It was a plateau, a wide bulldozed shelf on the side of the mountain, with a spectacular view of sea and coastline, yet covered with smoking, stinking dunes of garbage. Not just household trash—there were also large items of junk, including gutted cars and the interesting wreckage of a small private plane, its numbered white tail jutting into the air. Flocks of gulls screamed in protest at the human intrusion, hovering above in wait.
After the chore was done, the three of them stayed a little longer to stretch their legs before the drive back. Christy’s father had an interest in the pickings: “You never know what you’ll find up here,” he said, poking around with a stick. “Just watch your step: these fires can smolder underground for years, slowly carving out hidden fire-pits that can swallow you up like a pig at a luau.”
Henry and Christy wandered the shallow perimeter of the garbage, looking down the cliff and kicking over bits of stuff. Our last date, Henry thought glumly, perusing the variety of junk. Taking a small box out of his pocket, he handed it to her and said, “Here.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Kind of a going-away present.”
Christy opened it up and took out the little toy hula girl that Henry had bought at the drugstore. He showed her how to press the base to make it dance. “Cool,” she said. “Thank you.”
“I thought it looked sort of like you.”
“I like it. I didn’t get you anything, though.”
“That’s okay.”
“You want a kiss?”
“Okay.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the lips. She tasted like bubblegum.
“Thanks,” he said, slightly demented.
They continued walking. There were half-melted manikins like dismembered bodies, brown-stained mattresses resembling murder scenes, and refrigerators like white caskets. There was a dead dog with no eyes, its skin stretched tight and bones sticking through, its teeth bared in a silent snarl.
There was a rusty baby-carriage standing upright amid the pollution, the wind riffling its frilled canopy. It was in a region of thicker trash, but at Christy’s urging Henry made his way out to it, carefully picking each step. The smoke stung his eyes.
As he got nearer, he could see that there was something inside, tucked under a blue flannel blanket. Becoming uncomfortable, he almost turned back, but Christy was waiting and he didn’t want to seem chicken.
A doll, it had to be. He came within a few steps of it and froze.
It was moving. Something was rustling under the blanket, jiggling the whole carriage. He had a glimpse of something bone-white and squirming—something that was alive!
Henry screamed, and the carriage exploded with violent motion, a flurry of battering wings. A panicked seagull erupted like a jack-in-the-box, flapping away.
Henry went limp, feeling his wits slowly return. From behind he could hear Christy laughing hysterically. Very funny, he thought. About to ruefully go back, he cast a parting glance at the carriage and caught his breath.
There was still something in there.
Angry at his heart for thumping, he went right up to the carriage. Yes, something was definitely under the blanket, a life-size baby doll of some kind, close enough to touch. Under the shadow of the canopy he could make out a face swarming with flies.
Just a doll, he thought impatiently, stooping to look close.
“Aaugh,” he croaked, reeling back in horror.
It was not a doll. At first he thought it was some kind of grotesque freak, barely human, with a toad-like face that was all mouth, and eye sockets seething with maggots. It was putrid. Clamped between its jaws was a rubber pacifier. Then Henry realized in disgust exactly what it was.
It was a fish. Just the head of a big fish—a big ugly grouper.
Henry thought he might throw up. The fish head had been propped there in the blankets above a doll’s body as some kind of joke. The question was, was the joke on him? He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that Christy was behind it.
He could hear her now, calling to him all innocently, “What’s the matter? What is it?”
“Nothing,” Henry said, composing himself. If it was her, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Just junk.”
Chapter Eleven
BOHEMIAN PARADISE
“Whew, there it is,” Henry says with a cracked grin. He is trying to ignore the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.
The school is small and quaint, tucked at the end of a valley and shaded by eucalyptus trees.
“Doesn’t look too sinister,” his wife says, wielding her camera.
“It doesn’t, does it?”
* * *
Henry’s first day at school came off well enough. In what would become a daily ritual, his mother walked him most of the way there, to the little park, and kissed him goodbye well out of sight of any other kids. Then he went on alone.
As he came in sight of the school, Henry slowed a little, armoring himself with a relaxed expression that he did not feel. There was a ring of kids by the bike rack, but Henry was relieved to see that they took no notice of his approach. All their attention was focused on something in their midst—some kind of excitement on the ground. They were laying bets and cheering. Dice? Marbles? The circle was too tight to see.
“What’s going on?” Henry asked of the nearest kid—a chubby boy who was standing outside of the action.
“Mantis fights,” the kid said.
Henry squeezed into the circle as best he could, close enough to see two brown insects grappling like tiny wrestlers.
The jeering poured down from all sides: “Kill him!” “Get him, stupid!” “Rip his head off!” “Yeah!” “Ooh—he’s got him now!” “Whip his ass!” “No way!” “Cream ’im!”
The bugs themselves were not deeply motivated; at short intervals one or the other would lose heart and make a run for it. When this happened, the kids pushed them together again. It was cruel—Henry had made a pet of a praying mantis that lived on his porch—but he was interested in spite of himself. The school-bell rang before there could be a decisive winner. The kids groaned, stomping both insects before going in.
Henry followed as they were ushered to class.
Oh well, he thought, here we go again. He dreaded the scrutiny, the embarrassment of being singled out and introduced as the new kid. It was like painting a big bulls-eye on your back.
But no one seemed to take notice of him. The students were well behaved, quietly preoccupied with each other. The teacher, Miss Graves, did not seem particularly warm, but her brisk, no-nonsense demeanor was reassuring to Henry in that he sensed there would be no spitwad campaigns or other horseplay permitted in her presence.
One thing she said did give him a twinge of anxiety, though:
“Students, now I want you to listen closely. This is very important. You are all fifth-graders, and expected to act as such. That means no tattling, no running to the teacher every time someone hurts your feelings. You are expected to be mature enough to deal with your own peer issues in a responsible way—I don’t want to hear about it. Anyone who comes to me looking for a shoulder to cry on is going to be in for a shock. I’m not your mommy. I’m here for one reason, and that’s to teach you what you need to know in order to graduate from fifth grade. That’s all.”
Great, throw us to the wolves, Henry thought.
On the positive side, there was no bothersome P.E., no enforced sports—the school didn’t even have a gym. Instead, students were graded on their participation in ordinary playground games, and were given extra recess time for this purpose. It was a bohemian paradise.
At one point during the day, a dazzling blond girl passed him a note: Are you new here?
A little reluctantly, Henry wrote back, Yes.
—How do you like it so far?
—Better than my last school.
—What’s your name?
—Henry Cadmus. What’s yours?
—Lisa. O.K. you can stop writing now.
CATCH-22
“Mr. Cadmus?”
Henry looks up from the tourism magazine to see a trim woman in a tan uniform emerging from the Sheriff’s office. Gold lettering on the door reads, P. THADDEUS JR, TOWN SHERIFF. She has the square jawline and corded neck of a bodybuilder. Her long black hair hangs down in a ponytail.
“I’m Deputy Tina Myrtessa,” she says, offering her hand. “What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Deputy,” Henry says. “Well, we’re having a bit of problem. I actually wrote you about it a couple of months ago: It was about my mother moving to the island? And my not hearing from her?”
The deputy looks at him blankly, shrugging.
“You wrote me back that there was nothing to worry about.”
“Did you file a police report?”
“No—from your letter I didn’t think it was necessary.”
A little impatiently, she asks, “Do you have the letter?”
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t save it.” Henry now wishes he had brought Ruby to back him up, but both had agreed that it would be better to keep Moxie busy than to have her fussing disrupt the conversation. Ruby had taken her for ice cream.
“What was this in regards to again?” the deputy asks, taking out pen and paper.
Henry resigns himself to rehashing the whole thing: “Well, uh, it sounds kind of weird, but we still can’t seem to reach my mother, and it’s starting to worry us. She moved here three or four months ago, and since then I haven’t heard a word from her.”
“Four months? How often did you communicate with her before that?”
“It…varied. We live quite a ways apart. But at least once a month. By mail.”
“I see. So would you say you have a cordial relationship with your mother?”
“I don’t know. Is that important? I just want to know she’s all right.”
The deputy reclines back in her seat. “What would lead you to believe she’s not all right?”
“It’s not that I don’t think she’s all right—I just want to know what’s going on. It’s not like her to move without telling me, and to ignore my letters. We’ve stayed in touch by mail for the last twenty years, and she’s always been very quick to respond.”
“Have you tried calling her?”
“She’s never had a phone, or e-mail, or anything else. She lives very simply, on a small fixed income, which is why it’s so odd for her to suddenly move to a luxury condo here.”
“Where was she living before this?”
“In an efficiency apartment in Long Beach. She was on HUD.”
“Well, perhaps she has more money than she lets on, and has finally decided to start enjoying her twilight years. That’s not unusual.”
“If you knew her like I do, you’d think it was pretty unusual. But it really doesn’t matter to me why she’s here, as long as she’s okay. The problem is, my wife and daughter and I came all this way from Chicago, and we can’t seem to look her up.”
“But you have her address?”
“Yes. She lives up at that Shady Isle development, but we can’t seem to reach anyone who can let us in there.”
Henry describes the frustrating series of events—how they had hiked up there two nights before only to find the gate locked. How they had returned the next morning and stewed for an hour waiting for someone to show up who could let them in, but had seen no one, either resident or staff. How they had fruitlessly tried to look it up in the phone book, and finally went to the Chamber of Commerce seeking assistance.
“They had no information,” Henry explains, “except to helpfully inform us that Shady Isle is an exclusive, high-security community, and that our best bet is to have my mother admit us!”
Not appreciating the sarcasm, Deputy Myrtessa says, “Then that’s what I would advise you to do, too.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do! It’s a Catch-22!”
“Mr. Cadmus, has it occurred to you that your mother might not want to talk to you?”
“Yes, it has occurred to me, and I can respect that as long as I am sure that’s the situation. I’m worried it’s not as simple as that.”
“Worried about what?”
“I don’t know. She could be in ill health, or not in her right mind. She’s an elderly woman all alone; maybe she’s being…manipulated by somebody? I don’t know—anything! The point is I just want some reassurance she’s all right. That’s why we came all this way.”
“So you’re suggesting your mother might have been kidnapped and is being held captive in a luxury condominium?”
“No—I just want to talk to her.”
“She has a legally-protected right to privacy.”
“No, I know. We know that. All we want to do is confirm for ourselves that she’s okay.”
“Your mother is an adult, Mr. Cadmus, and presumed to have the capacity for determining for herself if she’s okay. And I can tell you that if she is living here in retirement, that is pretty much the definition of okay.”
“But—”
“No. Listen to me, please. I’ve heard you out, and I understand your feelings, but I would suggest to you that your mother is dropping you a big hint. Just from talking to you for a few minutes it is obvious to me that something is going on here having to do with issues of control—yours. It doesn’t sound like you’ve taken much of an interest in your mother’s well-being until it came to your attention that she might have some money stashed away—”
“Now wait a second—”
“—and now you’re going around suggesting that she might be incompetent, so you can swoop in and take charge of her affairs. Just hear me out. Now, maybe I’m totally off-base. Maybe it’s not that way at all. But it sounds to me as if your mother has been more than polite—she could have sought a restraining order, which is exactly what I will advise her to do if it comes to my attention that you are harassing her or intruding upon her privacy in any way.”
Henry listens to this with growing astonishment. “Harassing? Are you kidding me? Jesus Christ—”
“I don’t accept people taking the Lord’s name in vain, sir, not in this office, not on this island. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m afraid I have work to do.” She brusquely shows him to the door. “Enjoy the rest of your stay.”
Chapter Thirteen
BUFFALO
“Does this island seem strange to you?”
“In what way?”
“Well…just a lot of little things. I’ve just been thinking a lot about everything that’s happened here, and all these crazy ideas keep popping into my head.”
“Like what?”
“No, you already think I’m paranoid enough about this place.”
“Hey, I’ll still love you even if you are delusional.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“I’m kidding. God.”
“Okay. It’s just this kind of crackpot conspiracy theory I came up with after talking to that bitchy cop.”
“Is this something I should be filming?”
“Maybe so.”
“Hold on, let me unplug the adapter…” Setting it up, she says, “Okay, shoot.”
“All right. Well, I’ve been thinking about those condos and how empty they look. I mean, we haven’t seen a single person go in or out, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Okay, and this island supposedly has a water shortage, right? I mean, there are signs about conserving water in every restaurant, in the hotels, in all the tourist literature. You would think the lack of water would hinder development, that there would be a limit to how many people this island could support. And yet development is booming. There must be thousands of new retirement units on those hills, and more going up all the time.”
“Yeah…?”
“So where are all these new residents? With the tourists gone there’s practically no one left. Half the businesses are closed for the season.”
“Who knows? You’ve seen
those upscale condo communities before—they always look like ghost towns. That’s the way these people like to live. They raise hell if anybody’s out in the open spoiling the view—that’s why there aren’t usually any sidewalks in those places. They don’t want to see anybody, they don’t want to hear anybody, and definitely no children, pets, or poor. That’s why they put a wall around themselves in the first place.”
“Okay, but let me ask you this: What if one of those people were to disappear? Do you think they’d be noticed by the others?”
She laughs, “Probably not.”
“I’m serious. Think about it. None of them know their neighbors, they’ve probably retired far away from wherever they spent most of their lives, and they’re estranged from friends and families. No one knows anyone else. And a lot of these older people have money, or at the very least a regular Social Security check. So on the one hand you’ve got a lot of disconnected, vulnerable old people, and on the other hand they’re loaded. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
“Yeah—they’re targets for criminals. I’ve heard of that happening. Are you saying there’s some kind of old people farm going on here?”
“I’m saying, what if you got rid of the old people and just kept their checks? Is that so impossible to imagine?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, honey, but it is.”
“Why? Look, it’s not so ridiculous: You investigate elderly people and find suitable candidates—anyone who has no immediate family or close friends, is either retired or independently wealthy, and moves around a lot. There are millions of Americans who fit that profile.”
“Yeah, unfortunately your mother isn’t one of them.”
“No, but she would be a special category: easy pickings. Her identity represents a monthly check from the government and a clean credit record—that’s worth a fortune nowadays. And anyone looking into her life would find that she has essentially no other connections to the world.”
“Except for us.”
“Considering how little contact we have with my mother, I don’t think they would expect us to put a lot of effort into finding her if she were to drop out of sight. That deputy really made me conscious of that. All they’d have to do is set up a phony address, get a copy of her signature, and they’d be in business.”
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