Sex in a Sidecar (7 page)

I searched the underbrush. If I left the car it wasn't only the wind I had to worry about. Out there was someone who had killed more than once. Did he know I was with Gina? Did he want to kill me as well?

My first inclination was to stay in the car with the doors locked. But could I ride out the storm in the Audi? Hours locked in with a dead body, maybe even days. And when the storm surge came I'd drown in the car. Staying wasn't an option.

I left the car, climbed over the palm, and started down the road alone. I wasn't running now…or jogging or power walking…just moving forward, head down, my arms up to protect my face. I went north, sometimes blown forward by the vicious wind, sometimes barely able to move against it. The wind assaulted my lungs, making it hard to breathe, and the rain drove needles of pain into my bare skin.

I stumbled along. My brain was in gear now, working out the options. As I saw it, I had two choices: get over the south bridge or find shelter. It was about five miles to the bridge. How long would that take me? An hour at least. Adrenalin rush and fear had taken their toll; I was exhausted.

My cell phone was back in the Audi with my purse. Why hadn't I used it? I stood still, trying to decide if I should go back for it. But I couldn't make myself turn around. Fear of running back into the arms of the madman who'd killed Gina pushed me forward.

Could I break into a house and phone for help? And would there be anyone at the other end of the line? By now the island would be evacuated. I could break into a house and wait out the storm, not a great choice either. Even if the eye of the hurricane didn't hit Cypress Island and even if the building withstood the winds, the storm surge would bring the gulf waters roaring in six to twelve feet or more above high tide. The storm surge is where the real damage comes. To be trapped in a house with water rising all around was no choice at all. If the house had been prepared for the hurricane, with doors and windows covered in plywood, I could drown inside a house, or I'd have to break through the roof to safety with the water rising up behind me. How do you break through a roof anyway?

I had to decide. How many houses would be high enough and strong enough to withstand what was coming? Which house would be the safest? This wasn't my normal stomping grounds so I didn't know the answer. But there was one house that would be tall enough and strong enough to survive the storm, the only house I really knew on South Beach, a pink fairy-tale castle complete with its own turret and witch. It was the mansion where my former in-laws lived. It was built high enough above the tide line to withstand any storm. Only a hurricane could get me back through the doors of the house where the Wicked Witch of South Beach lived, but no fear, Dr. and Mrs. Travis would be long gone by now, off to New York or Paris or someplace equally exotic and safe.

Decision made. I'd try the witch's castle. At least there'd be a telephone. And if I called for help and no one came I'd have a chance of surviving there, provided of course I could find a way to break in. All the houses out here would be heavily shuttered, and without some kind of a pry bar I was out of luck. No matter, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I scratched the hair from my face and looked around, trying to decide where I was in relationship to where their house was located. Nothing looked familiar.

In the end, it was the driveway of blush-colored concrete I recognized. Climbing and curving up from the road it rose to where the house sat on its artificial mound, lifting it above the gulf for just this sort of emergency. The tidal surge might swamp the main floor but a heavenly second story rose majestically above it. I regretted all the comments I'd ever made about this leftover from some Disney movie. It was quite perfect now.

And it got even better. I screamed my exultation into the wind when I rounded the last curve of the broad drive. There by the side door, shinning like a gift was a silver Mercedes.

I staggered up to the car and tried the driver's door. Locked. “No, no.” I beat on the roof of the car with both fists. “Dear God, no.”

That's when I felt a hand slide around my bare ankle.

I sucked in my breath. Slowly, I looked down. A gnarled claw had snaked out and clutched my ankle.

I went crazy, jerking my foot away and stomping at the hand. I tell you, with those wonking great wood platforms you can really do some damage but even as I lashed out, my brain was identifying the skeletal, aged spotted hand, covered in rings, which had disappeared so quickly.

I leaned against the car, breathing hard and looking down, waiting. The person under the car waited too.

At last an arm snaked out and then a shoulder and then a head. I was tempted to start stomping all over again. Slowly, inch by painful inch, Bernice Travis crab-walked her upper body sideways from under the Mercedes.

The normally glacially correct painted and coiffed woman looked like death; the bones in her gaunt face we re like a living skull under a fine layer of chamois.

I screamed. I knew who it was but I screamed anyway, then I leaned towards her. “Mrs. Travis?” I asked. “Mrs. Travis, is that you?” I hoped she'd say no.

I've no idea what she did say. I couldn't hear her over the storm, but by the way her lips were moving she had rather a lot to say.

I knelt down beside her. “The keys? Where are the keys?”

Something flickered in her eyes and a wily look replaced normal meanness. She knew what I was after, must have guessed, hidden deep in my most intimate heart, I'd want to take her keys and drive off without her. But then she was always willing to think the worst of me.

I bent over and grabbed her by her belt and shirt, dragging her the rest of the way out from under the car. I admit I could have been gentler, but the thought of her bare back, scraping along the concrete where the shirt pulled up, gave me my first warm fuzzy feeling of the whole day. Even above the wind I could hear her scream.

The warm fuzzies went away when I saw the blood staining the white denim of her designer jeans. I watched the rain carry it away in a red stream across the pink concrete.

Pity passed quickly. I bent over and frisked her for the keys. Nothing. I lay down on my belly and looked under the Mercedes. They winked at me from two arm's-lengths away. I shimmied under the car and retrieved them.

Bernice, the Christian name that I never been invited to use, grew more and more agitated. I ignored her, something I'd had a lot of practice at and unlocked the Mercedes. Opening the back door, I reached down and took her in a big bear hug. The scent of an expensive perfume filled my nostrils. It was the most intimate embrace of our whole foul relationship.

Bernice, her face pressed into my neck, screamed in pain. “Sorry, sorry,” I yelled in reply.

As I had done with Gina, I tugged and cursed and pushed her onto the back seat of the car.

When I had her stretched out, pumping blood onto the white leather, I tried to decide if there was a major artery involved. How the hell can you tell? I only knew it was a lot of blood. I undid the buckle and ripped off her belt. Then I slid it under her leg, wrapping it around the thigh above where the blood was seeping out, threading it through the buckle and pulling it tight. The blood seemed to slow.

How long should I keep it tight? First aid and I had only a nodding relationship; I didn't want her leg to fall off. I loosened the belt. I couldn't really tell if it helped or hindered. “Is there a blanket in the trunk?” I yelled at her. Her lips moved but the wind swept away the sound.

I backed out of the car and closed the door behind me to protect her from the storm. The trunk was full of suitcases and blue plastic boxes full of stuff. Jimmy's face smiled up at me from a box of photo albums and pictures. “Bastard,” I yelled down at him. I didn't know how, or why, but he was responsible for this as he was for most of the bad things that had ever happened to me. Everyone needs something to believe in and I wasn't giving up on this conviction now.

I unzipped the closest Gucci bag and pulled out the first thing that came to hand.

In the back seat I wadded up the clothes and used the belt to keep them fixed tightly over her injury. It might help but even I knew she needed real medical help pretty damn quick.

“The best thing we can do,” I yelled at Bernice, “is get you to a hospital.”

Her lips were pulled back from her rather big ugly teeth in pain; her back arched and her hands were locked in fists by the side of her face. I patted her good leg awkwardly. “Okay, just hang on.” I scuttled back out of the car.

The Mercedes' engine was so quiet or the wind and rain were so loud, I couldn't tell if it had started. I put it into reverse. The car backed smoothly into the turnaround. “Thank you, God.” I said to a deity I didn't quite believe in but like on a deathbed or in war, there are no nonbelievers in a hurricane.

All the way up Beach Road I kept praying, “Please don't let any more trees be down. Please don't let the road be blocked. Please don't let Myrna hit until we get off the island.”

“T here's no sense of trying Jacaranda Hospital,” I yelled.

“It's closed. Any place inland will be safer than out on Cypress Island.” When a hurricane touches land it quickly loses energy. Well, that's the theory anyway. More than once in my life that's turned out to be a lie and Myrna sure wasn't playing by the rules.

A quick peek in the back seat told me she was still alive. I saw Bernice's hand move. I adjusted the mirror again and saw her lips move. The rain drumming on the roof drowned out her voice.

Night fell in the afternoon. I switched on the headlights. Visibility was zero.

I drove too fast up onto the metal grating at the top of the bridge and down the other side onto the mainland, slamming the car onto the flat surface of the road. A cruiser was parked in front of an orange barrier blocking the left lane to stop anyone from going out onto the island as protection against looters. The cop manning the barricade shook his head in disgust. I wasn't sure if it was a comment on my driving or our stupidity at still being on the island.

I didn't care. I just breathed a sigh of relief, sure that I was safe. Wrong again.

The mainland was as deserted as the island. The traffic lights had all been set to green, and traffic, what there was of it, was only traveling one way, streaming inland away from the coast. But as we traveled inland and neared I-75 the traffic grew heavy. Heaven help anyone coming off a side street who wanted to join the exodus. Never mind, just ahead was the on ramp to the freeway and smooth sailing to safety.

“I've been doing some thinking. I don't think I'll take the freeway north.” I looked in the rearview mirror to see if there was a response.

Bernice's eyes were closed, one forearm thrown across her forehead, the other thin hand clutched at the seat.

“We could be in Tampa in an hour and a half but maybe they've started to evacuate too. No telling.” At the rate Bernice was losing blood she'd probably be dead before we got there and found a hospital. “Who knows where Myrna will decide to hit. No use turning on the radio, couldn't hear it over this racket.” Which also meant she couldn't hear me: but I didn't see that as a reason to keep quiet.

“Let's head for Lake Crispin. Lake Crispin is the place to go. It has a good hospital and it's only about twenty or thirty miles inland. Safe.” Still no sign that she heard any of this. “Right then. That's what we'll do.” True, it was the nearest hospital, but what if they'd evacuated it? Best not to think about that.

The ramp to the freeway was backed up. I pulled out to the left, into oncoming traffic and stepped on the gas, pulling sharply back in and barely missing being hit head on by an SUV. The driver's face was white with horror as I squeaked by.

My own pulse was definitely well past an aerobic workout level but if everything went well, in a half-hour or so we'd be safe. I shot ahead thinking it would be clear sailing. Turned out it almost was like sailing.

Within ten minutes of passing the freeway we were in trouble again. We came up over a rise to see the road disappear into a damn lake. I slammed on the brakes. When the Mercedes stopped the front wheels were in water.

It was only a slight dip in the land but everything, for a hundred yards in all directions, was covered with water. It didn't look too deep but there were no road signs or guard rails to guide me to the pavement, to show me where the hard surface was under the water and where the deep ditches waited to grab me. I hesitated. Would I be able to find the road through all that water? What other choices did I have?

I leaned forward, trying to see through the tiny hole the wipers swept in the watery window. The headlights glinted and shone on water. I searched out the side windows for a place to turn around and go back. That was just as scary as going forward. Deep ditches, with edges of sand soft, waited to capture the Mercedes.

I turned around on the seat and looked at Bernice. Her face was corpse pale. By the time I turned back, hit Tampa and found a hospital, I was certain she'd be dead, and finding help in-between was problematic.

I eased forward. Not too bad. No immediate disaster.

A collection of wood, looking like some hastily constructed raft, swirled by in front of the Mercedes, missing us by inches. Checking to see if any more debris was coming, I took my foot off the brake and let the Mercedes creep into the lake, looking ahead to where I could see the road rise again, steering straight for it and praying I had guessed right. “Don't stop,” I begged the engine.

I felt the car begin to float, as if it had turned into a big old boat, while the current took it sideways, making the steering wheel useless.