Stormy Weather

Edie straightened. "You saw the President!"

"Yeah. We had motorcade duty."

Thoughtfully she munched on a French fry. "Did you see his son, too?"

"They were riding in the same limo."

"I didn't know he lived in Miami, the President's son."

"Lucky him," the trooper said.

Edie Marsh, sipping her Coke, trying not to be too obvious: "I wonder where his house is, somebody like that. Key Biscayne probably, or maybe the Gables. Sometimes I wonder about famous people. Where they eat out. Where they get their cars waxed. Who's their dentist. I mean, think about it: The President's kid, he still has to get his teeth cleaned. Don't you ever wonder about stuff like that?"

"Never." Fat raindrops slapped on the windshield. Still the trooper stayed camped behind the sunglasses.

Edie didn't give up. "You got a girlfriend?" she asked.

'Yes."

Finally, Edie thought. Something to run with. "Where is she?"

"In the hospital," Jim Tile said. "Your buddy beat her to a pulp."

"Oh God, no...."

He saw that she'd spilled the Coke, and that she didn't even know it.

"God, I'm so sorry," she was saying. "I swear, I didn't-will she be all right?"

Jim Tile offered a handful of paper napkins. Edie tried to sop the soda off her lap. Her hands were shaky.

"I didn't know," she said, more than once. She recalled the engraving on the mother's wedding band, the one that Snapper had stolen. "Cynthia" was the name on the ring, the mother of the trooper's girlfriend.

Now Edie felt close to the crime. Now she felt truly sick.

Jim Tile said, "The doctors think she'll be OK."

All Edie could do was nod; she was tapped out. The trooper turned up the volume of the police radio. When they reached the mainland, he stopped at a boarded-up McDonald's. The hurricane had blown out the doors and windows.

A teal-blue compact was parked under a naked palm tree. A man in a green Day-Glo rain poncho was sitting on the hood; from the sharp creases, it appeared that his poncho was brand-new. The man hopped down when he saw the Highway Patrol car.

"Who's that?" Edie asked.

"Watch out for broken glass," Jim Tile said.

"You're leaving me here?"

"Yes, ma'am."

When Edie Marsh got out, the man got in. The trooper told him to shut the door and fasten his seat belt. Edie didn't back away from the car; she just stood there, crossing her arms in a halfhearted sulk. The effect was impaired by the slashing rain, which caused her to blink and squint, and by the stormy wind, which made her hair thrash like a pom-pom.

Through the weather she shouted at Jim Tile: "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Count your blessings," he said. Then he made a U-turn and headed back toward Key Largo.

Bo

Alone, Augustine tried to read, huddled in the old ambulance to keep the pages dry. But he couldn't concentrate. His imagination was inventing dialogue for Bo

Part of him expected not to see Bo

On the other hand, none of his three ex-fiancees would have lasted so long in the deep woods without a tantrum or a scene. Bo

Despite his emotional distress, Augustine kept a watch on Snapper, still zonked from the monkey tran-quilizer. It wouldn't be long before the dumb cracker woke up blathering. Except for the cheap pinstripe suit, he reminded Augustine of the empty-eyed types his father used to hire as boat crew.

Another thing that got him thinking about his old man was the lousy weather. Augustine recalled a gray September afternoon when his father had dumped sixty bales overboard in the mistaken belief that an oncoming vessel was a Coast Guard patrol, when in fact it was a Hatteras full of hard-drinking surgeons on their way to Cat Cay. The marijuana bobbed on seven-foot swells in the Gulf Stream while Augustine's father frantically recruited friends, neighbors, cousins, dock rats and Augustine himself for the salvage. Using boat hooks and fish gaffs, they retrieved all but four bales, which were snatched up by the agile crew of a passing Greek tanker. Later that night, when the load was safe and drying in a warehouse, Augustine's father threw a party for his helpers. Everybody got stoned except Augustine, who was only twelve years old at the time. Already he knew he wasn't cut out for his old man's fishing business.

Augustine climbed out of the ambulance and stretched. A redtailed hawk hunted in tight circles above the campsite. Augustine walked over to the place where Snapper slept. The governor had left the hurricane money lying in the suitcase, reeking of urine. Augustine nudged Snapper with his shoe. Nothing. He grasped The Club and turned the man's head back and forth. He was as limp as a rag doll. The motion caused a slight stir and a sleepy gargle, but the eyelids remained closed. Augustine lifted one of Snapper's hands and pinched a thumbnail, very hard. The guy didn't flinch.

Dreamland, thought Augustine. No need to tie him up.

He found the sight and sound of Lester Maddox Parsons particularly depressing when married to the fear that Bo

Augustine couldn't wait there anymore. It was worse than being alone.

Jim Tile said, "Where's the young man?"

"Library," said Skink.

They were in the trooper's car, near the trail upon which Skink had led Bo

"His old man's in prison." Skink was still talking about Augustine. "You'll love this: She says he was conceived in a hurricane."

"Which one?"