Stormy Weather

"Heck, no. Max said you might be calling."

Bo

"For about an hour."

"When?"

"Tonight. He's all frantic that Bill Knapp's go

"Pete, never mind all that. Where did Max call from?"

"I don't know, Bon. I assumed he'd spoken to you."

Bo

On the other end, Pete Archibald clucked and ummmed nervously. "Not all the gory details, Bo

Bo

After an uncomfortable pause, Pete Archibald said, "Bon, you guys work it out, OK? I don't want to get in the middle."

"You're right, you're absolutely right." She noticed that her free hand was balled in a fist and she was rocking sideways in the chair. "Pete, I won't keep you. But maybe you could tell me what else Max said."

"Shop talk, Bo

"For a whole hour?"

"Well, you know your husband. He gets rolling, you know what he's like."

Maybe I don't, Bo

She said good-bye to Pete Archibald and hung up. Then she went to Augustine's room and knocked on the door. When he didn't answer, she slipped in and sat lightly on the corner of the bed. She thought he was asleep, until he rolled over and said: "Not a good night for the skull room, huh?"

Bo

Edie Marsh gave it her best shot. For a while, the plan went smoothly. The man from Midwest Casualty took meticulous notes as he followed her from room to room in the Torres house. Many of the couple's belongings had been pulverized beyond recognition, so Edie began embellishing losses to inflate the claim. She lovingly described the splintered remains of a china cabinet as a priceless antique that Tony inherited from a great-grandmother in San Juan. Pausing before a bare bedroom wall, she pointed to the nails upon which once hung two original (and very expensive) watercolors by the legendary Jean-Claude Jarou, a martyred Haitian artist whom Edie invented off the top of her head. A splintered bedroom bureau became the hand-hewn mahogany vault that had yielded eight cashmere sweaters to the merciless winds of the hurricane.

"Eight sweaters," said Fred Dove, glancing up from his clipboard. "In Miami?"

"The finest Scottish cashmeres-can you imagine? Ask your wife if it wouldn't break her heart."

Fred Dove took a small flashlight from his jacket and went outside to evaluate structural damage. Soon Edie heard barking from the backyard, followed by emphatic human profanities. By the time she got there, both dachshunds had gotten a piece of the insurance man. Edie led him inside, put him in the BarcaLounger, rolled up his cuffs and tended his bloody ankles with Evian and Ivory liquid, which she salvaged from the kitchen.

"I'm glad they're not rottweilers," said Fred Dove, soothed by Edie's ministrations with a soft towel.

Repeatedly she apologized for the attack. "For what it's worth, they've had all their shots," she said, with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

She instructed Fred Dove to stay in the recliner and keep his feet elevated, to slow the bleeding. Leaning back, he spotted Tony Torres's Salesman of the Year plaque on the wall. "Pretty impressive," Fred Dove said.

"Yes, it was quite a big day for us." Edie beamed, a game simulation of spousely pride.

"And where's Mister Torres tonight?"

Out of town, Edie replied, at a mobile-home convention in Dallas. For the second time, Fred Dove looked doubtful.

"Even with the hurricane? Must be a pretty important convention."

"It sure is," said Edie Marsh. "He's getting another award."

"Ah."

"So he bad to go. I mean, it'd look bad if he didn't show up. Like he wasn't grateful or something."

Fred Dove said, "I suppose so. When will Mister Torres be returning to Miami?"

Edie sighed theatrically. "I just don't know. Soon, I hope."

The insurance man attempted to lower the recliner, but it kept springing to the sleep position. Finally Edie Marsh sat on the footrest, enabling Fred Dove to climb out. He said he wanted to reinspect the damage to the master bedroom. Edie said that was fine.

She was rinsing the bloody towel in a sink when the insurance man called. She hurried to the bedroom, where Fred Dove held up a framed photograph that he'd dug from the storm rubble. It was a picture of Tony Torres with a large dead fish. The fish had a mouth the size of a garbage pail.

"That's Tony on the left," Edie said with a dry, edgy laugh.

"Nice grouper. Where'd he catch it?"

"The ocean." Where else? thought Edie.

"And who's this?" The insurance man retrieved another frame off the floor. The glass was cracked, and the picture was puckered from storm water. It was a color nine-by-twelve mounted inside gold filigree: Tony Torres with his arm around the waist of a petite but heavy-breasted Latin woman. Both of them wore loopy champagne smiles.

"His sister Maria," Edie blurted, sensing the game was about to end.

"She's in a wedding gown," Fred Dove remarked, with no trace of sarcasm. "And Mister Torres is wearing a black tuxedo and tails."

Edie said, "He was the best man."

"Really? His hand is on her bottom."

"They're very close," said Edie, "for a brother and sister." The words trailed off in defeat.

Fred Dove's shoulders stiffened, and his tone chilled. "Do you happen to have some identification? A driver's license would be good. Anything with a current photograph."

Edie Marsh said nothing. She feared compounding one felony with another.

"Let me guess," said the insurance man. "All your personal papers were lost in the hurricane."

Edie bowed her head, thinking: This can't be happening again. One of these days I've got to catch a break. She said, "Shit."