Storm Surge (6 page)

“Fine,” he
said. “But they take the construction ferry. Not the passenger one. I can’t let
the residents see the staff getting on when they can’t. I’ll have a riot on my
hands.”

Bohler
sighed. “Whatever. But there’ll be a
patrolman at the docks making sure the plan is carried out. I advise you to
tell the residents not to interfere with him.” He took out his wallet and
handed a five-dollar bill to the waitress who’d been standing nearby. “Have a
good day now, ma’am.”

“Thank you,
sir,” she said. “Come back and see us.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Are you
fucking KIDDING me?” the line cook said.

“No way,”
Sonny chimed in.

Consuela
nodded glumly. “That’s what they were saying. We
gotta
come back tomorrow to get our checks.”

“But the damn
restaurant’s closed tomorrow,” Sharon said. Her stomach was in knots. She had
hoped this one time they could get paid early.

“I don’t make
procedure,” Consuela mocked Coyne’s prissy delivery.

“Man,” Sonny
said. “This blows. I was going to get a few last waves in tomorrow.”

“You know what
I wish?” Consuela said. “I wish that damn hurricane would just blow this
place,” she waved an arm toward the dining room, “all of it, an’ every one of
those damn houses, too, right into the damn ocean.”

They looked at
each other. The vehemence in the statement shocked them, coming as it did from
the usually reserved and shy Consuela.

“Only if Coyne
goes with it,” the line cook muttered finally. “What an asshole.”

“I’ve got to
go check on my tables,” Sharon said. She walked back out into the dining room.
As she did, a shadow fell across the room. She looked towards the window.

Two men were
outside, on the deck that ran along the front of the clubhouse,
muscling
an enormous sheet of plywood into place over the
window. It blocked a considerable chunk of the sunlight off the ocean, casting
a pall across the room. The few people left at tables watched and murmured as
the hammering began. A few got up and left.

She saw the
Odd Couple at the cashier’s desk.
Damn
, she thought. The servers were
supposed to take the payment and bring the guests back their change. She
glanced furtively over at where Coyne had been sitting. Thankfully, he was
scurrying out the door, no doubt to chew the workers out for putting plywood
over the windows before the guests were gone.

She went to
the table, wondering how much her lapse in service had cost her. There was no
tip by the Englishman’s plate, and she sighed. But as she began busing the
table, she noticed a folded bill sticking out from under the saucer. She picked
it up and stifled a gasp. It was a hundred dollar bill.

She looked
over. The English guy was walking out, but the big biker guy was looking at
her. He smiled and gave her a wave. There was something in the smile she didn’t
like. Sometimes a big tipper would show back up, expecting some “compensation”
for his generosity.

For a brief
moment, she considered giving the hundred back, but she couldn’t afford that
kind of caution. She’d deal with that if and when she had to. She looked at the
window again.

One of the men
hanging the plywood was the guy from the parking lot, Max. She remembered that
she needed a ride. And shit, how was she supposed to get to Glory’s
orientation? She looked again. Coyne was standing there, waving his arms as he
berated Max. She remembered his actions in the parking lot that morning and
allowed herself a brief pleasant vision of Max ramming Coyne through the
picture window, then stifled the thought, feeling slightly ashamed.

It didn’t look
like Max was going to do anything rash anyway. He merely pointed with the
handle of his hammer, indicating someone or something outside Sharon’s field of
view. Coyne shook his finger a couple of times at Max, then scurried off. She
saw Max shrug, pick up one of the lounge chairs that lined the deck, and sit
down in it facing the water.

Sharon glanced
at her tables. They seemed okay. She walked out the front doors, onto the deck.
The smell of salt water and the sounds of waves lifted her spirits as they
always did. She glanced out across the beach to where Glory and her friends
were tossing a Frisbee. Glory called out something to the blonde boy she’d been
following earlier. He ignored her.

Glory looked
at him for a moment,
then
threw the Frisbee to one of
the other girls. It was a halfhearted throw that wobbled and fell to the sand
less than a third of the way to its intended target.

Sharon walked
over to where Max was stretched out on the lounge chair, legs crossed at the
ankles, hands clasped on his chest. He had his ball cap pulled down over his
eyes.

“Hey,” she
said.

He reached up,
pulled the bill of the cap up so he could see her. “Hey.”

“Don’t let me
wake you.”

He smiled. He
actually had a nice smile, she thought. “No worries,” he said. “I’m just
waiting for Coyne and my boss to get done with their little pissing match and
figure out who the big dog is.”

She laughed.
“I’m thinking it’ll probably be Coyne.”

He shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter to me.
I put the plywood
up,
I don’t put the plywood up. It’s not like it’s my window.”

“Anyway,” she
said, “Is that offer of a ride still open?”

“Sure.” He
glanced at his watch. “You get off at three, right?” She nodded. “Well, I’m
supposed to be here till five. But pretty much everyone’s cleared their boats
out of the marina, and the ones that haven’t are already tied as well as
they’re going to get. They’re just sticking me on…” he hesitated, “on odd jobs.
They may run out of those before five. Come on down and we’ll ride back
together.”

“Yeah.
Okay.” She glanced back out at the
beach. He followed her gaze. “That your daughter out there?
In
the orange suit?”
She nodded.

“She must like
being able to come out here and hang out while you work.”

Sharon sighed.
“Yeah.
I thought it’d be a good way to keep an eye on
her, but it doesn’t seem to be working out that way.”

“Yeah.
Well.”

“What?”

“Look,” he
said, “it’s none of my business.”

“If you know
something about my daughter…” she began.

“It’s not
her,” he said. “And most of the kids she’s hanging with are okay.
A little wild, maybe, but nothing serious.”
He hesitated.
“But that Henderson kid, Graeme. He’s bad news. And your daughter seems a
little stuck on him.”

“How do you
know so much about it?” she said. She felt a flash of fear that clenched her
stomach.

“They hang out
at the marina.
On their parents' boats.
And, well, you
know how it is. They don’t notice if the staff’s around.”

“So what’s
wrong with Graeme? She’s mentioned him a couple of times and he seems okay.”

“Yeah,
except he’s a mean little bastard.
Especially when he thinks no one’s looking.”

“Like
how?”

“Like, we’ve
got a cat hangs around the marina. We call him Captain Jack. Doesn’t belong to
anyone in particular, but everybody feeds him.
Well, one day,
Captain Jack’s out on the pier, half asleep, sunning himself like he owns the
place.
This Graeme kid comes walking by, looks around to see if anyone’s
watching. I’m in the paint shed, but I can see him out the window. He turns
around and kicks Captain Jack into the water.”

“Oh,
my god.
What’d you
do?”

“I come out of
the shed, hollering at the kid. I grab a net and fish the poor dumb cat out of
the water. Then I tell the kid if I ever see him near that cat again, I’ll
break his fucking neck. Kid gets all high and mighty, tells me I can’t talk to
him like that and he’s going to get me fired.” Max shrugged. “Guess he lost his
nerve.” He looked at Sharon. “Look, like I said, none of my business. But I’d
keep an eye on that boy. He’s no damn good.”

“Thanks,”
Sharon said. “Look I’ve got to go back inside. See you at the marina.”

“I’ll be
there,” Max said.

She went back
into the cool and calm of the restaurant, a little shaken up again. First,
because of Max’s story about the boy Glory apparently had a crush on. And
second, because she had seen the look in Max’s eyes when he’d talked about
Graeme and what he'd said to him. For a second, it was like Max was a different
person.
A person perfectly capable of breaking someone’s
neck.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Will you stop
humming that damned song?” Phillips muttered.

“How
about if I sing it instead?”
Barstow asked. He started crooning softly: “Riders on the storm….riders on the
stooorm
….” Phillips gritted his teeth.

The two men
had strolled about the island, apparently aimlessly, like sightseers or
possibly real estate speculators looking over prospective purchases. Only now,
as they walked back in the direction of the clubhouse, were they truly paying
attention.

They were
walking down one of the wide sandy paths that served as the island’s streets.
Live oaks dripping with Spanish moss lined the sides of the road. From time to
time, dirt driveways would appear to their left, and they could catch glimpses
of the houses on the seaward side. The homes were a mishmash of styles: an
imitation Italian villa here, an imitation Jamaican Planter’s house there, a
sprawling modern glass and steel structure on a third lot. They slowed their
pace slightly as they passed that one. “No cars,” Barstow said.
“Must have cleared out.”

“As expected,”
Phillips said.

“Anyone with
any sense had already left town,” Barstow half whispered, half sang.

Phillips
looked irritated. “What?”

“Man, you
really must not be much into music.”

“I love
music,” Phillips said. “I have no idea what it is you’re doing.” They walked
on.

“Bob Dylan,”
Barstow said helpfully.
“Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of
Hearts.'
It’s a song.”

“So I
gathered.” They had come to the next lot. Through the trees they could see a
large van parked in the driveway of an unfinished house.

“Honey,”
Barstow said, “we’re home.”

*** 

“Mom?”

Sharon looked
up. She was sitting on the stone wall that divided the clubhouse lawn from the
beach. Glory was standing a few feet away. She’d put her jeans back on and had
a towel draped over her shoulders. She looked like she was about to cry.

Sharon flicked
her cigarette butt into the sand and kicked sand over it. Coyne hated that, but
she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards Coyne right now. “Hey,” she
said,
her voice neutral.

Glory came and
sat on the wall next to Sharon. She stared out to sea. “I’m sorry I was such a
bitch this morning,” she said in a small voice.

Sharon felt
her heart breaking. She put her arm around her daughter. “It’s okay, baby,” she
sighed. “It’s been kind of a stressful day.”

“Yeah.”

“You want to
tell me about yours?”

The girl was
silent. Then: “Not right now.”
Another pause.
“Just…somebody I thought was my friend turned out not to be.”

“Graeme?”

She pulled
away. “How do you know about Graeme?”

Sharon didn’t
want to mention what Max had told her. All it would take would be for Glory to
think she was being spied on for her to close up again. “You’ve mentioned him a
couple of times.
Seems like you liked him.”

Glory relaxed,
but only slightly.
“Yeah.
Well. He turned out to be
kind of a jerk.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t
think any of these people are really my friends.” She looked over at Sharon. “I
don’t know that it’s going to be any better at this fancy school you’re sending
me to. I don’t fit in with those people, Mom.”

“You will,
baby. You will.”

“Well, maybe I
don’t want to, you ever think about that?”

Sharon felt a
little surge of pride at that, but stifled the feeling. She was about to say
something, but she saw Max walking towards them along the beach. He raised a
hand in a lazy wave. “There’s our ride,” she said. “We can talk about this
later.”

Glory looked
up. “That’s the guy from the parking lot this morning.”

Sharon nodded.
Glory looked at her slyly. “He’s cute,” she said. Sharon glared at her. “Not
for me, Mom,” Glory said, rolling her eyes. “But you’ve got to admit, it’s been
a while since you…”