King Tide

by A. J. Stewart

  “Look, we’ve got a job to do. Not everyone has the balls to do it. I get it.”

  “You want to go back out there, you be my guest.”

  “The people have a right to know.”

  “To know what, genius? That’s there’s a hurricane? Trust me, everyone who needs to know already knows.”

  I offered a hand to the camera guy and lifted him up. “You should stay. It’s dangerous out there.” I didn’t feel it prudent to mention that we had lost two people inside the hotel.

  The camera guy looked at his big partner. “Maybe we should check the footage we got.”

  Bonatelli grunted. “Let’s check the footage. But then we’re getting back out there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The congregation in the bar gave our new friends some uncertain looks, and the weather guys returned the looks with interest. Neville found some more towels and the two guys dried off. The cameraman unstrapped his camera, and then removed a small backpack that looked like a parachute.

  Rex Bonatelli was euphoric. “Woo!” he yelled. “It’s bitchin’ out there people. Hoo yeah!”

  “What the hell were you lunatics doing out there?” asked Ronzoni.

  “We’re from the Weather Network,” said Bonatelli. “Rex Bonatelli,” he said offering his hand. Ronzoni didn’t take it.

  “How on earth did you end up out there?”

  “Ha,” said the big guy. “Interesting story. We were filming on the island, about to head up the coast to follow the eye, and we got stuck here.”

  It wasn’t that interesting a story, especially given we had all lived it.

  “And you’re wandering around Palm Beach in a hurricane? ”

  “Yeah, well. We came out here to get some shots of the beach, but our Jeep got stuck in your parking lot. You know it’s a lake out there, right?”

  Ronzoni looked surprised. “A lake?”

  “Yeah, storm surge had come in massive. It’s a good three feet out there. Cars are floating around. Hope none of you are parked out there,” said with a grin, as if that was actually his greatest wish. He turned to the group as if performing just for Ronzoni wasn’t enough.

  “See the hurricane’s a freak. We got unseasonably warm water in the Florida Straits, and up the Gulf Stream. Then we got low pressure that came from across the Gulf of Mexico, surprised all the models. So a tropical storm became a cat two before anyone knew it. Now it’s sweeping up the coast”—he swooshed his hand up in the air to illustrate—“and last we heard it’s gonna make landfall near Canaveral.”

  “Fort Pierce,” I said. “That’s what I heard.”

  Bonatelli shook his head. “Nah, don’t know where you’re getting that from.” He turned back to his audience. “But here’s the thing. The wind’s not the only issue. What we got here is a King Tide, or a spring tide. Due to the moon’s proximity to earth, the tide is higher than normal. And now we got a hurricane spinning counterclockwise, hitting land just to the north. That means most of the wind we see from now on will be coming from the northwest. In other words, right down the Intracoastal.” He smiled like this was the best news he had ever heard. The group looked at him in stunned silence.

  “So the wind will be one thing, but hold your hats for the flooding. Oh, yeah. It’s gonna be something awesome.”

  Literally speaking he was right. It would be awesome, as in we would be in awe of it. But the way he said it, he made it sound like a kid who just got tickets to Disney World. I thought about my little rancher, and wondered if my house would still be there when I got home.

  “Good news is, this hotel is on a high point. It might make it.” Bonatelli and the camera guy took off their ponchos. Bonatelli was dressed in khaki shorts and shirt, and he was wet through. He didn’t seem to mind.

  Neville offered them coffee, which they gladly accepted. I wasn’t sure the big guy needed the caffeine.

  “We’ll just recharge our batteries a bit,” said Bonatelli. “Then we got to get back out there.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Ronzoni.

  “Sorry, chief,” said Bonatelli. “Duty calls.”

  “I know,” said Ronzoni. He pulled out his ID and flipped it open for Bonatelli to see. “Palm Beach PD. I’m gonna have to insist you stay here for the duration.”

  “You can’t do that. This is freedom of the press.”

  “No, it’s not. And I will arrest you if you make me.”

  “For what?”

  “Public nuisance, reckless endangerment, having eyebrows that look like caterpillars. I’ll find something.”

  “Outrageous,” said Bonatelli. “You are infringing on my civil rights.”

  “Try me,” Ronzoni said, turning away and shaking his head at me.

  “Let’s just check the footage, Rex,” said the camera guy. “We might have enough.”

  Bonatelli didn’t look convinced but he didn’t argue. The camera guy looked relieved to be inside and not be playing the part of live bait. Bonatelli wiped down his bald dome and sat at the bar, where he sipped some coffee. He nodded to the chef.

  “So what’s going on here?” he asked .

  Chef Dean shrugged. “Two guests are dead. How about you?”

  Ronzoni turned to me. “Since you’re already wet.”

  “You want me to figure out the generator.”

  Ronzoni raised his eyebrows. Ron appeared at my side.

  “Need some help?”

  “Let’s see how we go.”

  Neville came from behind the bar. “I’ll show you where.”

  “Excellent. It’s such a nice evening to be out and about in Florida.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Neville led us back around toward the north exit, and then in through the unmarked door into the taupe hallway. We climbed the stairs all the way to the top. Fortunately the hotel was low-rise, like downtown Palm Beach in general. We paused at the door to the roof.

  “It’s the large unit directly in front of you when you get out there,” said Neville, who had clearly decided he was staying in the stairwell. “Check the control panel. The generator should have come on automatically.”

  “A lot of things should happen during a hurricane.” I replied. “You know anything about generators?” I asked Ron.

  “Enough to be dangerous,” he said.

  “Well, keep low—the wind is something else.”

  I was about to put my back into the door when I heard an electronic bling. Neville reached into his jacket pocket. “It’s your phone, Mr. Jones. Seems you have a message.”

  “Hold that for me, will you?”

  Perhaps being up higher up had given my phone a signal. Perhaps the wind blew my way. I didn’t really care. I pushed into the door. It exploded open and almost tore from its hinges. If anything the wind was harder on the roof, and my poncho felt like a kite, destined to pick me up and deposit me in the Bahamas.

  I dropped to my knees and crawled across the rooftop toward the large machine ahead. It was rectangular and the size of a car. As I crawled I checked on Ron. I think the wind took him by surprise. It’s one thing to know it’s a hurricane, it’s another thing to feel it. Out to the west it was black. A few spots of light, hotels and apartment complexes with their own generators, the kind that actually come on when the power goes out. But mostly Palm Beach and the mainland beyond were blanketed in darkness. There was nothing familiar about it. No party lights, no boats floating by on the Intracoastal. Just a black hole. It felt primal, as if this was how Florida had been for eons, and would be again, given half a chance.

  I reached the generator and turned back and offered a hand to Ron. I pulled him in hard against the side of the big machine.

  “Now what?” I yelled.

  “Controls,” screamed Ron. “Hold me.”

  We stood using the side of the generator and I held Ron’s waist. It was purely ceremonial. If a gust came that was big enough to blow him off the roof it was going to take me along for the ride too. Ron e
dged to a box attached to the side of the generator and opened it. Inside were all sorts of displays and readouts and buttons. Most notable was a big green button and a big red button. They seemed self-explanatory. Ron thought so too, because he punched the green button with the side of his fist.

  The generator hiccuped deep within but gave no more. Ron tried the button again but got nothing. He hit the red and then the green again. Nothing. Then he shone his flashlight on a dial. He looked at me and shook his head, and then nodded toward the door .

  We crawled back to the door. It was open, the door pressed hard against the wall of the entry hutch. Neville had retreated half a level down to keep out of the rain pouring in.

  Ron ran his hands through his wet hair. He was soaked.

  “There’s no fuel,” huffed Ron. “Dial’s on empty.”

  “Oh,” said Neville.

  “What’s the fuel?” I asked.

  “Diesel.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In a tank,” said Neville.

  “Where?”

  “In the maintenance compound.”

  “Which side?” I asked, looking up at the rain driving in through the open door.

  “Not on the roof. It’s on the ground level.”

  I wasn’t sure what genius came up with that plan but I let it slide. “Show us,” I said.

  Neville led Ron and I down to the ground level and the along the taupe corridor. He grabbed a towel from the laundry and then headed to a utility door at the far north end of the building.

  “There’s a fenced compound just across the lawn. Inside the fence you’ll find the diesel tanks.”

  “Why on earth are the tanks down here but the generator is on the roof?”

  “The generator is up there to keep it above the flood line. I guess they decided that having tanks of flammable diesel fuel on the roof of a hotel wasn’t very safe. But they’re just tanks. The water shouldn’t affect them.”

  “We’ll see.” I nodded to Ron and we pushed out into the hurricane. There was definitely less wind on the ground than on the roof, but that was balanced against the water. The ocean was pounding in from the east and expanding across the lawn. It was sweeping through the streets of Palm Beach to the west of us, pooling in the low points, like the hotel’s parking lot. And the maintenance compound.

  Rex Bonatelli had been right about the hotel being on higher ground. But only just. Florida was as flat an expanse of swamp and sand as there ever was. Roads were long and straight and the highest points in most parts of the southern half of the state were the trash dumps. The Mornington sat on a slight rise, probably by design to improve the views. The maintenance compound sat below the grade of the hotel, away from ocean.

  It was underwater now. Ron and I waded in. There was a real current ebbing and flowing, pulling us one way and then the other as if it just couldn’t make up its mind whether it was coming or going. We reached the maintenance compound at knee-deep. I pulled open the gate and stepped in. And I dropped another foot down.

  The diesel tanks were in a concrete bunker, a further foot below the ground. Ron joined me a little more than waist-deep in the thrashing water that spun around the tank bunker like a whirlpool. It was as close as I’d ever come to being in a blender. Ron directed us to a pump system attached to the end of one of the tanks. He opened a cabinet to inspect the pump motor.

  He shook his head. “It’s water-logged. Shorted out,” he yelled.

  “Can we prime it?”

  He shook his head again. “Saltwater. Bad news for the components.”

  I was considering our options when I felt something grab at my left leg. I glanced at Ron, thinking it might have been him despite being on my right. A second later Ron shot me a look .

  “What was that?”

  I shrugged. I had no idea. The water kept swirling around the tanks like a wet carousel, and I decided there and then I wanted to get off the ride.

  Then something grabbed me again. I felt it wrap around my leg. At first I thought it might be seaweed or kelp, driven onto land by the storm surge.

  Then the kelp moved from my left leg to my right to get a better grip.

  “What the hell is that?” I yelled.

  Ron looked down as a thick arm pulsed up from the thrashing water and grabbed his arm. Ron reflexed backward and in one fluid motion a large octopus launched up out of the water. It wasn’t massive, but it was way stronger than I expected an octopus to be. From tip to tip it was probably four feet, but its arms wrapped around my leg and Ron’s arm like a python. The cephalopod pulled Ron and me closer together and almost off our feet, and its dark, bulbous head rose up out of the water like something out of an alien movie.

  I didn’t know what to do. The tentacle around my leg was flexing like a bodybuilder and was getting far too friendly with parts of me I had no intention of sharing with a creature of the deep. I was fairly certain that an octopus wasn’t going to eat me, although my recall on such matters wasn’t all it could be. I remember being told that most animals are more scared of us than we are of them, but I wondered if the octopus had gotten the memo. He reached out toward the tank with another two arms. I had no idea what he thought he was doing.

  But Ron did. Ron was better schooled on all aspects of the sea than me. He spent a lot of time sailing. Perhaps he’d read up on what lay beneath him when he did. Ron grabbed the tank with his free arm and reached in under the tank with his other. The octopus went with him. The two arms that were reaching out grabbed onto the framework that held the tanks in place. When he had a good grip, he let go of Ron and then let go of me, and coiled himself around the frame. Within a blink I lost sight of him.

  “Where’d it go?”

  Ron yelled, “Nowhere. He’s still hanging on.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  Ron smiled. “He changed color.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Let’s get inside.”

  We pushed our way across the bunker. Getting out of it was another matter. It was only a foot or so below ground level, but at that point ground level was two feet below the water. My poncho was dragging me down so I ripped it down the chest and threw it away, and then climbed up the steps to the lawn. I helped Ron up and we waded back into the hotel.

  “Oh, Mr. Jones,” was all Neville had to say as we burst back in through the utility door. Granted, I was wearing nothing but my underwear, and I was covered mud and debris, but he didn’t say it like he was disappointed.

  “Do we need to restart the generator?” asked Neville.

  I shook my head. “It might have been to code putting the tanks on the ground, but the pump starter is another thing.”

  “Really?”

  Ron said, “the saltwater has fried the circuit. The only way to get diesel to the generator is to carry it up there in a bucket.”

  Neville seemed to take the news pretty well. Better than me. I wanted to track down the moron who put the tanks at sea level right next to the ocean and rip him a new one. But Neville was British so maybe that explained it. They were a take it on the chin kind of folk. We Americans preferred the talk quietly and carry a big stick method. I wasn’t able to say which was a better methodology.

  “I need a shower,” I said.

  “Perhaps we should check in with Detective Ronzoni first,” said Neville. “He didn’t want people wandering around the hotel.”

  “When Ronzoni gets attacked by an amorous cephalopod, then he can dictate when I can and cannot have a shower.”

  I stopped at the check-in desk to grab my suit and then I went straight to my room. I did not stop in the bar, I did not pass go and I did not collect two hundred dollars. I launched into the darkness of the shower. I felt slimy, as if the octopus had left some kind of secretion on me, but that might have been my imagination. The shower cubicle was completely black, as if I was totally blind. I washed off in cold water with fancy hotel body wash and then did it all again. Then I toweled off and got dressed. My und
ies were trashed so I threw them away and went commando. It was a risk. If I ended up having to go back out into the storm, things were going to get dicey. Or I would have to upgrade my quality of poncho.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “So no power then,” said Ronzoni.

  “That’s about the sum of it,” I said. “Unless someone wants to carry bucketloads of diesel fuel up to the roof.”

  “I’ll do it,” said Rex Bonatelli.

  “I don’t think it’s a great idea,” I said. “In the middle of a hurricane.”

  “Doesn’t bother me. Plus we might get some great footage up there.”

  “I’m not sure, Rex,” said the camera guy, clearly not keen to go back out into the hurricane.

  “There’s nothing to see up there anyway. It’s pitch-black all around. Power’s down in West Palm too, by the looks of it.”

  “I say we get this place fired up,” said Bonatelli. I wasn’t sure what this guy was on, but he was certainly gung-ho.

  “Let’s wait until daylight,” said Ronzoni. “Hopefully the worst will have passed by then. Mr. Neville, what do you think?”

  “An excellent suggestion, Detective. We have battery-powered candles and camp lights we can bring in, and the emergency system will provide basic lighting for about ten hours.”

  “And the food? ”

  We all looked at the chef behind the bar. He looked indifferent to everything.

  “The cool room will be good for twelve hours or more. We might lose some desserts and some seafood. Any longer than that’ll be a problem.”

  “Can you prepare any food?”

  “Kitchen’s gas so we’re good. Who wants to eat?”

  “Sounds good to me!” said Bonatelli.

  I noted that the sandwiches hadn’t been touched. The chef passed a bar menu to Bonatelli, who looked at it.

  “Who’s up for nachos?” He canvased the group, who looked at him with the collective enthusiasm of high school kids looking over a math test. Bonatelli shrugged his solid shoulders. “Just me then. How about you Ken?” he asked the camera guy. It was obviously a rhetorical question because he handed the menu back to Chef Dean and said, “He’ll have some.”