“Everybody and their brother will be suing somebody. I can also make sure a lot of trucks and ships and trains don’t get out of the storm’s path. PrimeCo insures many of them. All in all, Harvey could easily trigger a bear market, and nobody is thinking about it. That’s why my idea is so brilliant.”
“Brilliant, yes,” Maximo said dryly. “We shall see. Either way, I do not plan to place a bet on the whole market. My interest would be in this PrimeCo. So then, the company is overexposed for hurricane risk in the Northeast and has not sold catastrophe bonds. What does that mean for them?”
“If they take a big hit—especially in New York City—they won’t be able to make the payoffs on their policies. They’ll fold. You’ll be rich.”
“I’m already rich.”
“You’ll be richer.”
“Now you have given me a good reason.” Maximo laughed long, coughed.
CHAPTER 11
Canal Street Subway Station, Manhattan
2:50 p.m.
Amanda took Rico’s right hand—the one not in a cast—nervously as they approached the end of the subway platform. They did not want to be seen prowling their way off the platform. They waited until just after a train pulled out to start down the tracks.
“We walk along the edge here,” Rico said as he jumped down to the tracks. He helped Amanda down. “Stay away from that rail.” He pointed.
Rico answered her question before she asked it.
“It’s the one with the juice,” he said. “You touch it, you fry.”
Amanda watched the two red lights of the departing train shrink, then curve out of sight around a corner, taking with them a receding rumble. The air was warm, stickier than outside. Rico, holding the flashlight, took Amanda’s hand and led the way down the track. On the right was a crawl space leading out of the tunnel.
“Told you you get dirty,” he said. “C’mon. And hold your breath. Might want to pull your shirt up over your nose.”
Again, before she could ask, Amanda had her answer, this time in the form of a stench as she stepped through the crawl hole. The smell of urine was sharp, the way a shrill whistle pierces the ear. She pulled her t-shirt up over her nose. They were in another tunnel much like the one they had left, but smaller and in bad repair. It was almost completely dark. A few shafts of muted light sifted through a street vent somewhere in the distance. She heard something that sounded like the flutter of pigeon wings.
“Rats,” Rico said.
She thought about that. I’m not afraid of spiders. I’m not afraid of snakes. I’m not afraid of darkness. But rats? “How many?”
“Don’t ask me,” Rico said. “Not exactly an expert, you know.”
“Dangerous?”
“Only if they attack.”
“Juan.”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t think they too dangerous. Maybe in the dead of winter when there’s less food. Or if you dead. Eat you in half a day if you dead.”
“Oh, thanks,” she said. Rico shined the flashlight around. The tunnel walls and floor were covered with a layer of dust and grime that absorbed the beam. A few large and weather-beaten timbers lay strewn about. Wires hung from above, and most of the pipes that had run along the ceiling had been torn out, leaving a few loose sections. “Why the smell?”
“Mole people gotta piss somewhere. Lots of them almost never go topside. They eat, sleep, piss and shit here. Sorry.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. She was used to his mouth and it didn’t bother her. “How do they live with this smell?”
“Get used to it, I guess. You got to remember, lot of ’em have mental problems, and a lot do drugs. Not all, but a lot. The place I’m takin’ you is clean. They call it the Block House. Good people, smart people, just can’t cope with life above ground or haven’t been able to land a decent job.”
They headed north through the tunnel for what seemed like four or five city blocks when Rico guided her down into the old tracks and up to a narrow platform on the other side. He shined his light on a piece of plywood, then pulled it back to reveal another crawl space, this one carved crudely into the tunnel wall.
“Wait here,” he said.
“You’re crazy!”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere. Just have to announce us. Wait here.”
Rico crawled through the tight space and knocked on the metal plate on the floor. A moment later Amanda followed him down a steel ladder into a twenty-foot-square room with a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling, barely illuminating the dingy cinder-block walls. A boy with unruly brown hair smiled broadly at Juan Rico. Amanda saw the man with the pale gray face and the large, jagged scar across his left cheek. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t place it. In one corner of the room she saw a hole in the dirt floor, and a small pile of dirt. Rico spotted it too.
“”What you diggin’, Sleepy?”
“Way out,” the man with the scar said. He pointed at the hole in the ceiling. “Things are getting nasty around here. That ladder is our only exit. I don’t like it.”
“Maybe you should just leave,” Rico said.
“Nowhere to go. Same problems anywhere else. I smell a fight coming, and if we’ve got to fight, we’ll fight. But I want to know I can get out quick if I need to.”
“Good luck,” Rico said. “I hope you don’t need it.” He turned to the boy and grinned.
The boy spoke first. “Hello, Mr. Rico.”
“Hey, Jonathan.”
Amanda thought about the strange surroundings, the rats, the man with the scarred ashen face, the scraggly boy with the good manners, the hole in the floor. It looked like there wasn’t going to be an introduction, so she extended a hand to the man and introduced herself.
“Rico tells me you’re a scientist,” Sleepy said in a bored tone.
“Yes, that’s right,” Amanda said. “I study hurricanes.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
Rico said Sleepy was one of the more hospitable mole people, that he was known for being helpful and generous, and that he was perceived among the underground community as a leader. She wondered if she had gotten off on the wrong foot with him. She wanted to accomplish two things. She hoped to learn more about the number of people down here, their lifestyles, the ways they communicated, all in an effort to determine whether or not there would be anything she could do to warn them if a hurricane was coming. And she wanted to warn Sleepy of the danger. If he was the type of leader Rico said he was, that might be the best help she could give.
“There’s a hurricane out there that may come this way,” Amanda said firmly, “and if it does, this room could fill with water.”
Sleepy didn’t say anything right away. He chewed his lip and his left eye twitched. His eyes drifted from Amanda’s and he studied her, slowly, all the way to the floor and then back up again.
“No hurricane has ever come here before,” Sleepy said.
“1821,” Amanda said. He was skeptical. She was used to that. “And 1938.”
“Long time ago.”
“There’s been several close calls since, but the storms have veered out to sea. Sooner or later one will hit here, and the storm surge, which is—”
“I know about storm surge. Comes up the river. I’m not stupid, lady. Living down here doesn’t make me stupid.”
“Then you probably know that the surge moves in quickly, leaving little time for escape. And you’ll want to protect your family, of course.”
“We’ve got lots of problems down here, lady. Lots of concerns. I don’t think yours rates way up there on the list. Hell, the City doesn’t even have an evacuation plan.” He paused, momentarily troubled. “But I’ll remember what you’ve said.”
Amanda was surprised at his knowledge. Clearly he had worked to educate himself on the topic. Maybe he read the papers, or simply had gotten a good education before he ended up down here. Either way, she could tell by the sharp tone of his voice that the matter was closed, t
he conversation over.
Amanda wanted to ask more questions, but she already felt like she was invading his privacy.
“I’m sorry we came down here,” Amanda said. “I only wanted to warn you.”
Sleepy nodded.
“Let’s go, Juan.”
She turned to climb up the ladder and caught Sleepy’s eye. It had softened. His body relaxed. His face looked defeated, as though he was facing an impossible situation and she had just made it worse. But he also looked as if maybe he understood, maybe he believed her. Perhaps she had gotten through to him after all. And if he was the leader Rico said he was, maybe he would tell others.
CHAPTER 12
Coney Island
4:30 p.m.
Hurricane Harvey, like all low-pressure storms, was a cyclone in meteorological terms. Coney Island had a Cyclone of its own. When it was built in 1927, it was the tallest and most feared roller coaster in the world.
Amanda Cole had never been to Coney Island, and the Cyclone disappointed her.
She thought it would be bigger. It seemed tame compared to modern-day roller coasters. Towering over the roller coaster was the Wonder Wheel, an even older structure, a 150-foot-tall Ferris wheel that looked as rickety as the Cyclone.
The two rides formed a focal point of an otherwise dismal skyline notable by the number of vacant lots that testified to the area’s economic woes like missing teeth in a neglected mouth. Bland apartment buildings from the fifties rose modestly around the carnival area, spread behind the boardwalk and into the heart of Brooklyn.
A stiff breeze from the south struck Coney Island’s yellow-sand beach at right angles. The sand took flight, made the air brown and hazy, peppered Amanda’s face and insinuated itself into her eyes as she strolled west on the boardwalk. A smattering of beachgoers braved the sandblasting, and a few dotted the boardwalk.
She stopped several blocks west. Still within view of the Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel, an unremarkable building stood alone, desolate, behind the broad boardwalk. Wooden letters proclaimed the six-story building to be Seaside Nursing Home. Five years ago it had been the Brooklyn Nursing Home, located a mile inland. But with Coney Island real estate so cheap the business had been moved, renamed, and Ed Cole had moved with it. The building had a rectangular footprint, the broader front facing the ocean, due south. Eight bronzed aluminum windows on each floor indicated the same number of rooms. It was as no-nonsense as a college dormitory.
There were no pilings under which a storm surge might flow.
Amanda made calipers out of her thumb and forefinger, held them to her eye and estimated the distance from the ground to the top of the first floor. Nine feet.
From the Army Corps of Engineers’ New York Hurricane Evacuation Study reports, Amanda knew the storm surge from a Cat 3 hurricane would be fifteen feet above ground level for this building. Fifteen minus nine: The water would be six feet deep as it rushed through the second floor of the Seaside Nursing Home.
The first floor opened into a lobby, its front a wall of windows floor to ceiling, fake indoor plants placed here and there. The woman behind the desk was younger than Amanda, short, compact, perpetual smile, bleach-blond hair, leathery face from too much sun. A plastic tag over her left lapel revealed her to be Kim, Assistant Manager.
“Welcome to Seaside Nursing Home,” Kim said in a bubbly voice. She frowned, obviously scanning Amanda’s injuries. “Can I help you?”
“My father lives here. Edward Cole. I was hoping I could see him.”
Kim pulled a book from an invisible shelf under the counter, flipped through it.
Amanda spotted a vintage rotary-dial phone on the counter and toyed with it. It seemed to have no cord and it sat unused.
“Things of the past,” Kim said, glancing up. “Helps our residents remember fonder days.”
Amanda nodded. Kim put her head back in the book. “Yes, you must be…”
“Amanda Cole.”
“Of course. Ed’s on the second floor. Can I walk you up there?”
“Thanks,” Amanda said.
Kim put the book away, led Amanda behind the desk and down a hallway. The walls were all pastels, the left one robin’s egg blue, the right one Easter green. At the back of the building, another hall branched perpendicularly in both directions, running the length of the building’s rear. On the back wall were the two colors again, blue to the left, green to the right. Amanda stared curiously at the vertical joint where the two colors met.
“Color-coding,” Kim said. “It helps our residents find the elevator or the stairs without making too big a deal out of it. Every room, every facility, is a different color. It’s a soft reminder. Most of them hate being told ‘elevator’ fifteen times with arrows and all that. Reminds them of their disease, agitates them.” Kim turned right, pushed the button for the elevator and waited.
“How’s my father doing?”
Kim paused, made a brief frown that she wiped away professionally. “You know, Ed’s mind isn’t as bad as a lot of our residents. But he’s kind of ornery. I don’t mean to pry…”
“It’s his nature,” Amanda said. She didn’t want Kim to pry, either.
“Well, it keeps him at arm’s length from a lot of people. He mostly keeps to himself. Except for one woman, Betty Dinsmore. They’re very fond of each other. I think having another visitor will do him good. Will you stay long?”
“No. I have a flight to catch tonight.”
The elevator opened, and they stepped in and rode to the second floor in silence.
The doors opened and Kim led Amanda to the right, down the wide hallway at the back of the building.
On the wall were two pictures, one of a woman Amanda didn’t recognize, the other of the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset, its spider-web cables glistening. Amanda recognized the photo of the bridge; it was her father’s favorite. She looked closer.
“Visual clues again,” Kim said. “Each resident chooses something for the wall leading to their room.”
Amanda nodded. They walked down the hall. A wad of nerves rose from her stomach, into her chest, constricted her throat. They passed the first door. Kim knocked on the second.
A gruff voice from inside responded, “Already been cleaned.”
“Ed, it’s me, Kim. Your daughter Amanda is here to see you.”
A moment passed. Door opened partway, revealing a fit, barrel-chested man in dark trousers and a sleeveless white t-shirt, frown etched deep into his forehead, hair no more than a wayward tuft.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Should have called.”
“I didn’t know I was coming,” Amanda said. “Can I come in?”
The door opened wider. Amanda stepped in, Kim slipped away, and Ed Cole closed the door.
Amanda walked past her father, past a bathroom door, toward the window facing the ocean. Under the window was a well-made single bed. A simple desk sat against the left wall with a smaller window above it, a dresser against the right wall. It reminded her again of her college dorm, only slightly larger.
“Five years, seven months,” Ed Cole scowled.
His mind seems fine. How can he—?
“Christmas. It was Christmas. You brought that little baby with you.”
“Sarah. My daughter.”
“And that prick, what’s-his-name.” Voice softer, hurt: “Haven’t seen you since.”
“Dad, do you remember why?”
“I remember fine.”
“You called Joe a prick, to his face. You said I was wasting my life, told us to get the hell out.”
He might have been right, Amanda thought later, but she always wondered how much her father’s lack of respect for Joe Springer encouraged her husband to drift away. It was one in a string of Ed Cole’s meddlings that irritated Amanda.
Somewhere under all the hurt, though, Amanda forgave her father. He’d returned from Vietnam in 1975 after missing two years of her adolescence, and they never regained the closeness she remembered from her
early childhood. A big wall had gone up. Amanda learned to rely on her mother for everything: love, affection, advice, and early parole from restrictions her father often imposed. Amanda left their Brooklyn home, paid her own way through college. Years went by, and she returned home only for a few days each Christmas.
Then Ed Cole started to forget things. When Amanda would visit, he would tell her she couldn’t go out with a boy that she hadn’t even known since ninth grade. Or he would ask her if she wanted a teddy bear for her birthday.
One day, he left his security job at Kennedy Airport early, unannounced. He took the subway, as usual, but got disoriented when he got off, became lost, and was found by Amanda’s mother in a park near home late that night, confused and angry. He lost his job, and Amanda’s mother was forced to put him in the nursing home so that she could keep her job.
When her mother got cancer, Amanda took a leave, stayed with her for three months. When she died, Amanda felt a huge hole. Joe Springer helped fill it, but only slightly. When Sarah was born, the pain faded greatly but the loss remained. Sarah would never know her grandmother. But maybe she could get to know her grandfather. Amanda tried to patch things up with Ed, but he was stubborn.
She hoped it would go better today. She still wanted Sarah to have a grandfather. Ed Cole frowned, looked at the door. “Is your mother here?”
“Dad, she’s been dead for eight years, remember.”
“Saw her on the boardwalk yesterday. Said she was going to come by today. We’re supposed to have lunch.”
Ed Cole looked suddenly confused.
“I do love you, Amanda,” he said. “Thanks for coming to visit.”
Amanda was taken aback. It was the first time he’d said it since she was a little girl. She grabbed the arm of a chair and eased into it. Looked at him.
“I love you too, Dad.”
“What happened to your face?”
“Just a little accident,” Amanda said. “But I’m fine.”
He nodded and looked away, out the window. Wrinkles on his forehead curled into a knot of confusion. Amanda sighed. “C’mon, I’ll have lunch with you.”
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