Page 51 of No Judgements

“Have you seen it out there?” He pointed in the directionof the street. “There’re trees and power lines down all over the place.”

“I know that, Ed. A car couldn’t make the drive. But a scooter could. That’s why it’s called a scooter. It scoots around hazards like that.” I had no idea if this was true, but it sounded good.

“And I do know what a downed power line looks like,” I continued. “So I’ll avoid them.”

Ed looked at me long and hard. He hadn’t shaved that morning, which was unusual for Ed, and showed the agitated state of his emotions. Ed always arrived at the Mermaid each morning freshly shaved and wearing a neatly pressed Mermaid Café T-shirt, in jeans, never shorts, out of respect for his position as owner, despite the heat outside or in the kitchen.

“Well, I’m not going to give you gas for that,” he said, finally. “That’d be like giving you gas to kill yourself. And later on I’m gonna need your help. I hafta go down to the café and open it up and start feeding folks there. There’s gonna be a lotta hungry people who stayed and didn’t prepare properly, and it’s gonna be our responsibility to take care of them. Can’t count on FEMA to do it. Might take days until they get here, if at all. And I gotta start getting rid of food before it rots. Don’t have a generator over at the Mermaid. That’s probably something I shoulda done, instead of investing in one here.”

His gaze flicked in the direction of the house’s generator,which I could hear grinding away over by the pool table (which had miraculously remained intact; it was too heavy to have been blown over by the wind, though the cover was gone, the green felt now sodden and covered in leaves and other storm debris).

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be happy to come back and help you with that. Just as soon as I’ve found your nephew.”

Chapter Nineteen

Never venture outside after a storm until local authorities have deemed it safe. Hidden hazards such as damaged electrical equipment can cause life-threatening injuries.

Ed Hartwell threw back the door to his toolshed—the one next to which he’d built the rabbit hutch—and revealed he’d filled almost the entire thing with red plastic canisters of gasoline.

“Wow,” I said, eyeing them. “I’m really glad I didn’t know about this during the storm.”

He didn’t understand why I found the idea of one hundred gallons of fuel sitting in a wood shed during hundred-mile wind gusts upsetting.

“Why?” He grabbed one of the five-gallon canisters. “It’s totally safe. Unless somebody came out here and smoked.”

The problem was, people had been out there smoking during the hurricane party. The canisters had to have been there then, and Ed had never said a word.

I thought it better not to mention this. What was done was done.

After cleaning the leaves and mud off my motorbike, then topping it off with fuel, Ed had a few pieces of parting advice for me.

“Anyone waves to you, don’t stop,” he said. “No matter how desperate they look for help. They’re probably only after your bike.”

“Jeez, Ed,” I said. “This is Little Bridge, notThe Walking Dead. Do you really think that’s going to happen?”

“It might,” he said. “That’s why, just in case, you might want to bring this along.”

He rolled up a pants leg and revealed that he wore an ankle holster. Tucked inside was a snub-nosed .22.

I recoiled at the sight of it.

“Ed. No. No way.”

Of course I’d heard the rumors that Ed Hartwell walked around armed. For what other reason, Angela often argued, would a sixty-five-year-old man in reasonably good health wear a fanny pack, if not to hold a small pistol? His wallet, keys, and cell phone weren’t in it. We could clearly see the outlines of those things in the back pockets of his jeans.

We knew that ever since Wilhelmina, when the Mermaid’s cash register and meat slicer had been looted, Ed had begun keeping a pistol strapped beneath the counter, near the pie window display.

I’d been told, however, that he’d never had occasion touse it, due to the frequency with which members of law enforcement dined at the Mermaid.

But now I had incontrovertible proof that Angela was right: Ed was packing heat, only not in his “bum bag,” as the British tourists we frequently served referred to fanny packs, but in an ankle holster.

“Ed,” I said. “I’m literally only going across town. I do not need a gun.”

“Do you know how to fire one?” he asked, ignoring me.

The funny thing was, I did. You did not grow up the daughter of Judge Justine and a Manhattan defense attorney without, at some point, being taken to a gun range and offered target lessons by one of their well-meaning if dodgy clients. My dad, in particular, had defended some fairly reprehensible individuals—old-school mafiosos, dirty politicians, Russian mobsters, hired killers.

But that didn’t mean I hadn’t enjoyed the lessons. Especially the part where everyone had praised me for turning out to be an excellent shot. Something about my hand-eye coordination.