STORMY WEATHER By CARL HIAASEN

“Everybody’s on edge,” the manager added, unnecessarily.

After he left, the missionaries locked the door and held a solemn meeting. They agreed they’d done all they could for the good people of South Florida, and quickly packed their bags.

“Well, that was brilliant.”

Snapper told Edie Marsh to shut up and quit beating it to death. What’s done is done.

“No, really,” she said, “getting us thrown out of the only hotel room between here and Daytona Beach. Absolute genius.”

With a gaseous hiss, Snapper sagged into the Barca-Lounger. She had some nerve giving him shit, after the way she’d fucked up his leg with that crowbar. Who wouldn’t be in a lousy mood, their goddamn knee all swollen up like a Georgia ham.

He said, “It’s your fault, you and them dogs. Hey, get me a Coors.”

On the drive back to the Torres house, they had

stopped at a 7-Eleven for gas, ice and supplies. Fred Dove had purchased Tylenol and peppermint Tic Tacs before lugubriously departing for a busy afternoon of storm-damage estimates. He drove off with the hollow stare of a man whose life had abruptly gone to ruin.

Edie Marsh pulled a beer from the cooler and tossed it underhanded at Snapper. “We’re lucky we’re not in jail,” she said for the fifth time.

“Dogs wouldn’t shut up.”

“So you shot a hole in the ceiling.”

“Damn straight.” Snapper arranged his lower jaw to accommodate the stream of Coors. He reminded Edie of Popeye in the old Saturday cartoons.

“I’m gonna do them fuckin’ mutts,” he said. “Tonight when you’re sleeping. That’ll leave me three bullets, too, so don’t get no ideas.”

“Wow, a math whiz,” said Edie, “on top of all your other talents.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“The dogs are tied outside. They’re not bothering anybody.”

When Snapper finished the beer, he crumpled the can and tossed it on the carpet. Then he took out the pistol and started spinning the cylinder, something he’d obviously picked up from a movie. Edie Marsh ignored him. She went to the garage to put more gasoline in the generator-they needed electricity to run the TV, without which Snapper would become unmanageable.

Sure enough, by the time she returned to the living room, he was contentedly camped out in front of Oprah.

“Hookers,” he reported, riveted to the screen.

“Your lucky day.”

Edie Marsh felt gummy with perspiration. The hurricane had eviscerated the elaborate ductwork of Tony Torres’s air-conditioning system. Even if the unit had worked, there were no doors, windows or roof to keep cooled air in the house. Edie went to the bedroom and changed from her banking dress to a pair of Mrs Torres’s expensive white linen shorts and a beige short-sleeved pullover. She would have been inconsolable if the borrowed clothes had fit her, but thank God they didn’t; Mrs Torres was easily three sizes larger. The bagginess provided welcomed ventilation in the tropical humidity, and was not entirely unattractive.

Edie Marsh was appraising her new look in the mirror when the phone started ringing. Snapper hollered for her to pick up, goddammit!

Not given to premonitions, Edie experienced a powerful one that proved true. When she answered the telephone, a long-distance operator asked if she would accept collect charges from a “Neria in Memphis.”

Memphis*. The witch was heading south!

“I don’t know anybody named Neria,” Edie said, straining to stay calm.

“Is this 305-443-1676?”

“I’m not sure. See, I don’t live here-I was walking past the house when I noticed the phone.”

“Ma’am, please-”

“Operator, in case you haven’t heard, we had a terrible hurricane down here!”

Neria’s voice: “I want to speak to my husband. Ask her if Antonio Torres is around.”

Edie Marsh said, “Look, the house is empty. I was walking past and I thought it might be somebody’s

relative calling. An emergency maybe. The man who stayed here, he’s gone. Loaded his stuff in a Ryder truck and moved out Friday. Up to New York, is what he said.”

“Thank you,” said the operator.

“What! What’s your name, lady?” Neria asked excitedly.

“Thank you,” the operator repeated, trying to cut the conversation short.

But Edie was rolling. “Him and some young lady had a rental truck. Maybe his wife. She looked twenty-three, twenty-four. Long blond hair.”

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