Stormy Weather

"Miss me, bay-beeee?" he crooned, pallid lips wriggling like flatworms against the glass.

Jim Tile was tempted to call for backup, though it would spell the end of the governor's elaborate reclusion.

Long ago they'd made a pact: no cavalry, unless i

Glumly Jim Tile watched the rain drench the passing cars on Highway One. Again he castigated himself for letting his emotions get the better of his brain. Brenda was alive. He should've thanked God, then let it go.

But he didn't. And the governor had had little trouble talking him out of the license-tag number.

"Pest control" was what Skink had called it, as they were leaving the hospital.

"Whoever did that to Mrs. Rourke is not a viable member of the species. Not a welcome donor to the gene pool. Wouldn't Darwin himself agree?"

And the trooper had merely said: "Be careful."

"Jim, we're infested with these mutant shitheads. Look what they've done to the place."

The trooper, locked in some cold distant zone: "The tag's probably stolen off another car. It may lead you nowhere."

The governor, momentarily shaking loose of his friend's firm grip: "They're turning it into a sump hole. Some with guns, some with briefcases-it's all the same goddamn crime."

"Pest control."

"We do what we can."

"Be careful, captain."

Then he'd flashed those movie-star pearlies, the ones that had gotten him elected. And Jim Tile stood back and let him go. Let him stalk the man in the black Jeep Cherokee.

Which was now parked in a windy drizzle outside the Paradise Palms. The trooper counted three figures inside the truck; two of them, he hoped, were Skink and Bo

A dark shape near the road caught his attention.

The tall man in the suit was hurrying along the gravel shoulder of Highway One. There was a tippiness to his gait; he seemed well challenged to keep a straight course, clear of the speeding cars. He flinched when the high beams of a gasoline tanker caught him in the face.

This time Jim Tile got a good look at the misaligned jaws.

He watched the man pass beneath the bright electric sign in front of the motel. He saw him walk up to the Jeep, lean close to a window. Then the man ran around to the driver's side, opened the door and got in. Smoke puffed from the truck's exhaust: pipe. The brake lights flickered.

Jim Tile said, "Hello," and started his engine.

Suddenly, all around, the night was diced into blues and whites.

Snapper was backing the Jeep out, chortling about what had happened to Avila: "Dumb fuck went straight off the bridge, you shoulda seen– Hey! Hey, what the hell..."

Bright lights started strobing everywhere. In the reflection of the puddles. On the coral-colored walls of the motel. In the fronds of the sabal palms.

Snapper shoved the Jeep into Neutral. "Fucking cops!"

"No way," Edie said. But she knew he was right.

A figure in gray was approaching the Cherokee. Snapper rolled down the window. It was a state trooper; big black sonofabitch, too. He'd parked his patrol car at an angle, to block the exit.

Snapper's mind raced, half drunk, half wired: Christ Almighty, would Momma and Pappy pitch a fit they ever heard I got taken down by a nigger cop. Momma especially.

In a flash Snapper figured out what must've happened: The lady trooper either was alive, or had survived long enough after the beating to give a description of the Jeep, and maybe even of Snapper himself.

So this was the big black posse.

Snapper knew he should've ditched the Cherokee after it happened. Sure, park the fucker in the nearest canal and call it a deal. But, oh Jesus, how he loved that stereo system! Reba, Garth, Hank Jr., they'd never sounded so sweet. His whole life Snapper had wanted a car with decent speakers. So he'd stayed with the stolen Jeep because of its awesome stereo-and here was the price to be paid.

A big black motherfucker of a cop, coming across the parking lot, drawing his gun.

The one-eyed man tapped him on the shoulder. "Haul ass, chief."

"Huh?"

"That's what I'd do."

"No," murmured Edie Marsh. "We've had it."

Snapper told her to shut up. He snatched the .357 off the seat, pointed it out the window and somehow managed to shoot the trooper in the center of the chest. The man fell backward, landing with a splash.

"Good night, nigger," Snapper said.

Skink went rigid. Bo

"You see thaa-aatt?" he whi

In the cargo well of the Cherokee, Augustine popped up on one knee. The stubby dart rifle was at his shoulder, the sights trained on the ragged hairline of Snapper's neck. He was surprised when Skink turned and shoved him back to the floor.

That's when the rear window of the Jeep vaporized.

The explosion caught Snapper furrowed in concentration, as he labored to steer around the parked Highway Patrol car, lit up like a Mardi Gras float.

Snapper ducked, peering up at the rearview. He saw the black trooper lying in a puddle, his arm waving but not aiming the smoking gun. Then the trooper went limp, and Snapper cackled.

The Cherokee fishtailed on the rain-slicked asphalt as it entered the highway. Edie Marsh hunched like an aged nun, sobbing into her hands. Skink had pulled Bo

Snapper was loopy on Midols, Joh

Christophe Michel spent the night of the hurricane in the safe and convivial atmosphere of Key West. At noon the next morning he put on the television and recognized, with cramps of dread, the bombed-out remains of a luxury housing development called Gables-on-the-Bay. The subdivision had been built by a company called Zenith Custom Homes, which not only employed Christophe Michel as a senior structural engineer but advertised his ecumenical credentials in its sales brochures. Michel had been recruited from one of France's oldest engineering firms, which had not energetically protested his departure. Among the fields in which Michel sorely lacked experience was that of girding single-family structures to withstand the force of tropical cyclones. His new employer assured him there was nothing to it, and FedExed him a copy of the South Florida Building Code, which weighed several pounds. Christophe Michel skimmed it on the flight from Orly to Miami.