STORMY WEATHER By CARL HIAASEN

Snapper imagined himself a wild bull in the ring; goring at will. The bitch was helpless beneath him, hardly twitching. He paused to catch his breath, spit blood, and congratulate himself for so cleverly converting a handicap to a martial asset. The cop on the TV commercial was right; The Club was indestructible! Despite the stinging of his lip and the burning in his knee and the electric throbbing in the joints of his jaw, Snapper didn’t feel so bad. His pride outweighed the pain. Certainly he’d earned the rights to the Frenchman’s hurricane money.

That’s when a hand moved between his legs; lightly, like a sparrow on a branch.

“Nnnngggguuuhhh!!”

The bitch grabbed him. Snapper bellowed. He thrashed his head, trying to pummel her with the heavy end of The Club. Then he realized it couldn’t be the girl squeezing his balls, because both her wrists remained pinned in the dirt. She wasn’t moving a muscle. It had to be somebody else.

Then, from a distance, he heard: “No! Don’t do that.”

He tried to hold still. Tried to breathe without

whimpering. Tried to turn ever so slightly, to see who the fuck had at least one (and possibly both) of his nuts in their ringers.

Again the voice, this time closer: “Don’t do it! Don’t!”

The one-eyed freak, calling out.

Who’s he talking to? Snapper wondered. Don’t do what?

Then the gun went off at his head, and he knew.

Max Lamb was surprised to find a woman sleeping in the front seat of his rental car. He recognized her as the one whom the state trooper had dropped off in the parking lot earlier that afternoon.

She sat up, brushing her long brown hair from her eyes. “It was raining. I had no place to go.” Not the least bit bashful.

“That’s OK,” Max said. He wormed out of the Day-Glo poncho and tossed it in the back seat.

“My name is Edie.” She reached out to shake his hand.

He took it, stiffly. She had a strong grip.

“I’m Max,” he said. Then he heard himself saying: “You need a lift back to Miami?”

Edie Marsh nodded gratefully. That’s what she’d been counting on. One way or another, all rental cars ultimately returned to Miami.

She said, “I would’ve tried hitching a ride, but there was lightning.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

Somehow Max missed the ramp to the Turnpike; it wasn’t easy, but he did. Edie didn’t complain. A lift was a lift. All the roads went the same direction anyway.

“Where are you from, Max?” He looked perfectly harmless, but still she wanted to get him talking. Silent brooding made her edgy.

“New York. I’m in advertising.”

“No kidding.”

And off he went. During the next hour, Edie learned a great deal about Madison Avenue. Max was absolutely elated to discover that she’d been a glutton for Plum Crunchies cereal. And she remembered his slogan, word for word!

“What others have you done?” she asked brightly.

Max was tempted to tell her about Intimate Mist but thought better of it. Not everyone felt comfortable on the subject of douches.

“Bronco cigarets,” he said.

“Really!”

“Speaking of which, would you mind if I smoked?”

“Not at all,” said Edie Marsh.

He offered her a menthol. She declined politely. As smoke filled the car, she rolled down the window and tried not to cough herself blue. “When are you going back to New York?”

“Tomorrow,” Max said. He grew quiet again.

Edie said: “If you tell me, I’ll tell you.”

Max looked perplexed.

She said, “You know-what we were doing with that cop. Me coming, you going.”

“Oh.” After a pause: “I’m not in any kind of trouble, if that’s what you mean.”

Dryly she said, “I had a hunch you’re no Ted Bundy.”

What eyes! Max thought. What an interesting woman! He had reason to believe she was aware of her impact.

He said, “How about this: If you don’t tell me, I won’t tell you. What’s over is over.”

“I like that approach.”

“Let’s just agree we’ve had a bad day.”

“And how.”

In South Dade they hit heavy traffic where the storm had blown ashore, taking down everything. Edie Marsh had seen the destruction the day after the hurricane, but it seemed much worse to her now. She was surprised to find herself fighting back tears.

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