She was delighted to hear from him, the escort service business being slow as molasses after the hurricane. She caught a taxi to the Torres house, but got there late because the driver got lost in the pitch darkness and traffic confusion.
There was no door on which to knock, so Bridget strolled in unannounced. Edie Marsh and Snapper were glaring at each other by candlelight in the living room.
“Hello again,” Bridget said to Edie, who nodded testily.
Bridget scampered to the BarcaLounger and sprawled across Snapper’s lap. She scissored her chubby legs in the air and smooched his neck (the disaligned jaws made mouth-kissing problematic).
Snapper said, “You’re sittin’ on my gun.”
Bridget wriggled girlishly as he extricated the pistol. She said, “Baby, what happened to your leg?”
“Ask Little Miss Psychobitch.”
Bridget stared at Edie Marsh. “He hit me,” Edie said, remorselessly, “so I hit him back.”
“With a fucking crowbar.”
“Ouch,” said the hooker.
Snapper told Edie to go walk the damn dogs for a couple hours.
Bridget said, “You got dogs? Where?” She sat up excitedly. “I love dogs.”
“Just take off your clothes,” Snapper said. “Where’s the Stoli?”
“All the liquor stores were boarded up.”
“Mother of Christ!”
Edie Marsh said, “Look, Bridget, nothing personal against you. But we’ve got a very important meeting tomorrow morning-”
“Wait, now,” Snapper cut in. “You’re sayin’ there’s no vodka? Did I hear right?”
“Baby, the storm, remember? Everything’s shut down.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t even try.”
“Chill out,” said Bridget. “We don’t need booze for a party.”
Edie Marsh tried once more: “All I’m asking is that you’re gone in the morning, OK? There’s a man coming to the house, he won’t understand.”
“No problem, hon.”
“Nothing personal.”
Bridget laughed. “It’s not like I had my heart set on staying over in this dump.”
Edie said, “You should see the bathrooms. There’s mosquitoes this big hatching in the toilets!”
Bridget made a face and pressed her knees together. Snapper said: “Edie, I’m countin’ to ten. Get your lazy ass in gear.”
Donald and Maria began yipping in the backyard.
“Are those your puppies?” Bridget sprang from Snapper’s lap and hurried to what once had been French doors. “They sound adorable-what kind?” She peered expectantly into the night.
Snapper gimped to her side. “Fertilizer hounds,” he said.
“Fertilizer hounds?”
“When I get done with ’em, yeah. That’s the only goddamn thing they’ll be good for.” He raised the pistol and fired twice at the infernal yowling. Bridget let out a cry and covered her ears. Edie Marsh came up from behind and kicked Snapper in the crook of his bum right leg. He went down with a surprised grunt.
Outside, the volume of doggy racket increased by many decibels. Donald and Maria were hysterical with fear. Edie Marsh hurried outside to untangle the leashes before they garroted each other. Bridget knelt at Snapper’s side and scolded him for being such a meanie.
The way Levon Stichler figured it, he had nothing to lose. Tfhe hurricane had taken everything, including the urn containing the ashes of his recently departed wife. The life in which he had invested most of his military pension had been reduced to broken glass and razor tinsel. Hours of painstaking salvage had yielded not enough dry belongings to fill a tackle box. Levon Stichler’s neighbors at the trailer court were in the same abject fix. Within twenty-four hours, his shock and despair had distilled into high-octane anger. Someone must pay! Levon Stichler thundered. And logically that someone should be the smirking sonofabitch who’d sold them those mobile homes, the glib fat thief who’d promised them that the structures were government certified and hurricane-proof.
Levon Stichler had spotted Tony Torres at the trailer court on the morning after the hurricane, but the mangy prick had fled like a coyote. Levon Stichler had fumed for a few days, gathering what valuables he could find among the trailer’s debris until county workers showed up to bulldoze the remains. The old man considered returning to Saint Paul, where his only daughter lived, but the thought of long frigid winters-and sharing space with six hyperactive grandchildren-was more than he could face.
There would be no northward migration. Levon Stichler considered his life to be officially ruined, and considered one man to be morally responsible for the tragedy. He would know no peace until Tony Torres was dead. Killing the salesman might even make Levon Stichler a hero, at least in the eyes of his trailer-court neighbors-that’s what the old man convinced himself, He envisioned public sympathy and national headlines, possibly a visit from Connie Chung. And prison wouldn’t be such an awful place; a damn sight safer than a double-wide trailer. Haw! Levon Stichler told no one of his mission. The hurricane hadn’t actually driven him insane, but that’s what he intended to plead at the trial. The Alzheimer’s defense was another promising option. But first he had to devise a convincingly eccentric murder.