That was the first I'd heard it. "Oh?"
"Yeah. I'm driving up to Ted's ranch tomorrow, but I'm not supposed to say anything because he's had a lot of bad press lately about him and women he's dated, so he's trying to play it cool. Keep it private. Not that it's a date," she added quickly, "because it isn't. He wants to talk about the museum, how he can help and the scholarship fund they're going to set up in Dorothy's name."
"A business trip," I said.
"Exacdy. To surprise him? I think I'll take Delia along. That way I can interview her on the drive up. No interruptions. But later this week, or maybe next week, give me a call, we'll get together and do something. Fish, hang out, explore some islands. Whatever you want."
I leaned and gave her a kiss on the forehead before walking to the living room. "I'd like that."
Early in the morning, with the first gray dust contrails of light filtering through curtains, I awoke to find Nora kneeling beside me. I felt her kiss my cheek, then touch her lips to mine. Heard her say, "Move over, big guy."
I looked and saw that she was naked. Felt her bony rib cage as she slid in close; felt the heat of her nipples through my chest hair as I cupped her in my arm; felt her fingers trace my stomach and spread the elastic band of my shorts, searching. She kissed me hard when her fingers found me, and she whispered, "It's officially later this week."
I said, "I told myself I wouldn't let this happen."
She said, "Was that earlier this week or later?"
"I can't remember. It's hard to think because of what you're doing."
"Really? Then break off that damn fishing line."
Nineteen
On Monday at noon, the fourth of October, the director of the National Hurricane Center at Miami announced that the third tropical storm of the season had now officially reached hurricane strength, with winds exceeding the required seventy-five miles an hour. Off Jamaica, in fact, one gust was measured at 103 miles per hour by the British Volunteer Observation Fleet, which made it a Category Two hurricane on the Safir-Simpson scale.
They named it Hurricane Charles. It had a regal sound.
I was standing at the bar drinking a Diet Coke, watching television with Tomlinson and a dozen others, when the announcement was made. I heard a man and two women sitting at the bar exchange the standard remark common to some Floridians when a hurricane is mentioned. "We're due for a big one. I've been saying it all along."
Many do say it, usually with a perverse wistfulness. My own dread of hurricanes is compounded by all the dopes who'll say, "I told you so!" after it does happen. And it will. It most certainly will.
Tomlinson was drinking a bottle of Hatuey in a coolie cup, standing there in his cutoffs and leather sandals, wearing a black silk Hawaiian shirt with a hula girl on the back framed by pink frangipani blossoms. He'd caught a big mangrove snapper the night before and it was now roasting in his little gas oven aboard No Mas. It made a nice aroma when you stood on the dock near his boat.
There was still a silver smear of scales on his shorts.
After breakfast, we'd said goodbye to Nora and Delia; gave them sterile, impersonal kisses on the cheek, each of us keeping our private business private. I went for a long run through the backstreets off A1A, then spent the morning making phone calls from the apartment. Checked with Janet Mueller, whom I'd asked to take care of my fish tanks. My fish were doing fine, except I was running low on food for my sharks. Before I could stop myself, I told her to talk withjeth. He'd cast-net some mullet.
Decided what the hell, maybe it would at least get them back on friendly terms.
I left a message for Detective Parrish and another for Dieter Rasmussen, the big cheerful German at Dinkin's Bay, who was also a retired Munich psychopharmacologist. I wanted to speak with him because I was troubled by a simple realization: everyone liked, admired and trusted Ted Bauerstock except for me. Was it possible that there are people so practiced and devious that they can fool all but a very, very few? Or was it because I found his looks, his wealth and his charisma intimidating? Perhaps I was being unfair and judgmental, the typical alpha male, as Nora had once called me.
Other people I tried to reach were involved with government service. One was Bernie Yager, a computer genius.
Ivan and Ted Bauerstock weren't the only ones who had access to classified files.
Unfortunately, a woman who didn't give her name left a message for me at the bar: Bernie was on vacation, wouldn't be back for three weeks.
Now, this news of the hurricane meant that I couldn't spend much more time on the Keys. Depending on which way Charles went, I might have to get back to Sanibel in two days, maybe three at the most, to button up my stilt house. If it looked like it really was going to get bad, I'd have to release all my fish. Let them fend for themselves-not a pleasant option.
According to the cheerful weather guy, NOAA had sent its 41-C four-engine prop plane into the eye of Charles to measure pressure gradients, wind speed and temperatures at various altitudes. All data was fed into the onboard computer, then transmitted to the weather center in Miami where it would continue to be analyzed, along with high- and low-pressure profiles in all directions, with temperature ridges and wind patterns factored that might alter the storm's path.
A hurricane is not unlike a bead of electricity. It follows the path of least resistance. High-pressure areas, pressure ridges, cold fronts and opposing winds are all objects of resistance.
Over the night, Hurricane Charles had shifted direction. It was now moving west, gobbling water and pockets of low pressure, already blotting out the eastern tip of Cuba as it moved toward the Florida Straits and the Gulf of Mexico, traveling at the speed of a dependable ocean freighter.
Tomlinson said to me, "You hear it? The waves."
The wind had continued to freshen; was now blowing a steady fifteen with gusts to twenty. I looked at small white caps breaking over the rock jetty. "What about the waves?"
"The rhythm, the pattern. It's changed, can't you hear it?"
I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's the way the Calusa knew a thousand years ago. The way they knew their nightmare was coming. On this coast, waves roll ashore about eight every minute. But that thing out there, that storm, it's gaining mass, sucking things up. It's giving the waves big shoulders, making them slower. Hear the difference? Now we're getting five, maybe six waves a minute. The Indians always knew. They were brilliant in their way."
I told him, "If it keeps coming, you need to have No Mas hauled. What do you care, you've got the money. Or get the hell out of this shallow water. You don't want to be anywhere near Pennekamp or Key Largo. All this coral."
He looked at me, his bright blue eyes sober and alive. "No man. I've been waiting for this for a while. If it happens, if it really happens. Hell! Charles gets near enough, No Mas and me, we're sailing into the eye."
"Dog-tor Ford! I have a message to call you at this number." The German accent of Dieter Rasmussen was unmistakable. Still, with all the noise in the bar-the Mandalites were listening to Jimmy Buffett and arguing about water spouts-it was tough to hear.
There was also zero privacy.
Dieter told me he was aboard his Grand Banks trawler, Das Stasi, and I could reach him there.
I jogged up the steps to the apartment. I saw the rumpled sheets on the couch bed and thought of Nora as I picked up the phone.