Insane City (9 page)

relieved when he opened the wallet. “My money’s gone,” he said.

“And where’s our suitcases?” said Kevin.

“The Russians must have taken them,” said Big Steve. “Maybe we should go back to the hotel, try to

get our stuff back.”

“No,” said Marty, shaking his head violently. “We go back there, half naked and wrecked, we’re

gonna get arrested. We’ll miss the wedding.”

“So what do we do?”

“We have to get to the hotel. But first I need pants.”

“You can wear Steve’s shirt.”

“I don’t need a shirt. I need pants.”

“I mean wear his shirt on your legs.”

“Why
my
shirt?” said Big Steve.

“Because my shirt’s too small, and besides if I give it to him, I’m down to just my underwear.”

“I don’t believe this,” said Big Steve, pulling his knit shirt off over his head. He handed it to Marty,

who turned it over and, with some effort, managed to get his bare legs into the sleeves. He pulled the

bottom of the shirt above his waist and said, “OK?”

“Your balls are hanging out the neckhole,” said Kevin.

Marty reached down and tucked them in.

“I can never wear that shirt again,” said Big Steve.

They started moving away from the sirens, Marty walking awkwardly, trying to keep his testicles

inboard.

“This is bad,” said Kevin.

“We should’ve taken the hotel shuttle,” said Big Steve.

9

Seth was awakened by a cold sensation on his legs. It took him a few seconds to realize it

was the Atlantic Ocean.

“Shit,” he said, sitting up quickly, an act that he instantly regretted.

When he’d lain down on the sand, the water had been a safe distance away; he’d planned to stay

there for just a minute, clear his mind. But he’d fallen asleep to the whoosh and hiss of the waves coming

and going, coming and going. Apparently, thanks to the tide, there had been more coming than going; his

shoes and pants legs were soaked.

He groaned and pushed himself backward, higher up on the beach. He put his head in his hands as his

brain rebooted, the firing neurons recovering, one by one, the unpleasant facts from which sleep had

briefly liberated him.

FACT: There was a stripper—a large stripper—in his hotel room.

FACT: She wanted $200 cash.

FACT: Plus a tip.

FACT: She had a boyfriend whom Seth was not keen to meet.

FACT: Seth’s suitcase was missing somewhere in Miami.

FACT: In the suitcase was the wedding ring Seth was supposed to place on Tina’s finger at the

wedding.

FACT: Which was
in two days
.

Here Seth frowned, realizing that the night was over and it was now Saturday. His neurons then

issued the following:

CORRECTION: The wedding was
tomorrow
.

FACT: The person currently in charge of locating the suitcase was a man about whom Seth knew

nothing other than that he went around carrying an enormous snake.

FACT: Seth was completely fucked.

He sucked in a lungful of sea air, exhaled, did it a few more times, trying to clear his head, trying to

think
. The first order of business, he decided, was to get rid of the stripper. He’d go to the ATM, get the

money, get her out of there. He should have done that already. He’d been
trying
to do that when he ended

up sharing Meghan’s joint, which was idiotic. He had to stop being an idiot.

The suitcase was trickier. He’d call the bar . . . what was it called? . . . the Clevelander. Maybe

they’d have the suitcase. Why wouldn’t they? They probably would. He’d call them and he’d get it back

and he’d have the ring, and Tina would never have to know it’d been missing.

Seth was starting to feel a little better. Maybe he wasn’t
completely
fucked. Maybe he could make

this work. He just needed to pull himself together, stop being an idiot, focus on the task at hand, the task of

being the groom. No more distractions. No more Marty bullshit.

Focus.

With another groan, Seth got to his feet, brushing sand from his pants. In front of him, far out over the

Atlantic, the black night sky was just starting to lighten to a dark gray. Seth turned to face the massive

floodlit form of the Ritz-Carlton. He started trudging, his shoes squishing, toward the wooden walkway

that led from the beach to the hotel lawn.

He heard a high-pitched sound and stopped, cocking his head. His first thought was that it was a

seagull. He heard it again, and it didn’t sound like a seagull. It sounded like a person, crying out in a

voice hoarse with desperation.

It was coming from the ocean.

Seth stumbled down the beach to the water, peering into the darkness. The cry came again, from his

left. He turned that way and saw something carried in the waves—a low silhouette. Another cry.

“Hello!” shouted Seth at the shape. “Is somebody there?”

A larger wave came, lifting the shape and tumbling it toward Seth. He saw now that it was a boat,

upside down.

With a child clinging to it.

Seth plunged forward into the waves, stumbled and fell headfirst as the bottom dropped away

suddenly beneath his feet. He got up, sputtering, and sloshed toward the boat, breasting a wave, then

another.

He reached the boat and grabbed it, trying to steady it in the waves. He was on the opposite side

from the boy, who was dark-skinned, gaunt, shivering in a soaked T-shirt. He was holding tight to the

ridge along the boat’s keel with one hand. His eyes were wide with terror.

Seth reached across to the boy and said, “Come on!”

The boy shook his head. He said something Seth didn’t understand.

“Come
on
!” said Seth, reaching. The boy shook his head again. Another big wave made the boat rise,

then settle. Seth, holding on to the boat, sloshed around the submerged bow, his intent being to grab the

boy. But when he got to the other side he saw why the boy had refused to let go: there was another person

with him, a woman. The boy was holding on to her dress with his other hand. Her head was barely above

water. She didn’t seem to be moving.

“Oh God,” said Seth. He put his arms around the woman and lifted her farther out of the water. As he

did, he realized she was holding yet another person. A baby.

“Oh God,” said Seth again.

The boy let go of the keel and slid into the water with Seth, still holding the woman’s dress.

Together they carried her and the baby to the beach. Seth did most of the work; the boy could barely walk.

The woman, like the boy, was extremely thin. To Seth her body felt like a bundle of sticks. When the

water was knee-deep, he scooped her up and carried her in front of him the way a groom carries a bride

across the threshold. Her head lolled sideways; neither she nor the baby made a sound.

Seth thought they were dead.

He carried the woman onto the beach, dropped to his knees and carefully laid her on her back on the

sand. She was still clasping the baby to her chest. The boy crouched next to her, tugging at her dress,

pleading in what sounded to Seth like French. The woman did not respond. The boy’s tone became more

urgent, his words rising to a wail. Seth’s still-foggy brain raced to remember something,
anything
, about

first aid for drowning victims.

Blow into her mouth.

Seth leaned close to the woman’s face. In the early-morning light, her lips were a ghastly gray.

Pinch her nostrils shut.

Hesitantly, he put his hand on her nose and squeezed it. He put his mouth on hers. Her skin was cold.

She’s dead.

He blew into her mouth, pulled his mouth away, waited a second, blew into her mouth again.

You don’t know what you’re doing. She’s dead.

The boy was sobbing now, gripping the woman’s dress with both hands.

Seth inhaled, blew into the woman’s mouth again, paused.

He heard a moan. But not from the mother. From the baby.

The boy heard it, too. Quickly he snatched the baby, untangling it from the woman’s arms. The baby

started crying, its high-pitched squalls mingling with the boy’s sobs.

Seth inhaled and leaned down to the woman again, putting his lips on hers, blowing his breath into

her.

He felt her move, heard her make a retching sound. He pulled his head back as she jerked violently

and vomited water, an astonishing quantity. The boy, still holding the baby, started shouting. The woman

rolled on her side, vomited even more water. Her eyes opened. She looked at Seth, her expression fearful.

“It’s OK,” said Seth. “It’s OK.”

The woman looked around frantically. Her eyes fell on the boy and the baby. With a wail she

reached for them, grabbing the boy, pulling him and the baby close, the three of them crying, two of them

out of joy.

Seth watched for a few moments, then touched the woman’s arm. She looked at him warily.

“I’ll go get you some help,” he said. “Stay here. I’ll be right back, OK?”

The woman’s expression was uncomprehending. Seth stood and made a
Stay here
gesture. He rose

and ran up the beach toward the walkway. Ahead, up on the lawn, he saw a hotel maintenance worker

holding a rake.

“Hey!” Seth yelled.

The man looked his way.

“I need help!” Seth shouted. “Some people almost drowned!”

The man dropped his rake and trotted toward Seth.

“Over here,” said Seth, leading the man down the beach.

The woman was still holding the boy and the baby. She was still crying but calmer now, trying to

quiet the baby. She looked up as Seth and the worker approached. Her eyes focused on the worker, whose

skin, like hers, was dark.

He said something to her, not in English. She answered in a flood of words, interrupted by choking

sobs. The man said something else; another long answer.

“What’d she say?” said Seth.

“She is from Haiti,” said the man, pronouncing it
A
-tee. “She is looking for her sister.”

“OK,” said Seth, “but maybe we need to get her to a hospital?”

The man studied Seth for a few seconds, then said, “She does not want to go to the hospital.”

“Why not? They can help her.”

“Yes, they can help her, and then she will have to go back to Haiti.”

Seth looked out at the pathetic little boat rolling in the surf upside down.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yes,” said the man.

“Then what does she want to do?” said Seth.

The man talked with the woman again.

“She wants to find her sister,” he said. “Her sister lives here, in Miami.”

“Where?”

“She doesn’t know the address. She had it on a paper in her pocket, but she lost that in the sea. She

was supposed to meet her sister, but the men who were supposed to bring her here did not take her to the

meeting place. They just put her in that boat.”

“Can we call the sister?”

“She doesn’t have a phone.”

“Then how can she find her?”

“She told me her sister’s name. When I get off from work, I can ask some people in Miami. Maybe

they will know where to find her.”

“Can she go home with you? While she tries to find her sister.”

“That is not possible,” said the man.

“Why not?”

“I live here on the hotel grounds, in worker housing.”

“Shit.” Seth looked at the woman, crying softly, shivering, holding the baby. The boy was clinging to

her dress.

“She can’t stay here on the beach,” said Seth.

“No,” said the man. “The police will take her if she stays here.”

Seth stared at the woman for a few moments. He ran his hands through his hair.

“I don’t believe this,” he said.

The man said nothing.

“What’s your name?” Seth asked the man.

“Juste,” said the man. “Carl Juste.”

“I’m Seth,” said Seth sticking out his hand. Carl shook it.

“OK, Carl,” Seth said. “I have a room here in the hotel. A big room. Please tell her . . . what’s her

name, anyway?”

Carl spoke to the woman, then said, “Her name is Laurette.”

“OK. Tell Laurette she can come up to my room for now. I’ll try to find somebody who can help her.

Meanwhile you can find her sister. Tell her that, OK?”

Carl spoke to Laurette. She became agitated, her voice rising again.

“What’s the matter?” said Seth.

“She’s afraid you will call the police,” said Carl. “She is afraid she will be sent back to Haiti.”

“Tell her I promise I won’t call the police.”

After more agitated conversation, Carl said, “She says, please, you must not tell anybody.
Anybody.