by Toni Andrews
I hadn’t picked my phone up on the way out the apartment, either. I pointed to the fisherman, who had almost reached us. “Maybe he has one.”
The man drew up, out of breath and panting.
“Did…you…find…something?” he asked me, and Sam waved the shoe at him.
“Yeah, she found this. We need the police back here. Do you have a phone?”
The man shook his head, and I looked toward where the cruiser had disappeared. “I’ll go after them,” I said, and would have started running if Sam hadn’t grabbed my arm.
“No, I need you to show me where you found the shoe. You—” He pointed toward the panting fisherman. “Can you run after the police car, flag them down?” The man nodded and, despite being winded, started to move. “Tell them we’ll be under the pier. Tell them to bring one of those dune buggies. Tell them—” The man nodded, even as he ran, and Sam turned back to me. “Show me.”
He followed me down the stairs, and I used my flashlight to illuminate the spot where the shoe had been. “There. But he’s not under here now. I looked everywhere. I’m afraid that—” I didn’t want to say it, but I nodded toward the churning water. A larger wave crashed, the noise deafening.
“Give me that.” Sam took the flashlight and tried, as I had, to shine it over the constantly moving waves. It was like staring into an explosion of water—the surface constantly dissolving and reforming, making it impossible to find anything on which to focus. “Dad? Dad!”
As the beam moved back and forth, I thought I saw something at the edge of one of the big pilings, and I clutched Sam’s arm. “There,” I said pointing. “On the right side of the piling, up high. I thought I saw—”
He swung the flashlight and steadied it, focusing on the piling’s pitted and barnacled surface. It had to be six feet in diameter, and it gleamed wetly in the light. Dark metal rungs protruded from its rounded surface, the remains of a series of footholds that had probably once been used to access the crosshatch of beams. As the flashlight beam moved up the rungs, something white appeared at the edge of the light.
A hand, pressed against wet concrete.
“Dad!” Sam charged down the sand and around to the right, stopping when he was ankle deep in the surf. I was right behind him, and, as he shone the light from this new angle, I could see that another ladder was attached to the opposite side of the pillar. There, perched above the waves, Roger Falls clung. The shock of white hair, wet and wild, glowed in the flashlight’s beam. The blue eyes were rimmed by a wide circle of terrified white.
“Hold on, Dad! I’m coming. Here—” Sam reached for my hand, pulling it up to the flashlight. “Hold it steady on him.”
“Sam, you can’t—”
“Just hold it.” He released his grip on the flashlight, and the pool of light dipped, then resolved again on Roger as I faltered and then steadied my arm.
Sam was already pulling off his shoes and wading into the water. A wave almost toppled him.
Then another monster wave came along, and this one did knock him down. I held my breath, the flashlight beam wavering, as the wave’s backward motion threatened to sweep him into the maelstrom between the pilings, but he got to his feet and trudged back toward me.
He coughed and spat, then yelled back to his father, “Hold on, Dad, I’ll be right there.”
I thought Roger might have nodded, but I couldn’t really tell.
“I can’t go straight in,” he shouted into my ear. “I’ll have to swim out on the north side, then let the wave carry me back toward the pier.” He pointed, and I tried to picture it.
“He’s on the wrong side of the pier,” I protested. “You’ll have to let the waves carry you between the pilings.”
“I know.” He moved quickly along the water’s edge, and I followed, crablike, trying to keep the beam steady on Roger. “There’s no other way.”
“Shouldn’t you wait for the police?” I shouted, but he shook his head.
“No time. He could fall any second.” As if to validate his words, an especially large wave smashed through the pilings, throwing a sheet of spray over the frightened man, who turned his head away from the brunt of the water. I thought I could see him shaking, but from this distance it was impossible to tell.
“Sam, are you sure—”
“I can do this,” he shouted, already wading into the cold water. “I was a fucking Navy SEAL.”
Well, of course you were, I thought.
Even a few feet away from the pier, the waves were less chaotic, and Sam was able to time the right moment to dive under the approaching wave and pop up on the other side. I tried to watch him and hold the flashlight on Roger at the same time, but it didn’t really work. As he dove under the next wave in the set, I returned my full focus to keeping the beam steady, trusting that he knew what he was doing and would make it to the place where his father clung.
A Navy SEAL. I should have guessed.
It took all my discipline to keep my head from swiveling to search for Sam’s dark form in the water as I watched wave after wave assault the pier. The tide was coming in, and it seemed as if each peak reached higher, spraying the soaked man perched on the corroded remains of the rungs. It was taking too long, and I wondered how a man with Alzheimer’s could have the strength to hold himself up there for all this time. I wanted to press him to hold on tight, but I knew he couldn’t hear me, and besides, he was obviously already doing that. Sam had told me that, in the early stages of the disease, patients often exhibited unusual physical vigor, making it harder to control them. I guessed I was looking at a prime example of what he’d described.
After what felt like an age, I saw a dark spot in the foam of one of the waves. It was moving too fast, caught in the pull, and heading toward a piling. The wrong piling—the one opposite Roger’s. As it collided with the back of the piling, the side I couldn’t see, I gasped. “Sam! Sam!” I aimed the beam at the roiling water around the base of the piling. If he’d been knocked unconscious…
I spotted him, a dark form in the water, using the momentary trough between the waves to stroke toward the opposite piling. I tried to keep the light just ahead of him, not sure how much it was helping, and I moved along the water’s edge back toward the side of the pier. I had to dance back momentarily when I got too close to an incoming wave, then refocused the beam. Sam had reached the piling and had his hand on a rung. As he started to pull himself up, a wave slammed into him with such force that I felt sure he would be swept from his hold, but, as the froth subsided, I saw that he was still clutching the rusty steel. This time he made it up two rungs before another wave crashed against him, but he hung on and then scrambled up another three or four rungs. His face was even with his father’s feet now, and he reached up a hand and patted a leg clad in soaking khaki. I trained the beam back up to Roger’s face and saw that he was looking down, speaking. I had no way of hearing what passed between them, but, as Sam pulled himself up so that he was standing on the same rung as his father—would it hold their combined weight?—I could imagine the relief of the terrified man.
I moved back so that I was once again under the edge of the pier. I couldn’t get parallel with them—the pillar would have blocked the light. Sam turned toward me, one hand shielding his eyes. I could see his lips move—he was shouting—but I didn’t know what he was trying to say. He gestured toward the opposite side of the pier, and I understood.
The waves, which were rolling in diagonally from north to south, were pulling away from the side of the pier where the two men now perched precariously above the rising tide. If they got back into the water, it would pull them toward the shore to the south of the pier. Sam wanted me and my flashlight beam over on that side.
“You should wait for the police!” I shouted uselessly. Not only couldn’t he hear me, I didn’t even know if I was right. Even if the fisherman had already found the police—although it felt like hours, it had in reality only been a few minutes—it would take them a while to get
a rescue crew over here and set up. If they were bringing a boat, it would have to come around from the harbor or down from the Newport Pier, two miles north. And the tide was coming in.
I nodded in response to Sam’s wild gestures and crossed under the pier to the south side, retraining my beam on the pillar. I couldn’t see them as well from this angle, but I could see that Sam’s head was close to his father’s, and he was talking into the older man’s ear. Roger was shaking his head, protesting, and one of Sam’s hands let go of the rung above to squeeze his father’s shoulder. The head shaking stopped and was replaced by a nod. Then Sam moved down one rung, followed, much more slowly, by his father. Sam spoke into Roger’s ear again, and again I saw the headshake. I could imagine the conversation—Sam cajoling his father to descend closer to the waves, Roger protesting, Sam insisting.
They climbed down another rung, then another. Their progress stopped as a series of strong waves reached them, rising up to their knees. I saw Sam press close against his father, steadying him. Between the waves, I saw Sam’s head turn, as if he were assessing whether the set had finished and how long he had before the next arrived. I wondered how much he could make out in the dim moonlight. Then the two men let go of the ladder and fell backward into the chaos of the waves.
Sam had timed it just right. The backwash of the final wave pulled them back a few feet from the piling, and I saw Sam’s arm arch from the water as he pulled his father close in a lifeguard’s cross-chest carry. A new wave lifted the two men out from under the pier and, finally, from its shadow. I threw my flashlight aside without turning it off and ran to the water’s edge, trying to gauge where the waves would bring them ashore.
The reflection of red lights told me at least one of the police cruisers had finally returned. The beam of the spotlight swung around wildly and, after flashing by several times, found me. I flung out an arm, pointing, and the circle of the spotlight followed my direction, wavered, then settled around the two figures in the water.
The waves crashed in and rushed out, but each swell carried them a little closer to the shore. The bright light illuminated Roger’s white hair and sharply outlined Sam’s arm as it rose again and again from the waves, stroking resolutely toward the shore.
The flickering lights grew stronger, and figures ran past me. One was a policeman, and another, clad in khaki pants and a red T-shirt, was probably a fireman. I finally turned and saw that the two cruisers had been joined by a fire rescue paramedics’ truck, and the base of the pier now blazed with lights.
I ran to catch up with the rescuers, who waded into the water to meet Sam and Roger, who were just getting to that tricky point where the shore break disintegrated into shallower water. By the time Sam got to his feet, trying to support his taller father, at least five other sets of hand reached out and pulled the two men through the surf and up onto the sand, where they both collapsed.
I managed to fight my way between broad shoulders to stand before them. “Sam…”
By now dozens of flashlights were trained on them, and he blinked, holding up a hand to shield his eyes. “I’m okay,” he said, then coughed. “Dad—”
I turned to where the older man lay blinking on the sand, also coughing. “I think he’s okay. Sam, I—”
“I’m sorry, miss, you’ll have to step back.” A big hand pulled me firmly from the circle of light, and I struggled only momentarily before complying. More figures, some in uniform, some not, rushed toward the prone men, and I took several steps back. Dark silhouettes, probably residents of the houses that faced the boardwalk south of the pier, were crossing the parking lot and heading toward us, drawn by the flashing lights from the emergency vehicles, more of which were arriving.
I stumbled back, found a dune and sat. I wondered briefly where my flashlight had ended up but dismissed the subject. Flashlights were cheap.
A few residents came to stand beside me, speculating out loud about what had happened. I overheard “drowning,” and even “great white shark,” but didn’t bother to enlighten anyone. A couple of police ATVs arrived, pulling directly onto the sand and heading toward the growing crowd of law enforcement and rescue personnel, which swallowed them. After a few minutes the ATVs emerged from the ring of bodies. One supported a stretcher, paramedics walking alongside and steadying it. Roger was strapped in, covered by a blanket. Sam was seated on the back of the other, a similar blanket thrown over his shoulders. I got up and ran to catch them.
The crowd kept me from reaching them, but just as Sam was climbing into the back of an ambulance into which his father had already been loaded, I managed to get within a few yards.
“Sam!” I shouted, and his head turned toward me. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.” He heard me, or at least read my lips, because he nodded. The doors closed, and I ran back in the direction of my apartment and my car.
My cell phone was ringing as I came in the door. I snatched it up.
“Mercy?” It was Sukey. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Sam’s father—”
“I know,” she told me. “I’m on my way. I’ll take you to the hospital. Change out of your wet clothes, and I’ll be right there.”
9
By the time I’d changed out of my sodden jeans, I’d calmed down enough to wonder about Sukey’s call. How had she known about Sam’s father? It made sense that I would want to go to the hospital, but she’d even known my clothes were wet.
She pulled up in the alley just as I locked the back door. I opened the passenger door to find Cupcake sitting in the front seat. He scrambled into the back, and I got in.
“How did you know—”
“Telepathy,” she said.
“But I didn’t hear you,” I said, mystified. “And I didn’t even think about trying to contact you. I didn’t know you could hear my thoughts when I wasn’t even aware of it.”
“It wasn’t your thoughts, it was everyone else’s,” she said, turning onto Balboa Boulevard. “Butchie, Jimbo, Lifeguard Skip, half the police force…”
As if in synch with her words, a couple of police cruisers passed us, lights no longer blinking, probably heading back to headquarters. Sukey continued her story.
“I was heading home from Hilda’s—you skipped out pretty fast after dinner, by the way—and I started hearing this big, like, jumble of thoughts. I don’t usually hear stuff like that unless someone’s really agitated. Everyone was thinking ‘Sam’s Dad’ or ‘Roger’ or ‘missing’—stuff like that. I went to Jimbo’s, but it was locked up. I think Jimbo was out helping them search.”
“You heard all those people? Has that ever happened before?”
She shook her head. “Not like that. Not all at once, I mean. But I told you, I’ve been hearing more and more thoughts all the time.”
The traffic light at Fifteenth Street was red, and we stopped. “I saw the ambulance head toward the pier, so I went that way. Then I saw you next to the ambulance, your jeans all wet, like you’d been wading in the ocean. When you headed back toward your apartment, I went and got my car from Jimbo’s.”
“Why’d you call me? I mean, instead of contacting me telepathically?”
“I tried. You had me blocked.”
“Not on purpose.”
She shrugged. “I guess you were just so focused on the situation, nothing else could get in.”
Strange, but I couldn’t concentrate on it right now. “It looked like Roger—Sam’s father—was okay, but I couldn’t really tell,” I told her.
“I think he’s fine. They’re just taking him to the hospital to check him out. Sam got a pretty bad bump on the head.”
I stared at her. “Did you find that out from someone’s thoughts, too?”
“Yeah. Sam’s.”
Whoa. Sukey could read my ex-boyfriend’s mind. Wonderful.
We rode the rest of the way to Hoag Hospital in silence punctuated only by Cupcake’s panting and parked in the palm-lined lot nearest the emergency entrance.<
br />
“Lie down, Cupcake, we’ll be back in a while,” Sukey said. The big dog complied, and we walked toward the doors. The ambulance was no longer in the bay, but a couple of police cars were parked in their designated spots.
I’d expected the waiting room to be chaotic, but it wasn’t, and I realized that despite the panic I’d felt, one old man who was probably more scared than injured really wasn’t much of an event. Also, Hoag was one of the best-run hospitals in California, and turnover in the E.R. was fast.
A young woman was speaking with one of the policemen, jotting in a notebook—probably a reporter from the Orange County Register or the Daily Pilot, both of which had big enough offices that someone was assigned to respond to police reports twenty-four hours a day. An Alzheimer’s patient wandering off and being saved in an ocean rescue would probably make the front page in the local editions. Sam wouldn’t like the publicity, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
I approached the desk. “I’m looking for information on Roger Falls. He just came in with his son, with the fire rescue unit.”
The woman behind the desk nodded. “Yes, they’re both being checked out right now. Are you family?”
I shook my head. “No, but I was with Sam when he went into the water to rescue his father.”
She smiled, warmly. “That must have been amazing. I take my kids down to the pier all the time in the summer, and the water coming in between those pilings is really scary.” She glanced at the glass doors, over which a sign said Hospital Personnel Only, then back at me. “I can’t let you go in, but I’ll try to let them know you’re here. Your name?”
“Mercy Hollings.”
She made a note and indicated the mostly empty chairs in the waiting area. “I’ll call you if there’s any information.”
I walked back to a shut-eyed Sukey, who opened her eyes briefly when I sat down, then closed them again.
“I’m trying to listen,” she said.
“To what?”