I would never have thought it possible, but Rita had apparently learned to get by without breathing. Or perhaps she only had to come up for air every hour or so, like a whale. Still, it was an inspiring performance, and after witnessing it, I felt far better prepared to put up shutters with my sister's one-handed boyfriend. I started the car and slid out into traffic.

If rush-hour traffic is utter mayhem, then rush-hour traffic with a hurricane coming is end-of-the-world, we're-all-going-to-die-but-you-go-first insanity. People were driving as if they positively had to kill everyone else who might come between them and getting their plywood and batteries. It was not a terribly long drive to Deborah's little house in Coral Gables, but when I finally pulled into her driveway I felt as if I had survived an Apache manhood ordeal.

As I climbed out of the car, the front door of the house swung open and Chutsky came out. "Hey, buddy," he called. He gave me a cheerful wave with the steel hook where his left hand used to be and came down the walkway to meet me. "I really appreciate the help. This goddamned hook makes it kind of tough to put the wing nuts on."

"And even harder to pick your nose," I said, just a little irritated by his cheerful suffering. But instead of taking offense, he laughed. "Yeah. And a whole lot harder to wipe my ass. Come on. I got all the stuff out in back."

I followed him around to the back of the house, where Deborah had a small overgrown patio. But to my great surprise, it was no longer overgrown. The trees that had hung over the area were trimmed back, and the weeds growing up between the flagstones were all gone. There were three neatly pruned rosebushes and a bank of ornamental flowers of some kind, and a neatly polished barbecue grill stood in one corner.

I looked at Chutsky and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I know," he said. "It's maybe a little bit gay, right?" He shrugged. "I get real bored sitting around here healing, and anyway I like to keep things neatened up a little more than your sister." "It looks very nice," I said.

"Uh-huh," he said, as if I really had accused him of being gay. "Well, let's get this done." He nodded toward a stack of corrugated steel leaning against the side of the house-Deborah's hurricane shutters. The Morgans were second-generation Floridians, and Harry had raised us to use good shutters. Save a little money on the shutters, spend a lot more replacing the house when they failed.