Helen was nodding now, watching him closely, reappraising.
There was so much he wanted to say, so great a burden he felt like he could lay down. In that moment, he felt a glimmer of something like hope—but then Helen stood. He gaped up at her, feeling forsaken.
“No,” she told him. “Don’t worry. I’m just going into the kitchen to put on some coffee. I’ll be right back. I want to hear all about it. We’ve got all night.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JUST PAST THE LA Harbor Lighthouse, the Catalina ferry left the protection of San Pedro’s riprap breakwater. The big swells ran under the hull now, and Keegan stood on the starboard deck in the wind, his duffel bag at his feet. The ferry’s big engines opened up loud, and the boat lurched forward, making Keegan grab for the railing. As they pulled into the open sea, the wind picked up, too. The spray was cold and damp on the side of Keegan’s face.
He knew that if he looked north along the cliffs, he’d see the old Point Fermin Lighthouse. It had been dark since the war, but the shape would be unmistakable, a gabled Victorian home perched up there on the dizzying edge of the bluff, the clapboard painted white.
But he wouldn’t look. That escarpment was the site of Keegan’s father’s suicide—the hushed and heady family secret he’d been raised to overlook. In truth, Keegan barely remembered his father—remembered only the long years of his mother’s grief. In his current frame of mind, that was just as well, he reasoned. He had more than enough people now to haunt him.
Instead of looking north, he picked up his bag and went around to the ferry’s leeward side, facing south along the coast. A man and a woman were smoking against the railing, so deep in conversation that Keegan felt invisible when he joined them. He set down his duffel. From where he now stood, he could see the docks and cranes and gray hulls of Long Beach. A deep-sea charter boat passed a hundred yards away, heading in to dock. Its deck was crowded with anglers. A cloud of seagulls chased it, shrieking and wheeling and splashing into the boat’s wake, chasing after scraps.
He leaned over the rail and looked down at the choppy green sea they were cutting through. If Frank the Boxer had been conscious when he went in the ocean, how long had he kept his head above water before his tangled, heavy clothing pulled him under? How many long minutes had he kicked and splashed, trying to escape his fate? Again, Keegan saw the morgue sheet pulled back; the slack, gray skin of his face; the closed, swollen eyes.
Dammit. He’d hoped the long talk last night with Helen might have soothed his mind a bit, but his thoughts were still in disarray. It was probably because he’d got so little sleep. He’d stayed at Helen’s, talking until nearly dawn, and then drove back to his own place full of coffee, mind wired and racing. He was just tired.
Or perhaps Madame Lena was right: he couldn’t rest because he was being haunted. By Eve. By Ida Fletcher and Frank the Boxer. By his long-lost father. By his own stubbornness and pride and all his petty failures. And, now that he thought about it, Madame Lena was right about something else as well: You’ll soon travel across the ocean. He smiled glumly at the boat’s port rail and checked his watch.
The crossing would take an hour and a half. But at least he’d brought his book. It was slipped into the outer pocket of his overcoat. He looked in through the misty cabin windows at all the booths in the ferry’s brightly lit canteen. He’d buy a bottle of beer at the bar, he decided, and he’d read The Grapes of Wrath at one of the tables.
By the time they pulled into Avalon Harbor, he’d only finished one more chapter of the novel, but he’d emptied three bottles of Budweiser.
It wasn’t even four o’clock.
THE TAXI DRIVER who drove him along Crescent Avenue in the direction of his hotel seemed tailor-made for the job. He wore a battered captain’s hat and a bright orange Hawaiian shirt. He looked to be in his mid-fifties—Keegan’s own age. He was upbeat and rhapsodic, and his devotion for the island he lived on seemed boundless. “Lived out here since I was a teenager,” he volunteered to Keegan, within thirty seconds of pulling away from the dock. “Loved every minute of it. Don’t miss the mainland one iota.”
Keegan looked at him in the rearview mirror and nodded. The beers on the way over had him feeling sluggish and sleepy. “Where’s a good place for dinner?” he asked, mostly to keep the cabbie talking.
“Plenty of good restaurants right along Crescent here,” the driver said, gesturing at the buildings on either side. “We’ve got seafood, Italian, Mexican. All great restaurants. Whatever you want.” He looked at Keegan in the mirror, as if trying to assess his tastes. “You want a place with a world-class wine list? There’s a place up Metropole that’s worth the walk.”
Keegan smiled ruefully. No one had mistaken him for a wine-list man before. He looked out the driver’s side window at the row of kitschy storefronts they were passing—all shells and souvenirs and overpriced ice cream. Half the pedestrians on the sidewalks had cameras dangling around their necks—the worst kind of sightseers, the off-season ones looking for a bargain vacation. Maybe that was why Keegan rarely went anywhere these days: he didn’t ever want to be taken for a tourist.
“How about you?” he asked the cabbie. “Where do you eat?”
The driver eyed him in the mirror. “All the restaurants on the island are good,” he said warily, like he thought Keegan might be wearing a wire.
Keegan tried again. “Well, let’s say a man wanted to get away from all the out-of-towners,” he said, nodding at the window. “Just wanted some honest grub and a seat at a bar, someplace no one was going to bother him.”
The cabbie sized him up in the mirror again, as if deciding whether or not it was prudent to level with him. He turned his eyes back to the road. “Easy,” he finally said. “That would be Duke’s. It’s all the way up Del Playa as far as you can go.” He barked a laugh and shook the steering wheel with both hands. “I’d say, ‘You can’t miss the place,’ but that would be a downright lie. You could walk right by it and never know it’s there. Which is why there are never any tourists.”
Outside the window, a family of four posed for a photograph in front of a tiled fountain. They looked humdrum and hackneyed and hopelessly out of place.
“That sounds like the place,” Keegan said.
THE BEACHCOMBER INN was a good four blocks inland from the sand and water. Keegan hadn’t imagined a bay-view veranda or a poolside bar for the six dollars a night he’d be billing Roland Dion and Associates—but he’d allowed himself to expect more than this. The place was shabby and spartan, hunkered in the shade of a larger hotel across the narrow street. Inside the dim lobby, Keegan saw a stack of cheap paper maps at the check-in desk and grabbed one.
The girl at the desk was a wide-eyed brunette who couldn’t have graduated high school yet. Her tag said her name was LISA, and she seemed to be all alone here on her shift. She gave him a key to room 12, and he told her he’d find it on his own. She hoped he’d have a pleasant stay on the island.
Room 12 looked out the back of the hotel at a gray cinderblock wall across a six-foot alleyway. This was not the Ambassador. There was no pool at the Beachcomber, no restaurant, no room service. The room’s one extravagance was a small electric kettle on the counter, next to the sink, with two chipped coffee mugs. Keegan set his duffel bag by the door and hung his coat over the back of the desk chair.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the paper map he’d taken from the front desk. It was a cartoonish rendering of the town, with all the tourist traps highlighted—the Bird Park, the penny arcade, the glass-bottom boats. The pricey beach-front restaurants were all accounted for, but if there was a place called Duke’s at the top of Del Playa, it had been left off the map. Perhaps that was a good sign. He found Tradewinds Lane—the street where Ida Fletcher had owned a house—two streets over from his hotel. It ran parallel to Vista Del Mar.
He was tired and a little seasick, so he’d relax for now. He could walk past Ida Fletcher’s place on his way t
o dinner and get the lay of the land before he searched the place in the morning.
He lay back on the bed and kicked his shoes off onto the floor. He propped his head up with both pillows and opened his Steinbeck book, but he hadn’t even turned the page when he set it aside, face down to keep his place. The beers he’d had on the ferry and the late night at Helen’s place were pulling him down into sleep. A nap was in order, and he could think of no reason to forego such a luxury. He rolled on his side and closed his eyes.
WHEN HE WOKE, the room was dusky, and he was hungry. He tucked The Grapes of Wrath under one arm and went down to the lobby to ask young Lisa if there really was a place called Duke’s at the top of the hill. When he got downstairs, the front desk was unmanned and the lobby light was out. There was no after-hours Klaus here to keep the riffraff at bay.
Keegan went outside and down the front steps. If Duke’s was a wild goose chase, at least he’d get some exercise climbing the hill. It was barely dark, but kids in costume were already out, running along the side streets in small gleeful packs—pirates and princesses and bedsheet ghosts. Keegan had forgotten it was Halloween night.
He took a street parallel to the waterfront and then turned on Tradewinds Lane and headed up the hill. Number 13, Ida Fletcher’s island getaway, was dark. The front gate was locked up with a chain and padlock. He’d had no intention of going into the house tonight. He’d even left the old lady’s ring of keys in his duffel. The electricity might have been shut off. There was no point in entering the house until tomorrow when the sun was out—but he paused there, looking up at the dark front windows.
The house wasn’t as prepossessing as the old lady’s Bel Air and Newport houses, but it was well kept and far larger than any of the others he’d passed on the street so far. It was all glass and concrete and hard angles, as if someone had dropped a Frank Lloyd Wright down among all the town’s shingle siding and weathervanes. With all the high windows, and the third floor’s wrap-around balcony, it would have a breathtaking view of the harbor. From the outside, though, the place was a bit of an eyesore.
A quartet of gleeful kids rushed behind Keegan on the sidewalk, all of them ten or eleven—a clown, two hoboes, and a vampire. They ran through the open gate of the house next door. With its dark windows and chained front gate, no trick-ortreater would give number 13 a second look. Keegan moved on.
Farther up the street, he crossed over to Vista Del Mar and headed up the hill. It was a steep slog, and Keegan felt inclined to curse the cabbie. But, when he got to the top, the restaurant was indeed where he’d been told he would find it. The taxi driver was right: it catered exclusively to locals. There wasn’t even a sign out front to advertise its presence to anyone who didn’t already know it was there. The two small tables set up on a brick-lined front garden—“bistro style”, Danny Church might have said—was the only thing that set it apart from the other modest houses he’d passed coming up the hill.
Inside, the front room had a few oak tables, and there was a small, cozy bar tucked away in a back room. No fuss, no frills, no tourists with their Instamatic cameras—this place would suit Keegan fine.
He pulled a stool up to the bar and studied the menu chalked on a blackboard behind the row of beer taps. When the barkeep came his way, he ordered a cold turkey sandwich and a beer. He opened his paperback novel and pressed it down on the bar top. The light wasn’t ideal, but he started to read.
“How’s the hotel?” a man’s voice asked him, when he paused to turn the page.
Keegan looked over to find the cabbie addressing him from a stool at the other end of the bar. He still wore the bright Hawaiian shirt, but his captain’s hat lay, capsized, in front of him on the bar. That was probably why Keegan hadn’t recognized him when he’d first come in.
“If the nap I just took is any indication,” Keegan said, “it’ll suit me just fine.”
The cabbie picked up his glass and moved a few stools closer to Keegan. “Was Lisa working behind the desk today?” he asked.
“She was indeed,” Keegan said.
“I used to have a huge thing for the kid’s mother back in high school,” the cab driver said. “In another life, that little sweetheart might have been my daughter.”
Keegan sensed there was a story behind that comment, but he doubted it would be very interesting. He nodded, took a sip from his beer, and looked back down at his novel.
“So, what brings you to our fair island on Halloween of all days?” the taxi driver pressed on.
Keegan looked over at the cabbie and then closed the book and set it aside. It wasn’t like he was immersed in it; in the two weeks he’d been reading it, he’d made only a small dent. There was no godly reason to be unfriendly. “I’m here on business,” he said. “Just hunting up a few ghosts, I guess.” He’d never spoken truer words.
The bartender came out from the back with a thick sandwich and a pile of potato chips on a blue plate. He came down along the bar towards them.
“What are you drinking?” Keegan asked the cabbie. “Let me buy you the next one.” Roland Dion would be paying the tab, after all; he could afford to be generous.
“The same, Tommy,” the cabbie told the barkeep and then turned back to Keegan. “Well, if it’s ghosts you want, you’ve come to the right place.”
“How’s that?” Keegan tried one of the potato chips. It made him want another.
“This island is chock-full of them,” the cabbie said. “More dead people walking these streets than living ones, if you ask me. Tommy here”—he jabbed a thumb at the bartender—“will back me up on this.”
The bartender poured a fresh shot of Old Grand-Dad into the cabbie’s glass. “I’ve seen a few ghosts,” he confirmed.
The cabbie picked up his bourbon and moved another stool closer to Keegan. There was just one empty seat between them now. He rubbed the burnished wooden bar top with one palm, like he was dusting off one of his better stories. “You ever hear of Bloody Mike’s Cave?” he said. He turned to the bartender. “Tommy, you must have heard this one.”
Tommy nodded gamely, as if he had in fact heard this one, but it was a good story; he’d be happy to listen to it again. “You tell it better than anyone,” he told the cab driver, with classic bartender deference.
As the cabbie launched into the story, Tommy poured a second glass of Old Grand-Dad and slid it in front of Keegan.
Keegan couldn’t help but smile. A round on the house with a ghost story chaser. He already felt like a local. He took a bite of his turkey sandwich, and it turned out to be delicious. For the moment, at least, all was right with the world.
KEEGAN WASN’T DRUNK, exactly, when he headed back out into the night, leaving the small lighted restaurant behind him. He wasn’t reeling or disoriented—at least he didn’t think he was—but he was glad he wouldn’t be driving, and he was happy to know that his hotel room was a straight shot down the hill and then over a street or two. He’d find it okay, even if he took a wrong turn.
Two beers with dinner had always been his rule of thumb, and it was a rule he’d intended to stick to tonight, especially after the ferry ride beers. But when he’d finished his sandwich at the bar and was getting ready to settle up, the cabbie, not wanting to lose his audience, stood him another shot of bourbon and included the bartender in the round. That, of course, meant Keegan was on the hook for the round after that. The three of them talked and laughed and swapped scary yarns. Each time some new local washed in through the doors, the cabbie—loved by one and all, it seemed—pulled them into his flow, and a new round of ghost stories started up.
Keegan had the presence of mind to make sure the receipt wasn’t itemized when he finally settled up. He could pass it on to Roland Dion’s office without having to explain why there were so many drinks on it. And, as a tab, it wasn’t too steep. Duke’s prices were bargain basement. The total on the receipt wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. It probably cost less than dinner for one at a seafood joint down on the waterfron
t, where they made their money gouging tourists.
Keegan was a good four or five blocks down the hill when he realized he wasn’t carrying his copy of The Grapes of Wrath. He’d left it on the bar top, among all the emptied glasses. He stopped and turned and looked behind him up the steep incline. It was late, and he was tired. It was too much bother for a two-dollar paperback, he decided. He turned back around and continued down the hill.
The streets were empty now. The island’s children had long abandoned their trick-or-treating on this school night. It was too dark to see his wristwatch, but it had to be after eleven o’clock—maybe closer to midnight. The houses on either side of the street were dark, and there weren’t enough streetlamps along the sidewalk to keep the night at bay. He’d never been on the island except in the summer, and now he saw that Avalon was the kind of tourist town that started locking up early after Labor Day. When the stream of tourists dried up, the nightlife did as well.
And it wasn’t just the usual darkness of night; he saw now that a dense mist had rolled in from the ocean in the hours he’d spent in the bar. This high on the hill, the fogbank was spread out below him like a grounded cloud. The roadway ahead faded into white, as if the whole world were dissolving away. He kept walking, winding down the empty street, until he melded into the gauzy pall of mist. Soon the fog was all around him, and the few porchlights he passed were wreathed in damp white halos.
One of the stories the cabbie had told was of a young, waiflike Indian girl sometimes seen wandering the Avalon streets on foggy nights. She’d appear to hapless passersby, confused and distraught, gaping around herself in the mist at the changes made to her island in the centuries since she’d died. As a yarn, it was thin as brume—more a hazy legend than a proper ghost story. But as the fog closed in around him, the thought of that young girl gave Keegan a chill. He chuckled out loud and shook his head. All it would take was some straggling trick-or-treater to emerge from the mist, a feather in her hair, and Keegan would be laid out dead of a heart attack.
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