4 Shelter From The Storm by Tony Dunbar

both idiots,” she whispered.
    “No, we are the wise ones,” Hossein said, gunning his engine to plow through a long lake that stretched the length of the block.
    A huge wave washed over the windows, frightening Collette so much she almost jumped across the seat into Bradley’s arms. She caught herself just in time.
    “Whoa,” Hossein cried when he realized that his front wheels were not responding to the steering wheel.
    Like an old expiring beast, the engine coughed, bucked, sputtered and died. The Cadillac floated on a few feet and stopped.
    “Oh, no,” Hossein moaned.
    “Are we stuck?” Bradley asked.
    Collette wiped the fog off the glass to try to figure out where they were.
    “I think this is Calhoun Street,” she announced.
    It was a residential block crowded with shotgun houses built close to the sidewalk. People were hanging out on the porches of some of them watching it rain. Now they were watching the stranded White Cloud Cadillac.
    Hossein tried the ignition but got no more than a red light on the dashboard.
    “Oh, no, very bad,” he crooned again.
    “Wow, this looks like a really crummy neighborhood,” Bradley reported. “What the hell are we gonna do?”
    “Look!” Collette exclaimed, pointing to their feet where the blue carpet was being stained a deep indigo by water seeping in from below.
    “There’s like two feet of water out there,” Bradley estimated.
    Hossein looked forlornly at the brown faces watching them from the porches.
    “Oh, no,” he groaned miserably and pounded his fists on the steering wheel. His banging was drowned out by the din the rain made beating down on the car’s roof.

CHAPTER XI
    Ignorant of his daughter’s plight, Tubby relaxed when his client walked out of his office at 4 o’clock. Touched by her story but glad to be rid of her, he waved and went back to his desk to stare at the downpour outside the window. He toyed with the $2,000 check she had given him as a retainer and thought it was going to be hell driving home.
    Once he got there, however, a warm house and a big pot of chili he had made on Saturday afternoon from his special recipe awaited him. He might catch a basketball game on TV or track down his friend Raisin Partlow and see what he had on his mind for Fat Tuesday. He could take care of Mrs. Lostus’s problem on Wednesday, if he could find a judge, that is.
    “Mr. Dubonnet?”
    He jumped and came close to injuring his nose where he had pressed it against the window glass.
    “The elevators don’t seem to be working,” Mrs. Lostus announced in a soft voice.
    Neither were the phones, it turned out.
    This had happened before in the Place Palais building, and it had taken a long time to get fixed. On a holiday, the outlook was dismal.
    “How about a drink?” Tubby suggested.
    “Well, maybe a Coke,” she said.
    “I’m having something stronger,” Tubby said. He opened the small oaken cabinet beside his sofa that hid a bar and extracted a bottle of W. L. Weller with a couple of inches left in it.
    “Not much of a party,” he said, opening her can of Coke and pouring it over ice.
    With a faint wheeze and a click, the air conditioning shut down.
    A wave washed against the window, and it visibly vibrated.
    “At least we’ve got lights,” he said.
    They flickered.
    “Who would think life could be so complicated,” she added.
    Tubby knocked back his drink and collected his briefcase.
    “C’mon,” he said. “There’s nothing to do but start walking down the stairs. Maybe the elevators are working on another floor.”
    “Okay, but my feet aren’t so good. I’ve got a fungus in my big toenail.” She made that point again after they had opened the door marked “Emergency Exit” which let them into the bare concrete stairwell and descended two flights.
    “Just forty-one more to go.” Tubby tried to cheer her up.
    * * *
    Nothing had ever seemed so monotonous. Nothing had ever taken so long. Mrs. Lostus held tight to the handrail