by S. W. Lauden
He climbed on, knelt down and started paddling. Then he stood up and put some muscle into it to build a little momentum. One of the crew spotted Greg and made a wide turn to swing around and greet him.
“I didn’t think I’d see you here this morning.”
Greg had no time for small talk if he wanted to find Ricky’s killer before the police did.
“Hey, Sheila. Have you seen Marco around here lately?”
She lifted the paddle and twisted her wiry torso to face him.
“That’s funny. I saw him this morning, first time in weeks. He was getting out of the water with his surfboard when I was getting in.”
“Did he say if he was paddling out to the meeting today?”
“Said he was taking off for Ensenada, if you can believe that.”
Greg could think of two reasons why Marco might be heading to Baja. He was either making another drug run, or he was just trying to get out of town.
“Did he say anything else?”
“Not really. Didn’t seem like he was in the mood to chat. Why do you ask?”
“I just wanted to let him know about Ricky, if he hadn’t heard.”
“He definitely knows. I asked if he was at the show last night and he seemed pretty sketched out about it. Just kind of shook his head and took off up the sand.”
Sheila started paddling again and Greg followed. The two of them reached the group just as the others were swinging their boards around to form a circle. They paddled slowly into place while a grizzled surfer named Pete called the meeting to order.
Greg had been in a lot of recovery groups since getting sober at thirty, but this was his favorite one. They never discussed higher powers or prayed together, and nobody chain smoked cigarettes. It was just a bunch of damaged people bobbing in the ocean and trying to get their shit together. This meeting was also the best place to get the latest dirt about The Bay Cities.
Greg was busy sizing up the newcomers when it was his turn to speak. He hadn’t really planned to say anything at all, so he just started at the beginning.
“I was always straight-edge growing up. Never even had a sip of beer until I was twenty-seven. Right after my brother’s funeral…”
Talking about Tim made him freeze up. The others waited patiently while he struggled to form his next sentence. He stammered and stopped, daring himself to say out loud that Ricky was dead, too. The words spilled from his mouth like rainwater gushing from a drainage pipe when he finally spoke again.
The group was in a stunned silence when Greg finished fifteen minutes later, so the meeting broke up early. Most of them said their goodbyes and paddled toward the pier for a little exercise. Greg headed to shore with Pete and Sheila.
“Sheila and I were talking about Ricky this morning. It’s a real tragedy.”
“Thanks, Pete. Junior’s with his Mom now. I’m supposed to head over there later on.”
“She’s gonna need your support. You and Ricky were like brothers. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”
“Did you talk to Marco this morning too?”
“Nope. He always thinks I’m gonna trick him into getting sober, so he keeps a wide berth. You don’t think he had something to do with Ricky getting shot, do you?”
“Not really. Just wanted to see if he knew anything I didn’t.”
“Not sure if Marco knows anything, but I do know that Ricky had a pretty serious run-in with Jeff Barrett last week. I guess they were fighting over some big construction jobs and things got pretty heated. A couple of lifeguards had to drag Barrett off the beach before he ripped Ricky’s head off.”
“Barrett? Well I guess that’s as good a place to start as any.”
Chapter Seven
The early afternoon sun was pounding down on the sand when Greg went looking for Jeff Barrett. He could already feel the beads of sweat forming between his shoulder blades where a BCC logo had been tattooed almost twenty years before. He lifted the black wraparound shades from the bridge of his nose and squinted. Barrett was sitting in his usual spot in the shade of a lifeguard station.
A tablet computer was resting on a round belly that almost obscured his tight red trunks. Flabby arms concealed defined biceps built up over two decades of manual labor. His close-cropped hair was dyed a frosty white but the stubble on his face was dark and thick. A phone was propped between his round shoulder and pierced ear. He motioned for Greg to wait with the flick of his wrist while he finished his call.
Greg watched a group of taut men and women playing volleyball. A ring of spectators lined the court in low-slung chairs, waiting their turn to tag in. Many of them were former high school superstars who bumped, set and spiked their way into lucrative college scholarships. These days they mostly played for fun when they weren’t managing hedge funds.
Two teenage boys trotted by with surfboards under their arms. Greg couldn’t help thinking of all the times he and Ricky had gone surfing together over the years. His stomach dropped when he realized that it was never going to happen again.
“Greg Salem.”
He said it in a booming baritone, sizing Greg up with his words.
“How’s it going, Barrett? Don’t you ever take a day off?”
“No rest for the wicked. But it’s hard to call it work when your office looks like this.”
Greg had been sparring with Barrett ever since his days as a high school weed dealer. Not long before Barrett did a stint in county jail for aggravated assault. He emerged eighteen months later with a new physique that was primed for hard labor. A local contractor hired him as an apprentice and taught him how to find his way around a toolbox. Barrett bought his first truck within a year of getting out.
Last time Greg checked Barrett had fifty employees, a fleet of trucks and a job yard near the reservoir in North Bay. Most days of the year you could find him running his business via tablet computer from the beach. He was one of the few blue-collar kids from North Bay who could actually afford to live along the beach these days.
Greg sat down next to him on the sand. Barrett wasn’t one to pussyfoot around.
“I heard things got out of hand at Eddie’s last night.”
“Funny you should mention that. I was wondering if you knew anything about it.”
“Just what I heard on the beach. Am I supposed to know something more than that?”
Things were getting tense right on schedule.
“Somebody mentioned that you and Ricky got into a fight last week.”
The burly man pushed himself back with his feet so that the front legs of his beach chair lifted up. He tilted his face to the sky and let out a loud whistle. Greg waited for the moment to pass, the way he had seen Junior do with her son when he was about to throw a fit.
“Are you fucking kidding me? You think I had something to do with Ricky getting popped just because we were bidding on the same jobs?”
“I’m not sure what to think. I just know that my bro is dead and I’m trying to figure out what the fuck happened.”
“So you’re here as a bro, and not as a cop?”
“That’s right.”
“Good. I’ll make this nice and simple so you can get your ass off my beach. I didn’t have anything to do with Ricky getting shot, but I’m not too surprised that it happened.”
“Meaning what?”
“Just what I said. If you want answers about what happened, maybe you should ask around about that little company of his. He could be pretty shady.”
Greg sprang, launching himself at the mountain of bare flesh in front of him. Barrett brought his foot up and caught him high up on the cheek. Greg landed hard, his ears ringing louder than usual. He could feel the skin around his left eye swelling up as he covered his head with his arms. The salty taste of blood filled his mouth as Barrett’s blows rained down on him. It went on like that unti
l a couple of lifeguards pulled the breathless giant off of him.
They managed to get Greg to his feet while keeping Barrett away. They offered to call for an ambulance, but Greg refused. He took a few careful steps to assess the damage. His left eye was closing up fast and he thought that he might have a couple of bruised ribs. More importantly, he needed to get off of the beach before the police arrived. Barrett was still yelling insults at Greg as he retreated off the sand.
There was a parking ticket tucked under the windshield wiper when he got back to the El Camino. He almost tore it in half yanking it out from under the blade, but smiled through the pain when he ripped it open. The ticket itself was blank, but the name Quincy was on the signature line next to a short message that read, “Call me.”
Somebody honked to let Greg know they were waiting for his parking space. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel, dropping the ticket into the glove compartment. NOFX was easing into “Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing” as he slid on his sunglasses and pulled out into the light beach traffic.
›
Greg was in such a hurry to get off the beach, and away from Barrett, that he didn’t have a chance to clean up. With his left eye swollen shut and a trickle of blood dripping from his nose, he needed to find a place to stop. There were quite a few boutique restaurants and cafes in South Bay. He knew the wealthy clientele would be shocked when he chose a place at random and walked through the door.
Parallel parking his car was excruciating thanks to the many blows he had taken to the ribs. He slowly managed his way into a tight spot between two European sports cars and paid for the meter with his debit card. Not all of the local parking enforcement officers were as forgiving as Quincy McCloud.
The first place he spotted was a high-end café that served specialty coffee and tea drinks from exotic locales like Thailand, Ethiopia and Vietnam. Greg glanced at the chalkboard menu and noticed that the price of each drink would be considered a small fortune in some of those countries. As predicted, more than a few heads turned as he squeezed past the line of fashionable customers and made his way toward the bathroom at the back. Greg got a small punk rock thrill from bursting the moneyed bubble these South Bay residents lived in.
He was reaching for the handle on the bathroom door when it swung out toward him. The woman who emerged jumped back a step when she got a look at Greg up close. She was wearing a slim-fitting business suit made out of a sleek grey material that clung to her every curve. Her auburn hair was slicked back into a neat bun. The chunky black reading glasses that were perched on the bridge of her nose seemed to magnify her green eyes. Fire engine red lipstick perfectly matched the high-heeled shoes that completed her meticulous ensemble.
Greg managed a half-hearted smile and muttered “excuse me” as he moved past her into the bathroom. The woman lingered a moment and then slowly shut the door behind her. Greg turned the lock and went to work in the sink. The warm water and soft paper napkins felt good on his wounds. He was able to get his nose to stop bleeding and then dabbed the dried blood from his upper lip. He took one last look in the mirror and ran a few hands full of water through his sandy hair before unlocking the door and heading back to his car.
He was out on the sidewalk when somebody called his name. He turned and saw the woman who had almost hit him with the bathroom door. She was seated at a sidewalk table with a hesitant smile on her face. She studied his swollen face, trying to make sure it was him.
“You are Greg Salem, right?”
“Yeah. I’m probably a little hard to recognize at the moment.”
Greg searched his mind to see if he recognized her. It was hard to imagine that he knew anybody who was that well put together.
“It’s okay if you don’t know who I am. I’ve changed quite a bit since high school. Name’s Maggie Keane, but I go by Margaret these days.”
Maggie Keane, the awkward brainiac with the bad acne that used to sit behind Greg in math class. Last he heard she had gone off to law school on the East Coast. That was more than twenty years ago.
She invited him to sit down. He wondered just how bad her eyesight was given his current state.
“Uh, hey, Maggie. It looks like you’ve done pretty well for yourself.”
“Thank you. I wish I could say the same for you… What’s with your eye?”
“This? I just had a little volleyball accident on the beach.”
He didn’t care if she believed him or not. Any other time he would have hung around to see where things could lead. But Greg’s ribs were killing him and he badly needed a bag of ice.
“Well, great seeing you again.”
He stood up to leave and she stood up with him.
“Going so soon? Here, I’ll walk with you.”
“Okay...”
“So you’re still living the beach rat lifestyle, huh?”
“I guess you could say that. I work in law enforcement, or I did. Otherwise I’m pretty much always on the sand or in the water.”
“Still playing music?”
Was it possible that she hadn’t heard about Ricky? Probably, given where she was hanging out. Nobody down here cared what happened in North Bay. Greg wasn’t going to be the one who broke the news.
“Every once in a while.”
“A punk rock cop? That’s not something you hear about every day.”
“Yeah, well, life will take you funny places.”
Greg forced a laugh and it felt like somebody jabbed a knife into his chest. She didn’t seem to notice the pained expression on his face, or care if she did. He tried to change the subject.
“What about you?”
“I had my own law firm in DC. Did some lobbying. It got really boring, so I moved back here to start a venture capital firm about six months ago. There are a lot of tech companies popping up along the beach these days.”
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“Did Edie ever manage to domesticate you?”
“Junior? No, she married Mikey Fitzgerald and they had a kid together. They’re divorced now. We’re still good friends, though. At least Junior and I are.”
She bristled a little at something Greg said. It was just a small tic, barely noticeable against her perfect façade. Greg couldn’t put his finger on it. They reached his car before he could give it another thought.
“Nice seeing you again. Good luck with your new business.”
She reached out and offered him a card. He took it and turned it over in his fingers, reading the embossed printing. She waved goodbye as he slid it into his wallet.
“Call me sometime. It might be nice to get reacquainted.”
›
Mrs. McMillan was standing on his doorstep when Greg came through the back gate. She was clutching a large brown envelope to her chest and staring up at the eaves. The package looked heavy in her small spotted hands.
He didn’t want to sneak up and startle her in case she was doing something important. A small ocean breeze kicked up and slammed the gate shut behind him. That solved his problem.
“Termites.”
She looked miserable. Greg stood next to her, searching the eaves to see if he could see what she was looking at. There wasn’t any visible damage, just a few spider webs and some cracking paint. She slapped the envelope into his hands with surprising force and turned to look back up at the roofline.
“That came yesterday. I forgot to give it to you.”
The envelope was addressed to “Fred Despair.” The return address was from Vancouver, British Columbia.
“We might have to get an exterminator out here. You can stay in one of my extra rooms for a couple of days, but don’t get any ideas.”
“Okay. I could probably find another place to crash, if that’s better for you.”
“You kidding? I could use the company.”
Greg k
new that his landlady was lonely. Her sons were off raising families of their own, and she was going to more funerals than birthday parties these days.
“Are you still getting together with the ladies for breakfast on Friday mornings?”
“Sometimes. A lot of us can’t drive anymore so we have to settle for the phone.”
Any time Greg was feeling old he only had to spend a few minutes with Mrs. McMillan to get a reality check. His landlady was more than twice his age and still more active than most of his own friends.
“Kind of makes me think that I should just sell this place and move closer to my grandkids.”
“Or your sons could come to visit more often.”
“Oh no. You’ll understand someday when you start a family of your own. They’ve got better things to do than worry about me.”
“I guess that’s why you keep letting me hang around.”
“Well it isn’t because of your incredible handyman skills.”
She motioned to the eave once again before turning to walk away. He chuckled as he opened the door and ripped the seal on the package. Three identical copies of the same magazine slid out and dropped onto the floor at his feet. He kicked the top copy over with his toe as he shimmied out of his wetsuit. It was a Canadian hardcore magazine called CoreNoMore. They had done a telephone interview with Greg almost two months ago.
The cover featured an old black and white picture of Greg and Tim mid-song at a small, sweaty club. They looked to be in their late teens or very early twenties. Greg couldn’t remember what show it was to save his life. They all just kind of blurred together these days. The headline, “Before You Were Punk,” was followed by a brief description of the contents: “Catching up with some of the best hardcore bands that you’ve probably never heard.”
Greg was too sore to easily slip out of his wetsuit. He dropped to the floor to finish the job. Down to just his board shorts, Greg picked up a copy of the magazine and started flipping through the pages. He was soon staring at a faded reflection of himself from twenty years ago. Tim was standing behind him, looking off to the side of the frame as though ignoring the camera all together. Further in the background he could make out the blurry silhouettes of Marco behind the drum set and their original bass player J.J. The intro to his interview was spread across two photocopied pages.