King Tide

by A. J. Stewart

  “Where are you going?” yelled Ronzoni.

  I didn’t reply. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was watching. I saw the taillights moving away, and I damned my boneheaded actions. She was going to make it. I nearly didn’t, but the Civic was. It moved slow and steadily away, like a ship on the open water.

  But it wasn’t a ship. It was a car. And when I saw the taillights get closer together, I knew. The Civic rotated in its place as the water swept it up, and it spun the Civic around and across, and the taillights disappeared and I lost all vision of it in the gray water, and then the headlights shot at me like lighthouses on the New England shore. I watched the car turn slowly around, all traction lost, as the surge raged forward and swept it off the road.

  Chapter Four

  Two plants are ubiquitous in Florida. First are palm trees. Everyone loves them. The tourist boards, the actual tourists, even the locals. When Floridians leave the state for a time and then return, the first thing that makes them feel at home is seeing a palm tree. And not those uptight transplants they claim in California. Florida palms come in all shapes and sizes but they are universally languid and relaxed. The second plant that is more Florida than Florida is mangroves. These are not so popular. They weave a thick maze of branches that restrict views and make otherwise priceless waterfront property worth less than a bag of beans. But when the fit hits the shan, palms are like supermodels—great to look at but serving no other purpose. Mangroves are the real deal. They practically hold the state together. Most of South Florida is just a big swamp, and without the mangroves it would probably wash away and turn the Gulf of Mexico into a giant mudflat.

  But this day the palms came to play. The maid’s car drifted sideways off the road and I waited to lose the headlights from sight. They moved off the edge of where the blacktop would be, and then defiantly stood their ground. I wasn’t sure how, but they slipped off the road and no farther. The water hit the driver’s side of the Civic hard, but the little car held fast. I grabbed hold of the door on Ronzoni’s car and stood up into the wind to get a better view. What I got was a saltwater cocktail in the ear. But I shook my head like a Labrador and focused on the headlights.

  The Civic was wedged against two large palm trees, stopping it from dropping off the causeway and into the Intracoastal. The torrent of water was holding it against the sinewy trunks, but it wasn’t going to stay there. Water has a random way about it. Call it chaos theory, call it dumb luck. But the water was already working out how to flow in such a way as to edge the car around the palms and into the tide.

  I ducked back into Ronzoni’s car.

  “You got a rope?”

  “A what?”

  “A rope.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Do you or not?”

  “No.”

  I stuck my head back out into the weather and looked at the Civic. It seemed to have moved away from me as the palm trees lost their grip on it, but that might just have been my imagination. I ducked back in.

  “You still got my phone on?”

  “No.”

  “Call it.”

  Ronzoni hit the screen and we heard it connect and ring and ring. And then it answered.

  “Ron,” said Ron.

  I said, “Tell him to back up level with us. I’ve got a rope in the back.”

  “You tell him,” said Ronzoni, “you’re on speaker. ”

  “I got you, Miami,” said Ron.

  The call went silent but the brake lights on my Cadillac glowed as Ron took the wheel and then dulled again as he pushed backward through the water and came up alongside. I waited until he stopped beside us and I slid across the seat and out the other door of Ronzoni’s car. The water was getting deeper and I wasn’t sure if any of us were getting off the causeway. But I brushed the thought away and waded around to the back of my SUV. I flung the hatch up and stared at the luggage.

  “Cassandra, do you think you can drive Ronzoni’s police car?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “You need to get off this causeway now.”

  “I’m not leaving Ron.”

  “Cassandra, now!”

  I think she responded to the tone of my voice rather than the words. Ron turned and nodded to her.

  “Keys?” she asked.

  “They’re in the ignition,” said Ronzoni, who had appeared behind me. He looked at me. “Let’s do this,” he said.

  I grabbed the two suitcases and flung them into the back seat, and then I lifted the cargo floor and reached into the little cubby underneath and pulled out my rope. I tossed the coil to Ronzoni and wrapped the loose end around my waist.

  “Do not let go,” I told him.

  He nodded and I waded past him and into the water. The maid’s Civic was about two car lengths back and a few feet off the road. I stayed on the blacktop as long as I could, my hands splayed wide as if that helped with balance. I was in a crouch, trying to get my center of gravity low, but the water was stronger than me. For every step forward I took three sideways.

  The tide of water was slapping at the headlights of the Civic and steaming up over the hood. It was colder than Florida water usually was, and I wondered if it had been churned up from deep down, or if it was just that I had been wet for a couple hours and my body temperature was dropping. People don’t think about it, but you don’t have to have dropped off the Titanic to get hypothermia. The human body liked to hang in at around ninety-seven degrees, but even the warmest tropical water was closer to eighty. Eventually Newton’s laws of thermodynamics worked their black magic.

  Because I was low in the water it was crashing across my back by the time I reached the grill of the Civic. For the first time since we left the hotel I could see the maid. She was gripping the steering wheel like folks grab the hold bar on a roller coaster, and she had the same look of fear on her face.

  The water must have risen since I had been knocked down before because it started crashing across my back. That meant it hit the windshield of the Civic, and the car groaned against the palm trees as it slipped sideways. I inched my fingers under the lip of the hood and was dragged a few inches along as the car edged toward the Intracoastal. I felt the front of the vehicle edge ever so slightly out toward the center of the road, and I knew I was out of time. A few more crashes like that and the Civic was going to spin around the palms and go trunk first out into the water.

  I gripped the fitting around the headlight with one hand and waved to the maid to slide across to the passenger side of the car. It was the leeward side, and as the car slid around it was the closest side to me. She shook her head at first, but I waved again like a madman, and she got the message. I saw her undo her belt and slide across as I was hit by another wave. The front of the car edged away from the first of the palms. The second palm was acting as the fulcrum point, and the Civic was working its way around, ready to the leave the causeway behind.

  My fingers were cramping but I held fast onto the headlight and slid my body along the fender so I was closer to the door. I motion to the maid to wind her window down. At first she gave me a look that said are you crazy? It’s raining out there . But the second go-round she relented.

  I screamed, “You have to come through the window.” I was fairly certain she wasn’t going to be able to open the door against the weight of the water outside.

  She shook her head. She sure was an obstinate one. I muttered a few unsavory words to myself and prepared to yell to her again. Then the car was ripped from my hand. A wave beat down hard and the Civic spun and I lost my grip on the headlight housing and the hood slipped away from me. I felt myself pushed back by the wave and for a moment all I could see was water. It was like falling off a surfboard. Not that I surf. Sharks don’t come to Longboard Kelly’s, so I don’t bother them in their drinking hole of choice.

  I flailed my hands about as the wave pushed on past me. I saw something shapeless but solid and I thrust my hand out and grabbed hold. I shook my head and got some vision in r
eturn, and I saw that I had hold of the outside rear vision mirror of the Civic. The maid was right there in front of me, she in the car, me hanging onto the outside for dear life. She wasn’t screaming or flipping out. Quite the opposite. She looked scared, but calm. Like she had made her peace and was ready to meet her maker. Either that or she was a major introvert.

  “You need to come out through the window,” I said.

  Again she shook her head.

  “We don’t have time,” I said. “I’ve got you. ”

  She leaned on the window and the water hit her face. “I don’t swim.”

  “I swim great,” I said. It was true enough. I was as good as the next guy in the water. I took regular swims out from City Beach on Singer Island and Danielle made sure I stayed in decent shape. But it was moot. Michael Phelps wasn’t beating this water. He was getting washed away like everyone else. But she seemed reassured. She leaned toward me and I put my free hand in through the window and onto her arm.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  And then it got not okay. Real fast. The wave hit the grill and spun the car past the second palm tree and suddenly we were side-on to the rush of water, headlights pointed back to West Palm and away from Ronzoni and my SUV. The water had the whole side of the car to push against so it did, and it did it hard. The car seemed to lift away from the ground and launch off the road and I saw the second palm tree come up at the rear of the car, its fronds bowed low as if bidding us farewell, and the Civic dropped off into the Intracoastal.

  I’d had enough. Enough rain and enough wind and enough obstinance. I kicked hard and launched myself into the interior of the car. I got in to about my waist and I wrapped the maid up in a bear hug. She put her hands around my neck probably because there was nowhere else to put them. And we waited.

  There were no more waves. They were breaking on the other side of the causeway, and we were now in the flow of the Intracoastal. But my rope was only a hundred feet long. I just hoped that Ronzoni didn’t let it slip through his fingers when it went taut. And then it did. It snapped tight and tugged at my guts like a punch. The wind got knocked out of me but I didn’t let go of the maid. I was pulled out the window like a magic trick, and the maid came out after me. She didn’t see her car float away on the surge. I only saw it for a couple seconds, and then it was gone.

  The water ripped past us and I really didn’t think Ronzoni was going to be able to pull two people against it. I was trying to think of a solution to that when I noticed that the causeway was getting closer to us, not farther away. Somehow Ronzoni was pulling us in. The man must have had more strength than I gave him credit for, which meant he worked out more than I gave him or his garlic bulb-shaped body credit for. We moved against the surge not in tugs but in a steady but slow pace. The rope felt like a guillotine to my guts but the momentum was reassuring. Then I saw the palm tree.

  The second of the two palm trees on the causeway had acted like a fulcrum on the car. Now the rope was taught against it as it cut ninety degrees from the road where Ronzoni was into the water where we were. And I was being dragged back first into it. That was going to hurt, if it didn’t slice me in half. So I dropped my hands down to the maid’s waist like I was a teenager at a school dance, and grabbed tight. Then I leaned sideways, hard against the current and tried to kick my feet up toward the surface.

  It was tough work. The water fought me all the way, but I got my shoes about a foot from the surface and pointed them at the palm tree. We edged steadily toward it, and then my foot hit the trunk of the palm. It wasn’t a big target, and for a second I thought I was going to end up with one leg either side, which was the worst possible outcome. But my second foot hit home and I pushed out from my crouch and the rope came away from the trunk and I walked us sideways around the trunk.

  I kicked away and then we moved toward the road, and I felt the ground beneath us. I let Ronzoni drag us across the road, which was now covered in sand and grit and pebbles. The maid rolled on top of me so my back took the brunt of it, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t sure I had the energy to walk anyway.

  When the water got to about calf-deep we stopped moving. Maybe Ronzoni stopped pulling. Water still rushed across us in waves which made it tough to see and harder to breathe. Then Ronzoni appeared over me, like a badly dressed angel. He grabbed the maid and picked her up and carried her away. I rolled over onto my knees and took a couple more waves across the back, and then I pressed myself up and stood. Another wave hit me and I stumbled and fell, but the rope was still taut and it stopped me from going anywhere. Then Ronzoni appeared above me again, and he helped me up. I didn’t care how much he had been working out, he wasn’t carrying me to safety, so I threw my arm across his shoulder and he walked me out of the water.

  When we were above the torrent I realized that Ronzoni wasn’t as strong as I thought. But he was clever. He hadn’t been pulling the rope; he had tied it to the tow bar on the Cadillac. Ron had been at the wheel, and now helped the maid into the back. Ronzoni and I wandered around the other side and I got in the back with the maid and Ronzoni in the front. Ron took the wheel again and he pointed at Cassandra in the other vehicle with two fingers like a platoon leader, that way , and I saw Ronzoni’s car take the lead as we headed back from where we had come, toward The Mornington.

  Chapter Five

  We didn’t worry about running up the stairs to the hotel the second time. We were all so wet it didn’t matter, and I for one didn’t have the energy. Ron pushed open the door to the lobby and we trudged inside like zombies. The English guy wasn’t behind the desk. He had been replaced by a young woman who was much more pleasant to the eye, or at least to my eye. She was trim and blond and buttoned up in her dark suit. But unlike the Englishman she did come out from behind the desk when we entered. I wasn’t sure if she was worried about us getting water all over the marble foyer, but I really didn’t care.

  “What happened? Are you all okay?” she asked.

  “The bridges are flooded,” said Ronzoni. “Your maid nearly drowned.”

  “Oh, my goodness, Rosaria,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  Rosaria was not all right. She didn’t have anything she wouldn’t recover from, but she was in shock. She had struck me as a very quiet person to begin with, but nearly drowning in a storm surge will quieten down even the chattiest Kathy. I was holding her up for fear her legs would give way.

  “She needs a warm shower,” said Cassandra .

  The desk girl nodded. “I’ll get her a room. And what about you, ma’am?”

  “It looks like we might be here for the duration.”

  “I can get you back in your room, but it hasn’t been cleaned, I’m afraid.”

  Cassandra waved her hand. “Any mess is our mess.” She turned to Rosaria and put her arm around the silent woman. “Let’s get you warm.” She helped the maid toward the elevator. I heard the clinking of glasses coming from the bar and wondered if a nip of scotch might warm me up, but I didn’t get the chance to follow through on the idea as the English desk guy, Neville, came out of the bar and saw us. He didn’t seem surprised to see us back, but his face didn’t give much away.

  “I didn’t expect to see you gentlemen again.”

  “Bridges are out,” said Ronzoni. “We’re stuck here.”

  “I see. Well, we’d best get you settled then. Mr. Bennett, your room is still available.”

  “Emery’s taking care of it now,” said Ron.

  “And Mr. Venturi?”

  The blond guy stood behind us, ashen-faced. He hadn’t helped much on the causeway, but he was plenty wet. He didn’t speak and I wondered if he too was in shock.

  “Mr. Venturi?” Neville turned to the desk girl. “Miss Taylor, could you assist Mr. Venturi with a new room key?”

  Venturi absently put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a key card which he held up.

  “Mr. Venturi has his card. Sir, may I suggest a warm shower and a lie down. And Mr. . .?” he ask
ed, looking at me.

  “Jones,” I said.

  “Mr. Jones, given the circumstances I would be more than happy to extend our most generous room rate to you.”

  “Too kind,” I said. “But I’ll just hang in the bar. ”

  “As you wish. And Detective, will you be staying or returning to the station house?”

  I could see the cogs turning in Ronzoni’s head. I knew where I’d prefer to bunk down during a hurricane. Ronzoni was apparently on my wavelength.

  “Let’s make sure you’re all set here, and then I’ll evaluate. Are you prepared?”

  For the first time a wrinkle appeared in the fabric of the Englishman’s face. “Our groundsman hasn’t made it in.”

  “So?”

  “So not all of the storm shutters are in place.”

  “Leaving that a bit late, aren’t you?”

  “The remaining guests often like to watch the weather, so we don’t like to put them all in until the weather service confirms the severity of the storm.”

  “Well, it’s going to be bad enough. What needs doing?”

  “We need to put up shutters in the lounge and the north wing, and then in the gym in the south wing.”

  Ronzoni looked at me. “I’ll take north, you take south?”

  “You’ll take the bar, you mean,” I said.

  “I need some water.”

  “Of course you do.” It wasn’t a line. Ronzoni had some kind of a thing that meant he didn’t sweat, and he couldn’t regulate his body temperature. He drank a lot of water. I couldn’t see how he could overheat standing in a wringing-wet JC Penney suit, but I wasn’t his primary care physician.

  I pointed down the lobby to the south end of the hotel. “This way?”

  Neville nodded and pulled a key card out of his jacket pocket. “You’ll need this.”