by Rex Bolt
“You definitely didn’t,” Ralph said, nodding.
Finch raised a hand again. “Before we hear what Christopher has to offer, I will say, from personal experience -- positive and negative -- that often the first incarnation of an idea works best.”
“What I think you’re getting at,” Ned said, “is like those achievement tests in school. If your first inclination is B, then don’t over-think it into D.”
“Exactly,” Finch said. “James Joyce would work all day trying to get one sentence just so. Marcel Proust, for one, could write half a dozen chapters in the same time.”
This ground any momentum to a halt, Chris afraid Finch was going to continue on this tangent, especially if anyone prompted him further.
“Okay we get it,” Chris said. “My deal, well, here goes, what can you do.”
‘My character is Archie. That’s me disguised, I guess is how we’re working it. Archie doesn’t have a lot of friends so he joins a chess club. This is in Kansas City, where he ends up after running out of gas, while running away from alimony payments in Oregon. He’s the worst chess player in the club but that’s okay, because he starts getting more attention -- people trying to help him -- than if he was the best player. One guy in particular tries to help him the most, gives him a couple books on basic strategy, and Chris thanks the guy by inviting him and his family to a pool party. (He doesn’t own a house of course, it’s an apartment complex, but still.) So the guy does show up with his family, but one of his kids is wild and mixes it up with another kid in the pool who lives in the complex. The other kid’s dad comes down to the pool and Archie’s chess guest dad confronts this guy. By now some drinking’s been going on, at least with the chess dad, and the two of them kind of bear hug and plunge into the pool with their clothes on. Archie knows he should do something -- but he also wants to see how it unfolds, so he just sits there on the chaise lounge. And long story short, the one guy drowns.”
“Oh no, which guy?” Rosie said.
“The guy who lives there,” Chris said, “but let me finish. They think he drowns. They drag him out and lay him on the side of the pool, there’s a crowd by now, and some little guy pushes his way to the front and does something to guy’s chest, and stomach too, and son of a gun the guy spits out water and is okay.”
“That it?” Ned said.
“Almost. Archie thinks he recognizes the little guy, and that the guy’s been tailing him from Oregon. So the next day Archie tries to get back at the guy by asking his girlfriend out on a date. She refuses, so Archie gets in the car and moves on. Probably to Little Rock, Arkansas. That’s not clear yet.”
“Hmm,” Finch said finally. “Anyone?”
“Not really,” Holly said.
“No,” Ned said. “Except you used my part, the guy putting on the moves . . . But the dude’s own girlfriend, isn’t that kinda out of bounds?”
“Especially when he did you a favor and saved your friend,” Rosie said.
“Not his friend, necessarily, but I hear you,” Ralph said.
That was about it. Holly brought out the usual cookies that Chris assumed were part of these meet-up deals, and Rosie helped Finch bring six little cups of coffee back from the machine they had in the lobby, and everyone shot the breeze about trivial stuff -- the Dodgers outfield prospects after they traded Matt Kemp, the new regulations in Manhattan Beach where you had to walk your bike on select parts of the Strand because some guy got run over, a fourth ice cream shop opening in town and how was it going to make it.
“Well I have to say, this has been better than I expected,” Ned said. “You got me thinking different ways here.” And he thanked Finch and the others did too, including Ralph, and Finch asked Ralph if he wanted to contribute a novel idea of his own, even informally, and Ralph said no, but he’d take a rain check, and maybe next week.
Finch gave out the next assignment, which was to skip ahead and write the very final scene of your novels, where you finish it off with THE END.
“I must say, Terry,” Holly said, “that goes against the grain of your personal approach, does it not?”
“It does indeed,” Finch said, and he left it at that, and Chris figured that’s what a good instructor does sometimes, he keeps you off-balance, and that’s never the worst thing.
Chapter 2
It was around 9 when they got out of there and Chris supposed he could have talked someone into going for a drink, or even a bite to eat, since the cookies didn’t cut it . . . but no one asked him to do anything so why push it.
He didn’t quite feel like going home just yet either, so he drove downtown, got lucky with the parking, and walked down to the beach and did something he never did, which was take off his shoes and socks and stick his feet in the water.
There were actually a couple kids boogie boarding out there, using the light coming off the pier, and you had to give them credit . . . not to mention admire the carefree spirit of youth. You could try to recreate that shit at age 43, but it was never the same, was it.
This was his first taste of real spring down here. Stuff was flowering and you could smell it nice and sweet and pungent, and the air temperature hovered around a respectable 60 degrees all night long.
Also, no mosquitos, that was another plus. You could leave your windows wide open all the time, taste the ocean, no screens required.
After a while Chris walked up to Highland, and there was a brick stoop in front of one of the bistros, and he sat his ass down and took in the action, and it wasn’t bad, people were generally in good moods here, and there was always a little something going on that got your attention.
Right now there was an older woman and a younger guy, and they were standing on the corner jawing at each other, and they were both pretty sunburned, like they’d been hanging out at the beach all day and didn’t go home yet . . . and Chris couldn’t tell if they were seriously arguing or just kind of posturing, and then another guy comes around the corner who seems to know them, and this guy has a Tuxedo on . . . and now you have a three way thing going, and it’s getting pretty loud . . . and the woman turns to Chris and puts her hands on her hips and says, “What do you think, Buster?”
So the point was, it could be strange here but it was at least eventful, and Chris didn’t answer but got to wondering for the umpteenth time -- not about these three people necessarily -- but in general, what everyone does down here to make enough money to live here.
He didn’t have a handle on that. You of course had the USC alumni crowd occupying some of the houses in the hills, which you knew because on football game days they’d drape their cardinal and gold TROJAN banners off their balconies.
Then you clearly had big money -- we’re probably talking billionaires -- who’d taken modest beach houses and converted them to mini Greco-Roman palaces replete with columns and fountains, which didn’t fit at all -- and the thing there being, these folks never seemed to be around. Meaning it was their third or fourth or fifth house.
So fine. But the bread and butter Manhattan Beach folks, did they commute to high-end financial jobs in downtown LA . . . did they sit around at home in their slippers and miraculously make millions on the computer . . . were they trust fund babies . . .
And who cares, why was he obsessed with this repeatedly? Dang.
The misfit threesome took their argument across the street to the ice cream place and it was after 11 and Chris figured you call it a night, and Gee, he was a little stiff getting up, it must have been those flimsy folding chairs in Finch’s room . . . but he made it home okay.
Nothing going on by the pool -- there were a couple of new tenants, Canadian guys, and they liked to play cards out there but not tonight, which Chris wouldn’t have minded joining in on, and the fact was he wouldn’t have minded some socialization period, since Ken had now made a clean break.
What happened there, Monday in fact, the day after Mancuso informed Chris that Ken’s issue with the police had been resolved -- the kid shows up
in the morning, all business.
Chris wanted to ask him a few questions . . . starting with, Were you hiding out in Bolinas by chance, where I busted my tail like an idiot trying to find you, all based on a throwaway comment you made one time . . . but the timing didn’t seem appropriate and Ken simply gathered the few things he had left in the apartment and thanked Chris for the hospitality and told him he had a place now but would see him around.
No big hug, not even a handshake . . . and Chris admittedly thought it was over the top the few times Ken did get emotional and thanked him for stuff . . . but now you kind of hoped for a little of that, and you got zip.
And the fact was, Chris was pretty sure he didn’t want a roommate when he offered Ken the couch for a few nights back then until he got it together, but then Chris got used to it, and the kid did inject some life into the place, and now this week with the clean break, it was a little lonely around here. Chris was man enough to admit it.
He got in the recliner and hunted around on YouTube, and he found one he liked with a guy who rode his 4-wheeler on the dirt roads near Area 51 and mounted a camera on the handlebars -- and what else was new, you try other documentaries and themes and subjects but you mostly bring it back to the high desert in southern Nevada.
A storm was moving in on the guy and there was a bit of suspense, would he make it back on the 4-wheeler to his truck in time, and the Area 51 gate security people, which everyone called the ‘camo dudes’, were playing cat and mouse with him as well, and they were kind of scary, because they supposedly had the right to shoot you with no questions asked if you venture one inch over the barrier onto classified land, and the barrier extended up into the mountains but it wasn’t marked great, and you could picture some YouTube guy not paying attention, trying to get a good video capture, and venturing across it and getting shot.
He never did quite catch the resolution -- did the guy dodge the storm okay, did the security guys stop him at all, did he capture any video of unusual aircraft out there . . . and meanwhile you obviously knew the guy didn’t get shot, because how would you be watching this video.
So Chris dozed off before the conclusion, the laptop blaring away with the guy narrating . . . and he was in the perfect spot between slumber and deep sleep where everything was colorful and clear and simple, and (hopefully) pleasant dreams were brewing . . . and unfortunately the phone rang. And it was Ned.
“Uh,” Chris said, blinking his eyes hard. “You kinda caught me.”
“Take a minute,” Ned said.
“I’m good now,” Chris said, and he was going to ask what’s up, but a big yawn took over.
“Listen,” Ned said, “you mind giving me a hand with something?’
“Now?” A dumb question probably, but you hoped Ned meant help him powerwash the sidewalk tomorrow outside the Strand house. That kind of something. Which seemed unlikely.
Ned said, “Well yeah, next hour or so’d be good. If you can.”
“Sure I guess, no problem,” Chris lied, and Ned said they could grab a bite first, since that’s what Chris usually wants to do.
“Not urgent then, you’re saying,” Chris said.
“Sort of that,” Ned said. “But actually waiting might be a little better.”
This wasn’t making a lot of sense but Chris was alert enough where it didn’t seem like a good idea to ask too many specifics on the phone, and Ned said they could meet at The Kettle in twenty minutes.
The Kettle wasn’t exactly a go-to spot for Chris -- it was a little pricey and he leaned toward the few ethnic dives you could find in the south bay, but The Kettle was an institution down here, family owned apparently since 1973, and the place had barely changed since day one, and that was worth a lot.
Chris got there first and saw Ned out the window parking the SUV, and that was one good thing about getting dragged out of bed, or the recliner, at this ungodly hour . . . you could at least park.
Chris checked his watch and it was 10 to 2.
Ned came in and sat down, part of his all-smiles act on display, but not completely. He did give Chris a low five.
“You want my honest opinion?” Chris said. “You look kind of fucked up. Not booze-wise, necessarily. Maybe it’s just the time of day. Your biological clock ticking down.”
“You caught me,” Ned said, trying to smile, but again not pulling it off too well.
“Well . . . you wanna order something first? And then break it to me why we’re gathered here? . . . Or reverse it?”
“Order me a chef’s salad please,” Ned said. “I’ll be right back.”
And the waiter came, middle-eastern fellow, darn pleasant demeanor for having to work the graveyard shift, and Chris was tempted to ask him his secret, but you didn’t want to go too far off topic.
Ned came back. Chris wondered if he’d made a phone call pertaining to why they were here . . . and decided Jeez, stop assuming everything’s a big deal, and let the man take a simple leak.
The food came and Ned looked around and lowered his voice. “I had to take care of Ralph,” he said.
Chris had ordered the soup of the day and it was hot and he was blowing on it, and he froze, the spoon suspended in front of him.
Ned nodded. Chris said, “Take care of . . . like his bar tab -- his return flight itinerary -- you found him a woman for the night . . . you scheduled a yoga class for him in the morning? . . . Any of that kind of taking care of?”
“No.”
Ho-ly Toledo. Everything seemed fine and dandy at Finch’s earlier. Didn’t it?
You had to ask . . . the unfortunate question . . . “So where’s he at? Currently.”
Ned looked around again and leaned forward. “In the back.” Using his head to point out the window of The Kettle to the white Chevy Tahoe across the street.
Chris couldn’t help reacting to this one. If he wasn’t fully awake so far, he just got slapped.
He tried to get his own good look inside the SUV, hoping that all this would boil down to was Ralph was sitting in the thing, that he wasn’t hungry. But from the looks of it, no one was sitting, or laying back, on a seat in there either.
Ned picked up on Chris’s confusion, and said, “Tarp.”
And he pushed what was left of his chef’s salad away -- which was all of it -- and lit a cigaret.
Chris couldn’t think of anything to say, and he might not for a few minutes, so he figured you might as well at least stay busy -- while you were trying to wrap your head around this insane development -- and he finished his soup, and started in on Ned’s salad as well.
Finally Ned said, looking around again first, “I’m not sure where to stick him . . . Thought you might have some input, regards to that.”
Chris did have an idea actually, in fact it was shocking how clear-headed and effortlessly it came to him . . . especially with him being an innocent bystander in the matter and just now having this load dropped on him.
“You would think,” he said to Ned, “someone would typically -- how do they put it? . . .”
“Proceed with the end result in mind, you mean?” Ned said.
“Yeah.”
“You get that in the movies, at least,” Ned said.
“Meaning . . . real life, it happens less predictably, you’re saying?”
Ned nodded. “More spontaneous.”
They were both looking around like a couple of idiots before they spoke, and Chris did it again. “So you what . . . like, sott the guy?” Leaving out the h, not wanting to use the actual word.
“Wire,” Ned said. “Home Depot.”
You didn’t need to nitpick here, even though you were admittedly curious -- was the spontaneous part that he stopped at Home Depot, Ralph waiting in the parking lot, and when Ned came back he threw something on the back seat and proceeded up and around Ralph’s neck?
Or was it that Ned happened to have the roll of wire, a previous Home Depot purchase -- something unrelated to Ralph completely, maybe he had to tie bac
k some fencing on the upper patio of the Strand house -- and the spontaneous part was he noticed the roll laying back there and decided maybe he should use it on Ralph instead.
So the details really didn’t matter, the how and where. You still had the why.
Chris said, “I must admit, when you told me a New York fellow was in town -- in conjunction with giving me the good news that Kenny’s okay -- and I raised an eyebrow . . . you said ‘we’ll figure it out’. Like it was no big deal, and don’t worry about it . . . Then you’re best buddies. In the Nest, and you bring him to the writing business -- where he was actually pretty good by the way, some thoughtful comments.”
“He was,” Ned said. “But what can you do?”
What Ned was leaving out, obviously now, was despite all the backslapping and frivolity and Ralph seeming like an okay guy -- that it wouldn’t have ended well, in Ned’s view.
And Chris knew that included Ned looking out for his ass too, which you had to appreciate.
Chris said quietly, “Now there’s going to be some serious fallout. No?”
Ned said, equally quietly, “We already had that. That’s what’s laying in back.” Ned pointed to the SUV with his head again, and Chris had to admit the guy was right.
They were so caught up that they almost walked out of there without paying and the poor middle-eastern guy waiter had to tap Chris on the shoulder by the front door, and Chris only had a fifty on him but it didn’t seem like a great idea to use a credit card, you never know, so he handed it to the guy and said thanks.
Chris couldn’t help it when he got in the Tahoe, the first thing he did was take a whiff. And yeah, there was a blue tarp, starting in the way back and coming forward, a bit of a shape in there.
“Not yet,” Ned said. “But so . . . where to, do you think? . . . Any ideas on that?”
Chris said, “You know something, you’re normally pretty sure of yourself. Now you got me wondering, is that an act?”