Nobody knew what was happening to C. C.; everyone in the bar was just yelling for the boy to run.
Art Tweed broke from the back steps and sprinted and met the child halfway on the beach. He scooped him up and turned and shielded the boy with his body and ran back to The Florida Room. There was a big cheer when Art bounded up the steps. Lots of back-slapping, even Zargoza.
Everyone’s attention went back to the beach. C. C. was clicking an empty gun now, still twirling and grabbing his throat with his free hand. They could make out something stuck in his neck, and blood running down his shirt. The foreign object was big and colorful.
The wind picked up again all at once, gusting hard, like when the hurricane had begun.
“The eye’s passing,” said Serge. “We’re getting the backside now. Everyone take cover!”
In the midst of the gale, they noticed someone else was now out on the beach, moving from the condo toward C. C. Flag.
“You sonuvabitch!” the new person yelled as he approached Flag. “You stay the hell offa my property!”
Malcolm Kefauver, the incredible shrinking mayor of Beverly Shores, had just nailed Flag in the throat with his last lawn dart.
The dart had missed Flag’s major arteries, but he was getting light-headed from the sight of his own blood. He twirled out into the water and fell to his knees. Waves crashed over him, and he rolled in the shallow surf like a porcupine fish.
The mayor of Beverly Shores advanced toward the water, taunting him. Flag’s wound wasn’t mortal, but his buoyancy was now a problem. He was in danger of being carried off by the surf. Flag was on his back, losing the fight, and another wave crashed over him and dragged him farther off the beach. He was in only two feet of water, but he was tossed like a cork. With a last, great effort, Flag rolled onto his stomach and dug his fingertips into the sand. Thus anchored, Flag slowly clawed his way back toward safety.
Flag was most of the way out of the water when the incredible shrinking mayor ran right up to him at the edge of the surf and resumed shouting. He yelled in a measured cadence-one word to emphasize each time he stomped on Flag’s fingers-“Let…go…of…my…beach!”
Flag shouted and pulled his hands back to his chest in pain. A large wave knocked the mayor on his back and swallowed Flag.
Flag was quickly a hundred yards out, and his cries were sucked into the growling wind as he bobbed steadily toward Mexico. The mayor turned and headed back to the condo. The wind gusted harder, and the mayor had to lean at an acute angle. He made it to the stage set up on the beach for the Proposition 213 rally and grabbed one of the corner lighting poles for balance. He tried to rest a second. The wind kept picking up, eighty, ninety, a hundred miles an hour. The mayor had continued shrinking since his election and his suit was baggier than ever, catching an enormous amount of wind. Hundred and ten. Hundred and twenty. The Proposition 213 banner over the stage tore loose and flew away.
The guests in The Florida Room had to shut the door again, but Serge and Zargoza took turns watching through the hole where Zargoza had shot through the lock.
When the wind hit one-thirty, the mayor’s feet went out from under him, but he held on to the lighting pole with both hands-flapping horizontally like a yacht club pennant.
At one-forty, it was too much. His baggy suit was fully deployed, and the mayor lost his grip. He sailed out over the Gulf, never touching the water, dipping and lifting and looping like an autumn leaf carried up and away in a strong breeze.
“Look, he’s flapping his arms,” said Zargoza.
“That’s only making it worse,” said Serge. “It’s giving him more lift.”
There was a long moment of quiet, and Serge continued staring out the hole in the door until the mayor faded to a speck and disappeared. When Serge finally turned around, he saw Zargoza pointing a gun at him again.
“You realize this is a cry for help,” said Serge.
“Shut up! I’m tired of your talk!” snapped Zargoza. “I’m taking the money and getting out of here… Sorry…”
Zargoza leveled the revolver at Serge’s heart and thumbed back the Colt’s hammer. He stiffened his arm and began squeezing the trigger.
There was a bang and Serge clenched his eyes shut. But he didn’t feel anything. He slowly opened them and inventoried his body. Nothing. He looked up and saw Zargoza with a silly grin on his face. Serge’s eyebrows twisted in puzzlement. Zargoza was still grinning as he fell forward and hit the floor.
When he did, it revealed Country, standing directly behind him with one of the TEC-9s the Diaz Boys had kicked away.
“What have you done?” Serge yelled.
“I thought you’d be happy,” said Country.
“I had everything under control,” said Serge. He got down on the floor and rolled Zargoza onto his back. He slapped Zargoza’s cheeks lightly. “Wake up! Wake up!”
Zargoza barely opened his eyes.
“Look! I turned the TV down like you asked. Can I get you anything?”
Zargoza smiled calmly and started to close his eyes.
“Wait! Wait! Don’t go yet! Listen, buddy, since we got to know each other so well, why don’t you tell me where the money is-so I can make sure it gets to your favorite charity.”
Zargoza smiled a little broader and said in a weak voice, “You always did make me laugh.”
When Zargoza closed his eyes that last time, Serge’s yell of anguish shook the heavy wooden shutters of The Florida Room.
A fter Zargoza died, Serge, Art and the Diaz Boys sat down at the tables, guns all over the floor, not having the spirit to fight each other. There was a bond from the common goal of saving the boy, and of the ordeal that still lay ahead. The storm was back up to full strength, whipping around and under the bar again.
They looked over each other’s faces with resignation.
Art floated the question. “What do we do now?”
Serge picked up the remote control and hit the volume button. “We watch the rest of Key Largo.”
Time went by in exhausted silence until the sound of the wind outside wasn’t as loud.
“Storm’s passing,” said Lauren Bacall.
“A torn shutter or two, some trash on the beach,” said Bogart. “In a few hours there will be little to remind you of what happened tonight.”
Epilogue
Hurricane Rolando-berto was more remarkable for its insurance totals than loss of life. Prompt evacuation warnings by all but one of the local media outlets averted certain tragedy. Several stretches of the beach roads remained impassable for a week. Tow trucks dragged palm trees out of the streets, and the state flew in snowplows from New England to clear sand drifts. The Department of Insurance threatened to freeze the assets of six companies that tried to pull out of Florida.
In the hours immediately following Rolando-berto, a rookie police officer who lived on the island and owned an all-terrain cycle responded to the 911 distress call from Hammerhead Ranch. Everyone had decided not to mention Country’s shooting Zargoza. The officer wrote diligently in his notebook for five minutes before he shouted for everyone to stop talking at once.
“Hold it. Hold it!” he said. “Let me see if I understand. The motel owner was really a gangster. A guy named Lenny was pretending to be Don Johnson. The short fella over there wants to be a private eye from the forties. And this guy thinks he’s Hemingway. Do I have all this straight?”
Everyone nodded.