"Nothing looks familiar," Sam Zehedi complained, trying to keep the lights of the station wagon in sight. He stole a look at the dashboard. Forty-two miles they'd come! Backtracking where the bridge was washed out, taking a shortcut that had turned out impassable, getting lost on the country roads down toward the river—forty-two miles, and they'd started out three miles from town. There was a mile marker right in front of the store....
No, not any more there wasn't. Sam Zehedi got a sudden cramp in his belly thinking about it. The important thing was whether the insurance covered it or not. He had the impression that he was covered for everything from artillery fire by the Argentine army to glacier damage; but that was a long time ago when he signed that check for the policy, and he couldn't remember what it said about floods. Of course, he told himself valiantly, that guy in the car was nuts; the store couldn't have been just washed away. It was just that it was so dark and you couldn't see through the rain from as close as you dared to get in the car. Probably there was water in it, sure—but was that so bad? Look at those people in Missouri and places like that, they go through this every year.
He thought of the new freezer, not yet paid for, and moaned.
Mickey Groff snapped: "Are you sick? Want me to drive?"
Sam Zehedi swallowed hard. "I'm okay," he said. And he concentrated on the twin red lights ahead of him, the beating raindrops that slipped into the cones of the headlights and out again faster than the eye could follow. He concentrated on the feel of the gas pedal, feeding the gas delicately. You're driving, he told himself. So drive and don't worry.
But in less than five minutes he humbly asked Groff, "You know anything about insurance?"
"Some," Groff said reluctantly. He could guess what was coming.
"Well, to tell you the truth I don't remember what my policy on the store was like. Fire, of course, and extended coverage. That means water damage, doesn't it?"
"I'm afraid not," Groff told him, feeling rotten. "Under some special circumstances, yes—but what's back there, no. If it were primarily windstorm damage with water damage secondary—for instance, if wind tore your roof off and rain ruined your stock, you could collect. But nobody's covered against—flood."
The word was out in the open at last. Zehedi choked back a sob. You're driving. So drive.