Webo Drake asked the one-eyed man: "What's the rope for?"
"Good question," he said, but gave no explanation.
An hour later the road spread to four lanes and the traffic began to move at a better clip. Almost no cars were heading south. The highway split at North Key Largo, and the stranger instructed Jack Fleming to bear right on County Road 905.
"It says there's a toll," Jack said.
"Yeah?"
"Look, we're out of money."
A soggy ten-dollar bill landed on the front seat between Jack Fleming and Webo Drake. Again the earthquake voice: "Stop when we reach the bridge."
Twenty minutes later they approached the Card Sound Bridge, which crosses from North Key Largo to the mainland. Jack Fleming tapped the brakes and steered to the shoulder. "Not here," said the stranger. "All the way to the top."
"The top of the bridge?"
"Are you deaf, junior?"
Jack Fleming drove up the slope cautiously. The wind was ungodly, jostling the Lexus on its springs. At the crest of the span, Jack pulled over as far as he dared. The one-eyed man retrieved his glass eye from Webo Drake and got out of the car. He yanked the plastic cap off his head and jammed it into the waistband of his trousers.
"Come here," the stranger told the two young men. "Tie me." He popped the eye into its socket and cleaned it in a polishing motion with the corner of a bandanna.
Then he climbed over the rail and inserted his legs back under the gap, so he was kneeling on the precipice.
Other hurricane evacuees slowed their cars to observe the lunatic scene, but none dared to stop; the man being lashed to the bridge looked wild enough to deserve it. Jack Fleming and Webo Drake worked as swiftly as possible, given the force of the gusts and the rapidity with which their Key West hangovers were advancing. The stranger gave explicit instructions about how he was to be trussed, and the fraternity boys did what they were told. They knotted one end of the rope around the man's thick ankles and ran the other end over the concrete rail. After looping it four times around his chest, they cinched until he grunted. Then they threaded the rope under the rail and back to the ankles for the final knotting.
The product was a sturdy harness that allowed the stranger's arms to wave free. Webo Drake tested the knots and pronounced them tight. "Can we go now?" he asked the one-eyed man.
"By all means."
"What about the squirrel, sir?"
"It's all yours," the stranger said. "Enjoy."
Jack Fleming coasted the car downhill. At the foot of the bridge, he veered off the pavement to get clear of the traffic. Webo Drake found a rusty curtain rod in a pile of trash, and Jack used it to hoist the animal carcass out of his father's Lexus. Webo stood back, trying to light a cigaret.
Back on the bridge, under a murderous dark sky, the kneeling stranger raised both arms to the pulsing gray clouds. Bursts of hot wind made the man's hair stand up like a halo of silver sparks.
"Crazy fucker," Jack Fleming rasped. He stepped over the dead squirrel and threw the curtain rod into the mangroves. "You think he had a gun? Because that's what I'm telling my old man: Some nut with a gun kicked out the car window."
Webo Drake pointed with the cigaret and said, "Jack, you know what he's waiting for? That crazy idiot, he's waiting on the hurricane."
Although the young men stood two hundred yards away, they could see the one-eyed stranger grinning madly into the teeth of the rising wind. He wore a smile that blazed.
"Brother," Jack said to Webo, "let's get the hell out of here." The tollbooth was unmanned, so they blew through at fifty miles an hour, skidded into the parking lot of Alabama Jack's. There they used the one-eyed man's ten-dollar bill to purchase four cold cans of Cherry Coke, which they drank on the trip up Card Sound Road. When they were finished, they did not toss the empties from the car.
A noise awakened Bonnie Lamb. It was Max, snapping open a suitcase. She asked what in the world he was doing, fully dressed and packing his clothes at four in the morning. He said he wanted to surprise her.
"You're leaving me?" she asked. "After two nights." Max Lamb smiled and came to the bed. "I'm packing for both of us."
He tried to stroke Bonnie's cheek, but she buried her face in the pillow, to block out the light. The rain was coming harder now, slapping horizontally against the windows of the high-rise hotel. She was glad her husband had come to his senses. They could do Epcot some other time.
She peered out of the pillow and said, "Honey, is the airport open?"
"I don't honestly know."
"Shouldn't you call first?"
"Why?" Max Lamb patted the blanket where it followed the curve of his wife's hips.
"We're flying home, aren't we?" Bonnie Lamb sat up. "That's why you're packing."
Her husband said no, we're not flying home. "We're going on an adventure."
"I see. Where, Max?"
"Miami."
"That's the surprise?"
"That's it." He tugged the covers away from her. "Come on, we've got a long drive—"
Bonnie Lamb didn't move. "You're serious."
"-and I want to teach you how to use the video camera."
She said, "I've got a better idea. Why don't we stay here and make love for the next three days. Dawn to dusk, OK? Tear the room to pieces. I mean, if it's adventure you want."
Max Lamb was up again, stuffing the suitcases. "You don't understand. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance."
Right, Bonnie said, a chance to drown on our honeymoon. "I'd rather stay where it's warm and dry. I'll even watch Emmanuelle VI on the Spectravision, like you wanted last night." This she regarded as a significant concession.
"By the time we get to Miami," said Max, "the dangerous part will be over. In fact, it's probably over already."
"Then what's the point?"
"You'll see."
"Max, I don't want to do this. Please."
He gave her a stiff, fatherly hug. She knew he was about to speak to her as if she were six years old. "Bonnie," Max Lamb said to his new wife. "My beautiful little Bonnie, now listen. Disney World we can do anytime. Anytime we want. But how often does a hurricane hit? You heard the weatherman, honey. 'The Storm of the Century,' he called it. How often does a person get to see something like that!"