Lady Justice in the Eye of the Storm Page 6

  I turned off the TV and Maggie pulled the National Hurricane Website up on our cell phone. Sure enough, there was Hurricane Odile, poised to the hit the tip of the Baja peninsula dead on.

  “Oh crap,” Maggie muttered, “the battery’s almost dead. We’d better plug it in before we lose power.”

  Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “Maggie! We have to call the folks back home. If they see this on the news or read about it in the paper, they’ll be out of their minds with worry.”

  “You’re right,” she said, handing me the phone. “Call your Dad.”

  I dialed his number and got his voice mail. The same with Willie and the Professor. As a last resort, I got Jerry.

  “Yo! Jerry here.”

  “Jerry, it’s Walt. Where is everyone?”

  “They all went to a movie. You just caught me. I was heading to the comedy club. What’s up? How’s Cabo?”

  “What’s up is a hurricane. We’re caught right in the middle of it. We wanted you all to know we’re okay --- at least for now.”

  “Wow! A hurricane. That’s bizarre!”

  “No kidding.”

  “That reminds me of a joke. What did one palm tree say to the other when the hurricane was approaching? ---- Hang onto your nuts. We’re in for a big blow.”

  “Jerry!”

  At that moment, the lights went out and the phone died.

  Along with the total darkness, came the realization that we were thousands of miles from home in a strange land, cut off from the world as we knew it, huddled in a tiny room that was being pummeled by the 135 mile per hour winds of hurricane Odile.

  CHAPTER 8

  Maggie grabbed my hand.

  “What should we do now?”

  “Not much we can do,” I replied. “What time is it?’

  Maggie’s watch had a little button she could push to illuminate the dial.

  “It’s 7:30. Where’s the flashlight?”

  I remembered putting it on the dresser by the TV and fumbled my way across the room, feeling around until I found it.

  Clicking it on, the room filled with an eerie glow.

  “Better not use it unless we have to,” I said. “This may be our only light for a while. Anything you need to get?”

  She shook her head.

  “We’ve had quite a day,” I said. “Let’s just stretch out on the bed and try to get some rest.”

  Odile was howling like a banshee, but for the moment everything seemed pretty secure. The bed was on the far side of the condo away from the glass doors, and with my make-shift loveseat barrier, it seemed safe for the moment.

  We stretched out, side-by-side, holding hands. I clicked off the light and once again, we were plunged into total darkness.

  With no electricity and the drapes pulled shut, the blackness around us was absolute. The only other experience that came close to this was when Willie and I were trapped underground in a cave in the Missouri Ozarks.

  I had always heard when you lose one of your senses, the other ones become more acute, and that certainly seemed to be the case. With no visual cues, every nuance of sound seemed to be amplified. Every gust of wind and every bit of flying debris that battered the building registered with alarming clarity.

  Gradually, I noticed another sensation. When we lost our electricity, we lost our air conditioning as well. The temperature had been in the low to mid 90’s throughout the day and with the approaching storm, the humidity had to be close to 100%.

  With our room locked down tight, there was no air stirring whatsoever. I could sense the room temperature rising along with the humidity.

  It wasn’t long before sweat was oozing from every pore in my body. I touched Maggie’s arm and she was drenched as well.

  I was absolutely exhausted, but I never really slept. I would doze off, only to be aroused by the increasing fury of the storm.

  I had completely lost track of time when an unusually strong gust was followed by a frightening crash --- then another --- then another.

  The storm had intensified so much that the building was beginning to shake.

  The crashes had aroused Maggie and she was clinging to my arm.

  “Time to head to the bathroom,” I said, flipping on our little light.

  We gathered our pillows and retreated to our make-shift storm shelter. Maggie put two of the pillows on the plastic patio chair and I plopped one pillow on the toilet seat and the other against the shower wall.

  Before pulling the door closed, I glanced at Maggie’s watch. It was just ten o’clock. It had only been two and a half hours since we lost power, but it seemed like an eternity.

  Moments later, Maggie whispered, “Walt, I can’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Be in here with the door closed. It’s just so claustrophobic. I can’t stand it.”

  “But it’s totally dark. You can’t see the door, so what difference does it make if it’s open or closed?”

  “The difference is that I KNOW it’s closed. Please open it.”

  I flipped on the flashlight and opened the door. “Better now?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  I turned off the light and as I sat there in the dark, I could totally relate to what she was feeling. I had never considered myself claustrophobic until the time I woke up in a storage vault at the city morgue, compliments of a couple of goons who had put me on ice and left me for dead.

  It’s not a pretty feeling.

  Just when we thought that the storm couldn’t get any worse, it did.

  The building wasn’t just shaking, it was shuddering and the crashes that had driven us out of the bed were coming one after another.

  It was quite frightening to realize that a mere four inch concrete wall was all that was separating us from the fury of the hurricane.

  There was nothing to do but sit, think and listen to the storm raging outside. In one of these reflective moments, I was struck with the irony of our situation. The captain had sent us down here to keep us from being blown away by an angry mob and now there was a real possibility that we’d be blown away by Odile.

  Every so often, I would flip on the light momentarily just to break up the stifling darkness.

  Once when I turned it on, Maggie noticed that we were covered with white scaly specks. Then we noticed that each time the building shuddered, another wave of white scale came drifting down. The building was shaking so much that the ceiling above us was disintegrating.

  The first thing that popped into our heads was the collapse of the walkway at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City in 1981. One hundred and fourteen people were killed and it was the most deadly structural collapse in U.S. history until the twin towers tragedy in New York.

  I couldn’t help thinking of the two stories of concrete above us and wondered if we were about to become another statistic.

  Maggie had been hanging onto my leg since we retreated to the bathroom. Other than her initial claustrophobic episode, she hadn’t uttered a discouraging word, but each time there was another deafening crash or a particularly strong shudder, her fingers would close around my leg like a vise. There was no doubt in my mind that if we lived through this, I would be nursing a bruise for at least a week.

  Almost as bad as the crashing was the incessant howling. It was deafening and never stopped. It waned and waxed, but never stopped.

  As the low pressure from the eye approached, our ears were constantly popping.

  Finally, after a crash that was strong enough to rattle my teeth, she whispered, “Walt, I’m really scared.”

  “Yeah, me too. But look at it this way, in the last five years, you’ve been kidnapped by a crazy real estate agent, black gang-bangers, a religious nut and Hawaiian zealots. If you made it through all of that, this should be a piece of cake.”

  “You’re so comforting,” she replied, and gave my bruised leg another squeeze.

  That got me thinking of all the narrow escapes I had experienced since becoming a co
p. It’s one thing to cash in your chips in the line of duty --- to go out in a blaze of glory as a fallen hero. I could live with that.

  But now I was faced with the possibility of taking my last breath sitting on a crapper in a steamy hotel in Mexico, and that just wasn’t the way I wanted to go. I made up my mind to survive this damned hurricane one way or another.

  After about an hour scrunched up on the throne, my body was one big cramp. As uncomfortable as it was for me, I couldn’t imagine what Ox was experiencing. His 230 pound frame perched on the tiny toilet seat had to be excruciating.

  About midnight, when the storm was at its peak, I turned on the light and peeked out into the room. To my dismay, I saw that water was coming in from under the hallway door as well as the patio doors. In addition to the leaks at both ends of the condo, water was also dripping from the ceiling in the kitchen area.

  There was nothing I could do about the patio doors or the kitchen ceiling, but the hallway door was just outside the bathroom door and the last thing I wanted was for the bathroom, our only refuge, to flood.

  I grabbed the bath towels from the rack and stuffed them against the outside door which seemed to stem the tide for the moment.

  A half hour or so later, I checked again. The water had soaked through the towels and was headed our way.

  The only other thing I could think of that was bulky enough to soak up water was the fluffy bedspread.

  I snatched it off the bed and stuffed it on top of the soaked towels. It was large enough to cover the hall past the bathroom door. It was our last defense against the rising tide.

  As we sat in the dark bathroom, I noticed a dramatic shift in the storm’s direction.

  The bathroom wall was on the west side of the building and up till midnight, most of the crashing and banging had seemed to be directed against that west wall.

  After midnight, it seemed that the brunt of the storm had shifted to the east side of the building and now the glass sliding doors were getting the hardest hits.

  As I thought about it, it made sense.

  The winds of a hurricane are circular, so as the storm approached, the winds came from one direction and then when it passed, the winds would come from the opposite direction.

  That was both good news and bad news.

  The good news was the eye of the hurricane had probably passed over us. The bad news was I feared, that any moment, the glass doors would shatter under the barrage of debris, and the wind, rain and glass would fill our unit.

  It seemed like we held our breath for the next two hours. Around two in the morning, it seemed like the storm, while still raging, had decreased in intensity.

  In fact, it was almost like it was from 7:30 until we were forced to retreat to the bathroom at ten.

  Weary and cramped from sitting on the toilet and plastic chair for four hours, we decided to head back to our bed.

  Stepping out of the bathroom, we discovered that the entire floor of the condo, except for the bathroom, was covered with about an inch of water.

  We sloshed to the bed and found, thankfully, the bed itself was dry even though the floor beneath it was flooded.

  We peeled off our shoes and stretched out, our sweaty bodies aching from our cramped ordeal.

  I drifted off to sleep and when I awoke, a sliver of light was peeking through a fold in the drapes.

  I slipped on my shoes and waded to the sliding glass doors.

  Throwing the vinyl curtains aside, the scene before me took my breath away.

  There was nothing but devastation as far as the eye could see, and there was very little left standing of the Bel Air Resort.

  CHAPTER 9

  From our balcony, I could see the two fancy restaurants to the right and the resort reception area to the left. The roofs had collapsed on both structures leaving nothing but a pile of rubble.

  The pool, directly in front of our unit, which had been crystal clear yesterday, was now black as a sewage lagoon. An uprooted palm tree had fallen into the pool. Leaves and debris of all kinds floated on top. I hated to think about what might be lying on the murky bottom.

  It was quite obvious the palm trees had not heeded Jerry’s advice about holding onto their nuts. The big green orbs were everywhere.

  Our balcony, three stories high, was covered with sand and grit the storm must have lifted from the beach. In addition to the shredded palm fronds, huge chunks of red clay tile littered the balcony. I hadn’t paid particular attention before the storm, but now I noticed nearly every roof on every building had been constructed with the tiles, and now, pretty much all of them were missing.

  Then it all made sense. The continual crashing we heard through the night were the red clay tiles being ripped from the roofs, and propelled by the 130 mile per hour wind, they became guided missiles crashing into the building.

  Maggie joined me on the balcony and as she slipped her arm around my waist, I heard the breath catch in her throat as she viewed the devastation.

  “Walt, eighteen hours ago we were ordering lunch in that restaurant and now ---- .”

  “Yeah, I’d say there’s a really good chance that our ‘all inclusive’ meal plan was blown away by Mr. Odile.”

  It was 7:30, and as yet I hadn’t seen anyone else stirring.

  Then, a solitary figure emerged from beneath the rubble of the reception area. His demeanor, and the way he was surveying the damage made me think he might be Armando, the general manager.

  “I think that might be our contact. I need to touch base with him. I’ll be right back.”

  “Please be careful, Walt,” Maggie begged, grabbing my hand. “It could be really dangerous out there.”

  “I will,” I promised, giving her a peck on the cheek.

  I had just stepped out into the hallway when Ox appeared.

  “Hell of a night! Are you guys okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re still in one piece. Our unit is flooded but otherwise we’re in pretty good shape.”

  “Us, too. Where are you headed?”

  “I just saw a guy that I think might be Armando. I thought we should have a talk.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  The walkway to the stairwell looked much like our balcony, strewn with shredded palm fronds and shards of broken clay tile.

  The stairway took us to the parking lot on the street side of the resort. Pretty much every vehicle had been destroyed. Huge holes gaped in the safety glass windows where tiles and other debris had punched through like rounds from a .50 caliber machine gun.

  A blue vinyl porta-potty, blown from God knows where, had exploded on the sidewalk. When I spotted the toilet seat under the rubble, I said a silent ‘thank you.’ I had grumbled about having to sit on the crapper in my bathroom for four hours, but it could have been a whole lot worse.

  The driveway from the street into the resort was covered with so much debris that we were pretty much cut off from the outside world.

  The hotel lobby, where we were greeted with warm washcloths and chilled champagne just a day and a half ago, was completely in ruin. The roof had collapsed and there was just enough room along one wall to get into the heart of the complex.

  Gingerly, we tiptoed around the debris, and spotted the man we were looking for just outside of the one structure that hadn’t been totally destroyed.

  “Are you, by any chance, Armando?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m Walt Williams and this is George Wilson from the Kansas City Police Department. We’re supposed to help you find out who’s peddling drugs.”

  “Ahh, yes. My brother said you would be coming. Frankly, that problem is the least of my worries at the moment. I’m so sorry you were dragged into this mess. Are you and your families okay?”

  “We’re fine. Just a bit soggy and tired. So what happens now?”

  “I’m trying to round up as many of my staff as possible. Many of their homes were destroyed and they’re caring for their families. As soon as I have some help, we’ll
start cleaning up the debris from the walkways. We have food on site. Thankfully, the kitchen was not destroyed. I’ll do my best to have something for you all to eat later in the day. We’re very fortunate that our occupancy is very low. Not many people come to Cabo during hurricane season.”

  “What have you heard about the rest of the city?”

  “All I know is what I’ve seen for myself. Everything is pretty much like you see here --- totally destroyed. All the rest is just rumor. I’ve heard the airport is in shambles and completely shut down, but I can’t confirm that.”

  “So it’s possible that we’re going to be here for a while?”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  “And there’s food and water for everyone?”

  “At least for now.”

  At that moment, a woman emerged from the debris of the reception area.

  “That’s Maura, my second in command. I must go. We have much to do.”

  When he had gone, Ox gave a low whistle. “Sounds like we’re in deep doo doo, Partner.”

  “Armando was not very encouraging, that’s for sure. We’d better get back to the girls and do some planning. I think it’s time to shift into ‘survival’ mode.

  We retraced our steps through the lobby and found Matt and Heather and another young couple laughing and cutting up with open bottles of champagne.

  “Walt!” Matt said, holding up the bottle of bubbly. “How about a snort to help the four of us celebrate our honeymoons? We remembered seeing this stuff when we checked in. Given our current circumstances, I didn’t think the resort would be needing it.”

  The little mini-fridge that had kept the champagne cold was barely visible under the pile of rubble. Miraculously, the bottles had weathered the storm unscathed.

  “Uhhh, thanks anyway. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly my idea of a healthy breakfast and at my age, my constitution just couldn’t handle it. Besides, it looks like the four of you are doing a pretty good job. I’m guessing this will be a honeymoon you won’t soon forget.”

  “You got that right!”