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newspapers in the drive-He's gone."
"But that's good news, Debs," I said. "If he ran, doesn't that prove he's
guilty?"
"It doesn't prove shit," she said. "The same thing happened to Kurt Wagner,
and he showed up dead. How do I know that won't happen to Starzak?"
"We can put out a BOLO," I said. "We might get to him first."
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Deborah kicked the wall. "Goddamn it, we haven't gotten to anything first, or
even on time. Help me out here, Dex," she said. "This thing is driving me
nuts."
I could have said that it was doing far more than that to me, but it didn't
seem charitable. "I'll try," I said instead, and Deborah slouched away down
the hall.
I was not even into my cubicle when Vince Masuoka met me with a massive fake
frown "Where are the doughnuts?" he said accusingly.
"What doughnuts?" I said.
"It was your turn," he said. "You were supposed to bring doughnuts today."
"I had a rough night," I said.
"So now we're all going to have a rough morning?" he demanded. "Where's the
justice in that?"
"I don't do justice, Vince," I said. "Just blood spatter."
"Hmmph," he said. "Apparently you don't do doughnuts, either." And he stalked
away with a nearly convincing imitation of righteous indignation, leaving me
to reflect that I could not remember another occasion when Vince had gotten
the best of me in any kind of verbal interchange. One more sign that the train
had left the station. Could this really be the end of the line for poor
Decaying Dexter?
The rest of the workday was long and awful, as we have always heard that
workdays are supposed to be. This had never been the case for Dexter; I have
always kept busy and artificially cheerful in my job, and never watched the
clock or complained. Perhaps I had enjoyed work because I was conscious of the
fact that it was part of the game, a piece of the Great Joke of Dexter putting
one over and passing for human. But a really good joke needs at least one
other in on it, and since I was alone now, bereft of my inner audience, the
punch line seemed to elude me.
I plodded manfully through the morning, visited a corpse downtown, and then
came back for a pointless round of lab work. I finished out the day by
ordering some supplies and finishing a report. As I was tidying up my desk to
go home, my telephone rang.
"I need your help," my sister said brusquely.
"Of course you do," I said. "Very good of you to admit it."
"I'm on duty until midnight," she said, ignoring my witty and piquant sally,
"and Kyle can't get the shutters up by himself."
So often in this life I find myself halfway through a conversation and
realizing I don't know what I'm talking about. Very unsettling, although if
everybody else would realize the same thing, particularly those in Washington,
it would be a much better world.
"Why does Kyle need to get the shutters up at all?" I asked.
Deborah snorted. "Jesus Christ, Dexter, what do you do all day? We've got a
hurricane coming in."
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I might well have said that whatever else I do all day, I don't have the
leisure to sit around and listen to the Weather Channel. Instead, I just said,
"A hurricane, really. How exciting. When did this happen?"
"Try to get there around six. Kyle will be waiting," she said.
"All right," I said. But she had already hung up.
Since I speak fluent Deborah, I suppose I should have accepted her telephone
call as a kind of formal apology for her recent pointless hostility. Quite
possibly she had come to accept the Dark Passenger, especially since it was
gone. This should have made me happy. But considering the day I had been
having, it was just one more splinter under the fingernail for poor
Downtrodden Dexter. On top of that, it seemed like sheer effrontery for a
hurricane to pick this moment for its pointless harassment. Was there no end
to the pain and suffering I would be forced to endure?
Ah well, to exist is to wallow in misery. I headed out the door for my date
with Deborah's paramour.
Before I started my car, however, I placed a call to Rita, who would be very
nearly home now by my calculations.
"Dexter," she answered breathlessly, "I can't remember how much bottled water
we have and the lines at Publix are all the way out into the parking lot."
"Well then we'll just have to drink beer," I said.
"I think we're okay on the canned food, except that beef stew has been there
for two years," she said, apparently unaware that anyone else might have said
something. So I let her rattle on, hoping she would slow down eventually. "I
checked the flashlights two weeks ago," she said. "Remember, when the power
went out for forty minutes? And the extra batteries are in the refrigerator,
on the bottom shelf at the back. I have Cody and Astor with me now, there's no
after-school program tomorrow, but somebody at school told them about
Hurricane Andrew and I think Astor is a little frightened, so maybe when you
get home you could talk to them? And explain that it's like a big thunderstorm
and we'll be all right, there's just going to be a lot of wind and noise and
the lights will go out for a little while. But if you see a store on the way
home that isn't too crowded be sure to stop and get some bottled water, as
much as you can get. And some ice, I think the cooler is still on the shelf
above the washing machine, we can fill it with ice and put in the perishables.
Oh-what about your boat? Will it be all right where it is, or do you need to
do something with it? I think we can get the things out of the yard before
dark, I'm sure we'll be fine, and it probably won't hit here anyway."
"All right," I said. "I'll be a little late getting home."
"All right. Oh-look at that, the Winn-Dixie store doesn't look too bad. I
guess we'll try to get in, there's a parking spot. Bye!"
I would never have thought it possible, but Rita had apparently learned to
get by without breathing. Or perhaps she only had to come up for air every
hour or so, like a whale. Still, it was an inspiring performance, and after
witnessing it, I felt far better prepared to put up shutters with my sister's
one-handed boyfriend. I started the car and slid out into traffic.
If rush-hour traffic is utter mayhem, then rush-hour traffic with a hurricane
coming is end-of-the-world, we're-all-going-to-die-but-you-go-first insanity.
People were driving as if they positively had to kill everyone else who might
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come between them and getting their plywood and batteries. It was not a
terribly long drive to Deborah's little house in Coral Gables, but when I
finally pulled into her driveway I felt as if I had survived an Apache manhood
ordeal.
As I climbed out of the car, the front door of the house swung open and
Chutsky came out. "Hey, buddy," he called. He gave me a cheerful wave with the
steel hook where his left hand used to be and came down the walkway to meet
me. "I really appreciate the help. This goddamned hook makes it kind of tough
to put the wing nuts on."
"And even harder to pick your nose," I said, just a little irritated by his
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