by Ken Douglas
Maggie stopped, panting. Breeze cooled her sweat, prickly rivulets of cold. She looked around. A pair of joggers were behind the man, going the other way. She could scream out. But why? The man hadn’t done anything. She remembered him from the store. He’d seemed slow. Anyway she could out run him if he started anything. But what if he had a gun? And where was Ferret Face?
The big man started to move. Coming toward her at a walk. He was still quite a distance away and she couldn’t see his face yet, but she knew it was him.
Maggie backed up a step and the man stopped. She stopped too. Had he come here for her? Why? He’d certainly known her in the store. Or at least he thought he had. What was it he’d said? Saw you in the newspaper. She’d been afraid then, a little. That’s why she’d left the cart.
Again she thought about shouting out, but the joggers were farther away now. Almost out of sight, out of hearing distance.
“Wanna come to the van?” the big man called.
“I’m outta here,” she muttered.
“What?”
Maggie spun around and poured on the speed. The man was nuts, she thought as she ran back toward the pier. She looked up toward Ocean Avenue on her right. There were people up there. A two minute sprint across the sand and she’d be safe. But Ferret Face might be up there, too. Waiting.
She kept on, running strong. She looked left, out over the sea. She saw the lights on that sailboat. It was inside the breakwater. She was a strong swimmer, but could she get into the water before the man was on her? She didn’t think so. She kept on.
There was a country and western bar at the foot of the pier, just past the pool. There’d be people there. Rednecks. A shout for help and that guy would be toast.
Maggie was fast, but the man behind was gaining, wheezing his breath in and out. He was a train, too. She pumped her arms faster, forcing her legs to match the rhythm. But still he was gaining. His breath, louder now, churning up the tracks.
She felt like she was going to explode as she pumped her arms still faster. She was sprinting all out toward the dark stretch of sand between the pool and the pier. She couldn’t let him catch her there. She turned and started chugging up the sand toward the bar, sucking air, lungs about to burst.
The pool was a thing out of a horror story, Dark glass and concrete climbing three stories out of the sand, blocking out Ocean Avenue, blocking out help. She was alone in the world with her pursuer, the distance between them shrinking.
She saw the bar. She was going to make it. The door opened on a black van parked under a streetlight in front of the bar. She was about to shout out for help when Ferret Face stepped out of the van.
He had a gun.
Virgil was almost on her.
She dropped to the sand.
“What?” Virgil shouted as he tripped over her.
She scrambled to her feet and was off, sprinting like she was running the hundred yard dash back in high school. She was so exposed, her back a wide target. She made for the pier. There was someone under there. Scary probably, but someone.
“Get her!” Ferret Face shouted out.
The space under the pier was a dark tunnel to the sea. Waves whipped around the pylons, echoing through the blackness like a hurricane swirling through her soul. She kept her speed up, dodging the pylons till she stumbled over something.
“Hey,” someone shouted as she fell. She hit her head on something hard, but she didn’t have time to worry about what it was, because she was tangled up with a man. Rancid breath, hairy. She pushed away from him and sprang to her feet.
“I’m guessing you came here looking for safety.” Laughter. Maggie turned. It was a black man, wiry hair akimbo, beard to his chest. He smelled like he hadn’t bathed, ever.
“Men after me.” Maggie panted. “One has a gun.”
“We know,” the man she’d tripped over said. He was white, but you could hardly tell through his dirt covered face. His hair stuck out like he’d been electrocuted, his great beard was matted. There was a smell here, Maggie could easily imagine it coming from that beard.
“Come on out of there,” Virgil said. “We ain’t gonna hurt you.”
“Yeah, right,” Maggie muttered.
“Get under there and get her,” Ferret Face said.
“I ain’t going under there.”
“Come on.”
“You go,” Virgil said.
“Come on in. We’re waiting.” The black man’s quiet voice was like a gunshot through the night.
“Shit,” Ferret Face said.
“Bring yourself on in. We haven’t eaten yet,” the white man said.
“Fuck, there’s two of ’em,” Horace said.
“Let’s go,” Virgil said.
“Yeah.”
Maggie held her breath for what seemed like forever.
“They’re going,” the black man said.
Maggie exhaled. “Thank God.”
“A lady shouldn’t be out alone after dark,” the white man said.
“But I’m not alone.” Maggie Laughed. “I’m with you.”
“You look like you could use a drink.” The black man handed her a bottle.
“Thanks.” Maggie took a swig. “Shit, that’s awful.”
“Ain’t it though.” He laughed as she handed it back.
“Thanks, you guys were great.” Maggie dusted the sand from her Levi’s.
“Darley.” The black man extended his hand. “Darley Smalls.” Maggie took the hand. Hard, calloused, but gentle too. He didn’t have anything to prove any more.
“Theo Baptiste,” the white man said. “It’s French.” He held his hand out as Darley had.
“Maggie Nesbitt.” She took it. He had a firm grip, but not as firm as it could have been. He could have crushed her with his giant paw.
“Pleased to meet you,” Baptiste said.
“You guys weren’t afraid,” Maggie said. “Those men had a gun.”
“Gun or no, they were cowards,” Darley said. “We weren’t worried.”
“How could you tell?”
“They were chasing a woman,” he said. “Real men don’t have to do that.”
“No, they don’t,” Maggie said.
“They were gonna take you,” Theo said. “They had that van parked and waiting. It was you they wanted, not just any pretty woman happened to be out after dark. They set you up.”
“I saw them earlier today, then the one with the gun later, at the Lounge up on Second Street. I thought he was a policeman because I saw the gun.”
“He was no policeman,” Darley said.
“I guess not.”
“You live with that news guy. Maybe he was poking his nose in a story where it doesn’t belong,” Theo said.
“How do you know who I live with?”
“We rest here after dark,” Darley said, “but we have to be gone by sunrise or the lifeguards run us off. So we spend the days wandering the alleys, poking through the trash, checking out what people like you toss away. You’d be surprised what we find and what we know. Show us a face and we can put it together with an address. We’re not your average bums.”
“How do you live?”
“We got places to sell the stuff we find,” Theo said. “We get by.”
“I gotta get my shoes.” All of a sudden Maggie wanted to be home. These men could be every bit as dangerous and the men they’d scared off. She backed out of the dark.
“You get in trouble. You remember us. We don’t take to men chasing after a woman,” Theo said.
“Not at all,” Darley said.
“I’ll remember,” Maggie said. Then, “I gotta go.”
“I think we’ll walk you back to those shoes,” Darley said and they followed her out from under the pier.
They walked the distance in silence. Maggie’s impression had been that these men might be dangerous, but they didn’t seem so now, not exactly safe either, but she didn’t feel threatened by them.
“That them over ther
e?” Darley pointed.
“That’s them.”
“You’ll be okay now,” Theo said. “They’re gone.” And without even a goodbye, they turned and started back toward the pier.
Chapter Six
Maggie walked into the Whale out of breath. She took a quick look around, spotted Gordon sitting in one of the booths by the pool tables, playing chess with one of the two men sitting across from him. It was obvious the two were a couple. Good. Gordon hadn’t found anyone yet.
“What happened to you?” Jonas, the Swedish bartender, was a big man, sometimes gruff and closing on sixty. But despite the appearance he tried to give off with his plaid shirts, work jeans and lumberjack boots, his heart was as big as he was and it kept his wallet as thin as a beggar’s.
“I fell down while I was running on the beach.”
“Bummer.” He pierced her with his water blue eyes. “Nick go home early again?” Sometimes on their walks home from the Lounge, Nick came in with Maggie and Gordon, sometimes not, as he had to get up early on Sundays for his magazine program, “Newsmakers with Nick.”
“I’d rather not talk about Nick. Just give me a rum and Coke and let me wallow in my misery.” She climbed up on a barstool, reached for a bowl of pretzels, pulled it to her, took one out and licked the salt off it as she stared into those blue eyes that saw everything and missed nothing.
He nodded, ran a hand through his thick hair. Like most Swedes, he was blond and old as he was, he had no grey. He pulled a bottle of Bacardi Select off the top shelf behind the bar. Reaching the bottle would have been a problem for Maggie, not Jonas. He was a tall man.
Maggie looked around the bar while he made the drink. Poster size black and white photos adorned the walls. John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Mohammed Ali, others. Jonas owned the bar and it was clear where his politics lay.
Both pool tables were busy. Five or six people clustered around the two pinball machines. Real machines, mechanical, the kind you could get to know, not the computer kind. Gordon loved them. Maggie was starting to.
“On the house, because you look like you need it.” Jonas set the drink in front of her.
“Do I look that bad?”
“You look like you went ten rounds with him.” Jonas pointed to the picture of Mohammed Ali. “If that’s what running does for you, maybe you ought to seriously think about giving it up.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” She looked over at Gordon. “He doing okay?” She wanted to change the subject.
“As good as can be expected, for Gordon anyway. A couple of good looking guys hit on him, but he blew them off.” Jonas picked up a glass, dried it, did another. He had several to go.
Gordon turned, as if he knew they were talking about him. He waved, then came over. “What happened to you?”
“You too? I must look pretty awful.”
“Go wash your face, then come back out here and tell me about it.”
“What about your game?”
“It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes for them to figure out what they want to do next. Go clean up. I’ll be here when you get back.”
She nodded, went to the woman’s restroom and gasped when she saw herself in the mirror. She looked like a street urchin from some third world country. Her hair was disheveled, her face blotchy with dirt and she had an egg-sized welt on her forehead. She ran water in the sink, grabbed some paper towels and washed the dirt off, gingerly dabbing the area around the bruise.
Her T-shirt was dirty and damp. She couldn’t do anything about that. It might even be ruined. She tried to straighten her hair, but gave up after a few tries and went back to join Gordon at the bar.
“I had no idea I looked like that.” She picked up her drink, took a sip.
“You don’t seem any worse for the wear, except for that bruise,” Gordon said. “What happened?”
She told them about Horace and Virgil and how Virgil grabbed onto her shopping cart in the Safeway. Then how she’d seen Horace with the ferret face dancing in the Lounge.
“And that didn’t bother you?” Gordon interrupted.
“Not really, I didn’t think about it. I see the same people all over in the Shore. It’s not like it was a great coincidence or anything.” Then Maggie told how Horace and Virgil had come after her and how the men under the pier had frightened them away.
“Big black man, the other crazy looking, dirty beard out to here?” Jonas held his open hands about half a foot from each side of his face. “Looks like Rasputin, starved and wild-eyed?”
“That’s them.”
“Darley and Theo.”
“Yeah, that’s their names.”
“You’re lucky you got away from that pair in one piece.”
“They were plenty scary, but they didn’t threaten me in the least, in fact they escorted me back to where I’d left my shoes.”
“Well, it sounds like an out of the frying pan and into the fire kind of story to me,” Gordon said.
“I don’t think they’re dangerous.”
“That’s why you came straight here instead of going home,” Jonas said. “Because you feel safe and secure?”
“I’ll bet there’s a story behind those guys, something Nick could use.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Gordon said.
“Why not? They could be a great story. Two men who roam the back alleys of Belmont Shore by day, living on what John Q. Public tosses in the trash, sleeping under the pier in the cold and damp by night. If he did it right, it’d be a great human interest piece. He could trace their lives, show how they got to be where they are. It could really tug at the heart strings.”
“It is the kind of stuff he likes to do,” Gordon admitted.
“What if one of them had been successful, then gone bankrupt?” Maggie sighed. “What if one of them was a vet? What if one was laid off after twenty years on the job? The homeless are everywhere now. Nobody notices them anymore. They’ve become part of the background, the same as a lamp post or a tree. If Nick did a story on them, it could help change all that. Really wake Southern California up.”
“I don’t think they want to wake up,” Jonas said.
“I think he’s right,” Gordon said. “Nobody wants to know about the homeless.”
“Your friends are calling,” Jonas said.
Gordon turned. One of the young men in front of the chess set was waving. “Gotta make my move.” Gordon started for the back of the bar and the chess game.
“That’ll take him about a second,” Jonas said.
“He’s really good,” Maggie said. “I won’t play him anymore.”
“The best this bar’s ever seen. It’s good to have him back at the game again. In the old days, before Ricky passed away, people came from all over to play him. He was great for business.” Jonas picked up a wet rag and wiped the counter.
“So, you think I should be afraid of those characters under the pier?” Maggie picked up her drink, finished it.
“Absolutely. I’m a big man. I used to box in Sweden, trained for the Olympics. Not much scares me, but I’m afraid of them.” Maggie took in his broad shoulders, the rippling biceps the long sleeved shirt couldn’t conceal. He was in great shape, despite his age.
“Maybe you’re right.” She watched as Gordon picked up a piece, moved it, then started back for the bar. He didn’t even sit, spent less than a minute looking at the board.
“What’d I miss?”
“I convinced your girlfriend to stay away from Darley and Theo,” Jonas said.
“That calls for another drink.” Gordon smiled at Maggie, but he had a warning look in his eyes as he reached for his wallet. She knew the look, he was telling her to be careful.
“No, sir. Your money’s no good tonight,” Jonas said and he set them up with another round. “I’m gonna have one, too.” He poured a draft Coors for himself. “Here’s to ya, Harvey.” He raised his class to one of the giant photos on the wall, then took a long pull.
“Harvey who?” Maggie stared at the picture.
“Harvey Milk,” Gordon said. “He was assassinated.”
“What’d he do?”
“I can’t believe it,” Jonas said. “All the times you’ve been in here and we never talked about Harvey Milk. I toast him every time I take a drink.”
“I’ve never seen you drink,” Maggie said.
“Yeah, well I usually don’t during business hours.”
“So, there you go,” she said. “Now tell me, who’s Harvey Milk?”
“He got elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors,” Jonas said.
“He was a cut above the rest of us.” Gordon stared up at the photo. Harvey Milk smiled back. He was a handsome man, dark hair, smile so wide his eyes were squinting. He was sitting, one leg over the other, by the side of a brick building, wearing Levi’s, work boots and a plaid shirt, kind of like the one Jonas was wearing. His arms were folded over his knee, newspaper dangling from his hands. He looked like he needed mothering. He looked fragile.
He was in another photo with a young black woman. Milk’s white skin contrasting sharply with her dark face. Her Afro wild, her smile serene. Maybe Maggie didn’t know who Harvey Milk was, but she knew all about Gaylen Geer. An in your face black feminist who raged against everything. Maggie was surprised she hadn’t noticed the photo before, but then the walls were covered with black and white shots of the ’60s and the ’70s.
Milk was in a third photo, sitting on the top of a car, legs dangling through the sun roof, right hand raised in a fist, in his left he was holding up a sign. “I’m from Woodmere, N.Y.” it said. He was wearing a white T-shirt, a garland of flowers hung from his neck. His mouth was open wide, he was yelling something. A crowd of people were marching behind the car. He looked like he was about to be swept up by a hurricane.
“Gay pride parade, he wanted folks to know gays come from everywhere. My sign said I came from Stockholm.” Jonas took another pull from his beer.