Hurricane House Read Online Free PDF Page B

realizing my rudeness. “Oh, sorry. How are you Victor?”
    “I feel good, but the weather’s not doing so well.”
    “So I hear. Are you in Dolphin?” I crossed my fingers.
    “Yeah. What’s up?”
    “I’m at home in Gerry, Alabama, and I need someone to board up my beach places.”
    “And you’re hoping that someone is yours truly?”
    “Yes, if you’ll be so kind. I know it’s a lot to ask. My places are next door to each other on Blue Heron Way, not far from yours.”
    “Numbers five and seven, right?”
    “Right,” I said, while standing at the picture window and watching the rain rippling Lake Gerry. Pines arched in the wind. I looked for Adam’s face to appear again.
    On Victor’s end, I heard the Gulf roaring. “Boards, sandbags, supplies are in the storage sheds out back,” I said, raising my voice so he could hear above the noise of the storm.
    “You’ll owe me.”
    Not a bad thing to owe Victor, great-looking, fortyish, about six-two, an adorable cleft in his chin, thick dark hair, cut short the last time I saw him. “I promise to return the favor someday.”
    “Buy me a drink. We’ll call it even.”
    “Any evacuation yet?”
    “Not officially, but the ‘disaster-casters’ on the Weather Channel have everybody spooked. Looks like a ghost town here.”
    “Are you planning to evacuate?”
    “Noooo.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Why? My house is a storm shelter.”
    I pictured Victor’s dome home. I’d never been inside, but an article in Dolphin Living said the opening in the center of his house accommodated flood surges. As a kid, I once drew a picture of a giant star bumping into the bottom of the sun and called it “The Martian House.” My drawing looked like Victor’s home.
    “I’m storing my wheels at a friend’s place farther inland. Don’t want to be stranded when the claims start pouring in. Call me mercenary.”
    “You’re not mercenary, Vic. You’re Santa Claus.” I thought about Dad. He used to say CAT work was like playing Santa Claus and after Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida in 1992, Dad asked me to work with him. I’d felt honored. What a great opportunity to learn from the best.
    “Now that’s a new one.”
    “That’s what my Dad used to say about being a CAT.” “Sounds like a great guy and mentor.”
    “Yes, he was. I would give anything to play Santa with Dad again, like in Liberty City after Hurricane Andrew hit. I can still hear that Bahamian man saying, ‘The Lord brought you to me.’ The hurricane destroyed the man’s home, but he felt blessed for evacuating in time with his most precious possessions, photos of his eleven kids, all with college degrees and good jobs.” Talking to Victor, I had a flashback of Dad giving me a framed copy of Lou Gehrig’s farewell address at Yankee Stadium. On the back, he wrote, “Wish I had more time to play Santa Claus.” Until then, I was in denial. I didn’t want to believe Dad had the same disease.
    “I’d rather call a spade a spade. I’m mercenary.”
    I laughed. If Victor wanted to call himself “mercenary,” let him. And if he wanted to stay for the storm, let him. Victor knew what a category four or five would do, and if he thought he could survive the storm in his dome house, so be it.
    He wasn’t a dummy. He’d created his own CAT software, allowing him to process claims in a jiffy. “Lion CAT,” he called it. He’d given me a copy. I was amazed at the boost in productivity. I wrote twenty-four claims a day after Hurricane Opal devastated Paradise Isle, Dolphin and the entire peninsular in 1995.
    When Ivan struck the Panhandle in 2004, Victor gave me “a new and improved version.” Using the new program, I filed 175 claims a week. After Katrina hit, I got too busy to count the claims. “I suppose computer geniuses who create their own CAT software are entitled to be mercenary,” I said.
    “You’re making me blush or maybe I’m blushing at the view. Roxanne Trawler is