Читать книгу Hurricane Hannah - Sue Civil-Brown - Страница 14

HANNAH CHANGED back into her flight suit, it being the most rugged piece of clothing she’d brought with her, and endured the lumpy, bumpy ride back into town.

“Doesn’t anyone work on the roads around here?” she finally asked.

He gave her a look that said she was being a pain. “You try living on an island where storms keep washing them away. Fixing roads takes time and money.”

“With a casino….”

He glared at her and rotated his unlit cigar to half-mast. “The only person making money off that casino is Anstin. He doesn’t care about anything that doesn’t help the casino.”

She blinked. “What about taxes?”

“Who pays taxes?”

Truly she had fallen through the rabbit hole. “But how does anything get done?”

“We get together and decide we need to do it. That’s how we built the school that doubles as a storm shelter. By our own sweat and people supplying the materials they could afford to buy.”

Hannah thought about that. “Rock soup.”

“Basically. It works. But these aren’t the kind of people who want a government or taxes. Except Anstin, anyway. He seems all kind of interested in having a government. Mainly because he doesn’t want anyone gambling outside his casino. So we’ve got a mayor now. What a joke.”

“Why is it a joke?”

“Because the guy couldn’t organize falling out of a tree, let alone run a government. He doesn’t have any power because nobody’s stupid enough to listen to him.”

“Oh.” She peered at him curiously. “You don’t think a little bit of government could help?”

“Why? Most of us here came to get away from all that crap.”

“But…but what about police? Fire department?”

“We have a volunteer fire brigade, and who needs police?”

Most everyone, she thought, wondering if she had flown into total anarchy. But before she could pursue the subject, they were in town, driving down a residential lane, swerving to avoid potholes.

“Look,” he said, “when something needs doing, we have a referendum.”

“Oh, so you vote?”

“Hell, no. We play poker. That’s what I was doing last night. The island is pretty much split on whether Anstin should be able to build his fancy high-rise casino. So the council said it should be decided by a poker tournament.”

Hannah blinked. “Okay. But you vote for a city council, right?”

“No. We have a tournament for that, too. Top six finishers get the job.”

“That hardly sounds like winning.” She turned in her seat to look at him. “I hear you’re a pretty good player. So why aren’t you on the council?”

“Because that’s one tournament I’m not stupid enough to play in.”

Hannah faced forward again. An island where everything was decided by poker. Now she was certain she’d landed in an asylum. On the other hand…. She smiled to herself. It would be kind of fun.

Buck changed the subject. Pointedly, she thought.

“These older homes,” he said, waving out the window at white-painted clapboard-sided houses with green shutters already closed against the coming storm, “were built shortly after Hanratty came here. Men who knew a lot about ship-building put them up, and they’ve withstood everything nature has thrown at this island. The strongest winds just make them bend and creak. It’s the newer homes we have to worry about.”

She could see why. Even low cinder-block structures, of which there were few enough, didn’t look especially strong. Other homes appeared to have been built on the cheap, and it was into that neighborhood that Buck steered the truck. People were out, trying to board their windows with plywood that had obviously been used before. Some appeared to be getting on in years, and it was these people Buck stopped to help.

They greeted him warmly. It was obvious everyone knew him and liked him. Hannah wondered just what it was about him that they liked. She certainly hadn’t seen much to recommend him, other than rugged good looks and a set of narrow hips that awoke something primal in her.

Funny, she thought, that she had never before noticed how sexy a man’s hips could be.

Buck introduced her as a pilot who was laying over for the duration, and called her Sticks. Not that it mattered. Everyone on the island seemed to already know that she was “with Buck,” that she’d awakened with Buster, and that she’d fallen for Horace’s slick patter at the grocery. It was as if she were living in a fish bowl.

The third elderly couple they helped were Joyce and Dil Fenster. Hannah judged them to be in their eighties, and only too glad to allow Buck and Hannah to lug plywood and screw it over windows.

“Been here forty years,” Dil said as he “supervised.” He apparently wanted Hannah to know all about him and Joyce. “I worked as a shrimper out of Destin, Florida, but me and Joyce got tired of me being away for six weeks at a time. So we saved up to buy our own boat we could live on and fish from at the same time.”

“Yeah,” said Joyce, who still looked as if she could haul in a net. “Then we found this place. Been stuck here ever since.” She laughed, as if it were an old joke. “Now our son runs the boat and our grandkids turned coat and went to work at the casino. What kind of job is that, I ask you? Taking hard-earned money away from other people.”

“Now, now,” Dil said to her as if he’d said it a thousand times, “those people come to the casino knowing what the odds are.”

“Still don’t think it’s right,” Joyce said. “It’s not fair like our poker games. I just can’t imagine them taking a rake out of every hand. It’s pure thievery if you ask me.”

Hannah, already perspiring in the humidity and heat, drove screws with a drill while Buck balanced the plywood.

“It’d be better,” Dil said, “if Anstin were on the up and up, though. Now if he transported private jets for people like you do…that would be an honorable calling.”

Hannah almost dropped the drill. Cussing under her breath, she reseated the screw and started again.

“Hurry up,” Buck said. “I’m not Superman. This thing is heavy.”

“Quit your complaining.” She turned to Dil, knowing better than to ask how he knew her business. Instead, she asked, “What do you mean Anstin isn’t on the up and up?”

“No regulations,” Dil said as if it were self-evident. “If he gets his way and builds that big hotel and casino, we’re going to have to get a gubmint. Now won’t that be a hairy shame.”

“Yeah,” Joyce agreed. “All this time we ain’t needed anybody sticking a nose into our business. This Anstin is going to change all that.”

Buck spoke. “We ought to tar and feather him and ride him off the island.”

Dil laughed wheezily and Joyce emitted a belly laugh. “You put tar on him,” Joyce said, “and he won’t sink!”

“You got a point there,” Buck agreed.

“Done,” said Hannah, climbing down the ladder.

“Thank God.” Buck let go of the plywood and shook his arms. “You ever hear of lactic acid build-up?”

She smiled sweetly. “Maybe you should do heavy work more often.”

He glared at her. For once there was no cigar. He must have lost it somewhere.

While they stood in this eyeball-to-eyeball contest, neither of them willing to blink first, Joyce let out a little shriek.

“Oh, my word, Buster, what are you doing here?”

Hannah blinked first. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she whirled, looking for the alligator. Yup, there he was, crawling his scaly way across the thin grass toward her.

She was never quite sure how she got there, but in an instant she was on top of the ladder, saying, “Get that thing away from me!”

Buck laughed. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“No? Then what does he eat?”

“Mostly people food,” Joyce confided. “Everyone feeds Buster.”

Hannah glared at the three people and then the alligator. “That’s a mistake. Some day when you don’t give him food, he’ll bite off your hand the way he did Hanratty’s.”

Joyce looked at Dil. “You don’t think he’d really do that, do you?”

“Nah. We been here forty years, girl. Don’t you go taking strange notions just ’cuz Sticks here is frightened of poor old Buster.”