snapper said. “Maybe it’s your Santy Claus boyfriend.”

Edie picked up the phone. On the other end, a woman’s voice said: “Hullo?”

Edie hung up. “It wasn’t Fred,” she said.

“The fuck was it?”

“I didn’t ask, Snapper. We’re not supposed to be here, remember?” She said it sounded like long distance.

“What if it’s the insurance company? Maybe the check’s ready.”

Edie said, “No. Fred would tell me.”

Snapper hacked out a laugh. “Fred’s gone, you dumb twat. You scared him off!”

“How much you wanna bet.”

“Right, he can’t stay away, you’re such a fantastic piece a ass.”

“You can’t even imagine,” Edie said, showing some tongue. Maybe she wasn’t hot enough for a young Kennedy, but she was the best
thing young Mr. Dove had ever seen. Besides, he couldn’t back out of the deal now. He’d already put in for the phony claim.

Again the phone rang. Edie Marsh said, “Shit.”

“For Christ’s sake, gimme a hand.” Snapper writhed irritably on the BarcaLounger. “Come on!”

Bracing a forearm on Edie’s shoulder, he hobbled to the kitchen. She plucked the receiver off the hook and handed it to him.

“Yo,” Snapper said.

“Hullo?” A woman. “Tony, is that you?”

“Hmmphrr,” answered Snapper, cautiously.

“It’s me. Neria.”

Who? Frigid drops from the ice pack dripped down Snapper’s injured leg. The purple kneecap felt as if it were about to burst, like a rotten mango. Edie pressed close, trying to hear what the caller was saying.

“Tony, I been tryin’ to get through for days. What’s with the house?”

Then Snapper remembered: The wife! Tony Torres had said her name was Miriam or Neria, some Cuban thing. He’d also said she’d be coming back for her cut of the insurance.

“Bad connection,” Snapper mumbled into the receiver.

“What’s going on? I call next door and Mister Varga, he said the hurricane totaled our house and now there’s strangers living there. Some woman, Tony. You hear me? And Mister Varga said you shot a hole in the garage. What the hell’s going on down there?”

Snapper held the receiver at arm’s length, like it was a stick of dynamite. His bottom jaw shoveled in and out; the joints of his face made a popping sound that gave Edie the creeps.

“Tony?” squeaked the voice on the telephone.

Edie took it from Snapper’s hand and said, “I’m very sorry. You’ve got the wrong number.” Then she hung up.

At first all Snapper could say was, “Goddamn.”

“The wife?”

“Yeah. Goddamn.”

Edie Marsh helped him pogo to the chair. The ice crunched as he sat down. “Where’s your Santy Claus boyfriend live?”

“Some Ramada.”

“Goddamn. We don’t got much time.”

Edie said, “Where’s Mrs. Torres? Is she here in Miami?”

“Hell if I know. Get me to the car.”

“I’ve got some more bad news. The dogs came back this morning.”

“The wiener dogs?”

“We can’t just leave them here. They need to be fed.”

With both hands Snapper choked his throbbing leg and said, “Never again. I swear to Christ.”

“Oh yeah,” Edie Marsh said, “like this is some fun picnic for me. Here, give me your arm.”

Avila’s new customer took the Turnpike south. Before long the Cadillac was pinned in traffic—construction trucks, eighteen-wheelers, Army convoys, ambulances, sightseers, National Guardsmen, and hundreds of queasy insurance adjusters, all heading into the hurricane zone. Ground Zero.

“Looks like a bombing range,” said the man calling himself Rick Reynolds.

“Sure does. Where’s your house?”

“We got a ways yet.” As the car inched along, the man turned up the radio: Rush Limbaugh, making wisecracks about the wife of some candidate. Avila didn’t think the jokes were all that funny, but the man chuckled loyally. After the program ended, a news report announced that the President of the United States was flying to Miami to see the storm damage firsthand.