Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 07 - Tubby Meets Katrina by Tony Dunbar

Author:Tony Dunbar [Dunbar, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery: Thriller - Lawyer - Hardboiled - Humor - New Orleans
ISBN: 1588382036
Publisher: NewSouth Books
Published: 2006-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

17

The evidence of civilization’s collapse was everywhere. Flowers would point out a plywood sign promising that looters will be shot, and Hope would point out a convenience store with all the plate glass smashed leaving empty shelves visible inside. Approaching the parish line they could see ahead a blockade of police vehicles, lights flashing. Flowers had his badge ready in his hand.

“Where are those guys from?” Tubby asked. One of the police cars was maroon with a white roof; the other was white.

“Beats me. Hello, officer,” Flowers said through the open window. He slowed and prepared to stop.

The middle-aged cop waved them through.

“Lexington, Kentucky, Sheriff’s Department,” Tubby read as they passed. “They didn’t seem too interested in us.”

“I guess we don’t look like looters,” Christine suggested.

“What’s a looter look like?”

They crossed the railroad tracks, and they were in. The city was drab, and trash was strewn everywhere. They stuck to the levee road, carefully navigating around pieces of tin and roof shingles, until they reached St. Charles Avenue where it ends at the river.

“Jeez, look at that!” Streetcar poles were down on the neutral ground. Trees were totally upended, their root balls taller than a bus. Muddy cars sat crookedly on the trolley tracks. The entire way to Tubby’s street they spied only one other moving vehicle, a pickup truck coming the other way on the Avenue, its windows smoked.

“I wonder who cleared all the trees off the street?” Tubby asked.

“The Corps of Engineers?” Flowers suggested.

It would be months before they learned that it had been one crazy freelance landscaper with a Bobcat.

“Let’s try Nashville Avenue,” Flowers said. His tires began crunching over branches when he made his left turn. There was a path of sorts down the middle of the pavement, as if other cars might have passed this way in the week since the hurricane. In a few more blocks they encountered the edge of the flood. Slowly, Flowers maneuvered into the water.

Power lines dangled from the poles.

“I think it’s receded some. We might be able to reach my house.”

They got close, about a hundred feet short. The water was only a few inches deep, but what stopped the parade was a magnolia tree lying across the street.

Tubby sighed and got out. The tide, now a pale sickly green, wet him to the ankles. The dog splashed happily into the water. Gamely, the three of them unloaded the truck and carried the provisions around the tree and onto Tubby’s porch. His whole tree-strewn lawn was now above the water line. The generator was the hardest item to transport since the two men had to keep from stumbling in tandem, but they got it done. Even the gas cans and the water purifier made the trip. Exhausted, they looked at the plastic Port-O-Let.

“Let’s just dump it here in the street. I’ll figure out how to get it later,” Tubby said.

“Nope,” Flowers declared. “We can do this. It will float, don’t you think?”

It did, a little bit, and eventually they had dragged it where they wanted it.

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