Silicon Beach

by Davis MacDonald

  Also by

  Davis MacDonald

  -The Hill

  -The Island

  -Newport Bay (due out in the Fall of 2016)

  - Recipes and Wisdom - Notes from the

  Southern California Wine & Food Society Dinners

  Silicon Beach

  A Novel

  By

  Davis MacDonald

  “Silicon Beach”

  Copyright © 2015 by Davis MacDonald

  All Rights Reserved

  “Every day is a journey,…

  and the journey itself is home.”

  ― Matsuo Bashō

  CHAPTER 1

  8:00 PM, Thursday

  The Judge walked north along the tideline toward the Santa Monica Pier. The orange ball of flame had just plummeted into the Blue Pacific. A deep blue this evening. The sky behind him was darkening. Out to sea the just disappeared sun faintly reflected on the underbelly of fat floating clouds. Soft pastel pink, lavender, rose and orange.

  The beach was quiet. Peaceful. Everyone had left. A hammerhead shark had been spotted off the end of the pier earlier in the day. Eighteen feet. All teeth and violence, the result of warming waters drawing them further north along the California coast. The beach had been closed one and a half miles to either side of the pier for most of the day.

  The sand was soft under his shoes, pressing up with moisture as he walked. There was a faint smell of salt and dry seaweed, not unpleasant. A breeze blew in from seaward and whipped froth at the top of the larger rollers gently gliding toward shore.

  The wet sand was broken ahead by the gaudy reflection of lights from the circulating Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier a mile up the beach. Bright purples, greens, reds and yellows. Here and there a blue. The colors spun a reflective pattern, slicing tide in sync with the mighty wheel.

  A little like his life mused the Judge. Clipped to the outside of a wheel. Tumbling around and around in a kaleidoscope of flash and color. All noise and risk and derring-do as you strove for the top. Surprise, fear, even panic as you suddenly tumbled over. Crashing down the back side. Your plans set into disarray by events you didn't anticipate and couldn't control.

  Picking yourself up at the bottom. Pulling yourself together for another ascent. Perhaps reaching the missed goals you thought you wanted. Only to find their attainment empty. Plunging down again. This time in greater despair.

  But always in circles. Pinned at the center to some destiny you couldn't escape. Around and around. All flash and struggle. Ascension and letdown. Yet going nowhere. The young boy, that college kid, the young lawyer, that middle-aged Judge, now the senior attorney. Half a century of flying around in circles. Never straying from your fixed core. He supposed the melancholy of his Welsh roots was showing. He smiled.

  Yet in some undefined way a change was brewing. Like the weather. You could sometimes sense a change. You couldn’t quite know what. Or why. Just a change.

  The beach stretched south to the Palos Verdes Peninsula and north to Malibu. Here it framed the western boundary of Santa Monica, one of several smaller communities adjacent to Los Angeles that spread out across the Southern California plain like rolls of flesh released from a girdle.

  Along the beach were strung multi-million dollar homes, high rise condominiums, and lavish apartments, gazing out on the Pacific. People were up there now, sipping their martinis, holding dinner parties, planning their next vacation, untouched by the Great Recession that had swept the country. And discretely ignoring a scattering of poor and homeless down along the beach and on bluffs and streets. Broken people for one reason or another. They flooded in from around the country for the weather, dragging their shopping bags or pushing their purloined shopping carts, receptacles holding their life’s possessions. Looking disoriented and beaten.

  He thought of the five dollars he’d put in the Styrofoam cup of a young man in disreputable khaki pants and dirty hoody, unshaven and unwashed, sprawled against the low sea wall as he’d walked onto the sand. He wondered about the man’s story. Lost his job? Distressed Vet? Emotionally disturbed? Addict? Perhaps just lazy?

  The homeless ran the gamut: high living blue collars who’d lost their jobs, homes and everything in the Great Recession; intellectually challenged adults; druggies sliding down the addiction of their choice; ex-cons who couldn’t get work; mentally disturbed Vets broken from service in the legions of war. They co-existed in the California sun with worker ants who toiled to create fortunes for someone, building high tech products, services and dreams in the area now called “Silicon Beach”.

  Silicon Beach spread from its epicenter in Santa Monica and Venice, south through the neighboring beach towns of Marina Del Rey, Playa Vista, El Segundo and Manhattan Beach. It fingered north into Culver City, downtown, and other parts of L.A. Westward it reached into Malibu and over the hill into parts of the Valley.

  There was no official boundary for Silicon Beach. It spread and leap-frogged across L.A., propelled by new startups often founded by people barely old enough to shave. A big brawling collection of new ideas, new products, new methods. Competing for space, capital and attention to become the next Apple, Microsoft, Facebook or Tesla. Fortunes were made and lost here as new technology sprouted. Often disruptive to long established industries across the country and even the world.

  Silicon Beach boasted a collection of offices, laboratories, plants and warehouses, filled with scientists, social engineers, film companies, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists. And garages and incubator spaces hidden here and there where the next billion-dollar technology might spawn.

  And there were the lawyers, accountants, insurance agents, brokers and staffing people who serviced the companies and their employees. Too many lawyers in the Judge’s view. Buzzing like bees among the fresh pots of money pouring in from around the country.

  It also had the hangers-on, the charlatans, the want-to-be’s and the crooks. This was 21st Century America. All enterprise was encouraged, even implicitly the unethical, the fraudulent and the corrupt. It was a microscopic slice of Coastal America in the early years of this new century.

  He'd watched for the green flash as the sun disappeared below the blue horizon, but there'd been none. Or if there had, he'd missed it. Perhaps it was just an urban legend. Still, he thought he'd seen it once when he was younger. When his eyes were strong. He wasn’t sure he believed in the green flash anymore. Maybe you had to be young to believe.

  The Judge had spent the day in arbitration on a patent case. He was the arbitrator, not a lawyer representing a litigant. It was a good gig, two thousand a day. A former Judge, the work fit nicely with his disposition and temperament. It was easier to judge issues presented by competing parties and their counsel than to sweat it out as a litigator representing one side. But one still got tired. They had been going all week. The Judge was exhausted. And it was only Thursday. One more day and then a well-earned weekend off.

  Of course there was no such thing for the Judge. He worked all the time. But he could work from home. It was a more contemplative environment and he wouldn’t have to see anyone. Except his new wife and the rascally golden retriever. The two pets for which he was responsible.

  The 405 would be a snarl back to Palos Verdes at this hour. As he had been doing each day, the Judge chose instead to wait the traffic out and take a long walk along the beach. Stretching his legs. Enjoying the sunset. Clearing the cobwebs from his mind. Breathing in the fresh air and the salt and spray from the waves tumbling up on to the Santa Monica sand was like a tonic. Refreshing after a long day’s slog.

  The Judge was a tall man. Broad shouldered and big boned. With a bit of a paunch around the middle, hinting at an appetite for fine wines and good food. He cut an imposing f
igure in his dark blue Blass jacket, tan slacks, and soft blue shirt open at the collar. He had the ruddy chiseled features of Welsh ancestors, a rather too big nose, large ears, and bushy eyebrows on the way to premature grey.

  He had a given name of course, but after he ascended to the Bench some years before people began calling him just “Judge”. Even old friends he’d known for years adopted the nickname. He'd been dumped off the bench for almost a year now, replaced in an election by a younger candidate with a large war chest and dubious credentials. But his nickname still stuck.

  He smiled. So much better to be out in the real world practicing law. No longer a sitting judge, cooped up in a windowless, breezeless chamber where people bowed and scraped at your pedestal all day.

  He sensed movement behind him. A disturbance in the ether more felt than seen. A throwback warning hardwired a million years ago into the human race as it emerged on two feet and hunted the predators that hunted it.

  He turned quickly to look back, his eyes ranging down the darkening beach where the soft colors were all but gone. Twenty yards away a young man was coming up the beach. It was the homeless guy he’d contributed a bill to ten minutes before. He was jogging. The Judge had never seen a homeless man jog.

  The young man’s gait changed now he’d been spotted. He charged toward the Judge at a dead run. The man’s unshaven face contorted in a snarl and his blue eyes were wild. A long switchblade appeared in his right hand, fully extended. Held as though he knew how to use it.

  The Judge reacted instinctively, whipping off his sport coat and barely wrapping it around his left arm before his assailant was upon him.

  As the man attacked, thrusting the knife forward toward the Judge's middle, the Judge turned sideways, thrusting his coat-covered arm up to block the knife. The Judge felt the knife cut through his jacket, sliding into flesh, searing tendons with sickening precision, sending fire up his arm and turning his universe momentarily cloudy.

  The Judge pivoted to his left with the thrust of the knife and slammed his right fist into the young man's face, carrying his body through the swing, giving full weight to the punch. The Judge's hand felt like it had smashed into a brick wall, his knuckles collapsing into raw pain which hinted one or more might be broken.

  But his blow landed squarely on the side of his assailant's nose, producing a satisfying crunch of cartilage and bone. The young man went down. He twisted around on the wet sand at the Judge's feet, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

  The Judge stepped away from him, moving quickly up the beach toward the pier. But his path was blocked. Another young man stood ahead of him, black, also dressed like the homeless. He also held a knife. He was moving forward on the Judge, cautious but determined.

  The Judge caught movement on his right, up the slight dunes leading to the bike path and the street. Another young man. Asian. Dressed and armed similarly. He was also moving down on the Judge, carefully, purposefully, a smirk on his face.

  The Judge looked behind him again. The man he'd hit was still down. But there was nowhere to retreat. Another young man was moving up the beach on him from behind, stepping around his fallen companion as though he were a pile of seaweed.

  The Judge faced the closest man approaching from the front, slowly backing toward the water. Vaguely feeling the cold tide sluice around his feet and into his shoes. Considering his options.

  Then he turned and made a quarterback's dash into the surf.

  His assailants hesitated for precious seconds, surprised. Then they charged in a rush from three directions to meet at the water's edge.

  But the Judge was out sixty feet now, diving under the breakers and swimming straight out from the shore in measured strokes. He jettisoned his shoes. Then kicked off his soggy pants. He made his body relax, falling into the rhythm of the sea with his strokes.

  He'd been a swimmer in his youth. He still did the occasional ocean swim between the Manhattan and the Hermosa Piers with a local club. He could do this. He just had to keep his head. He cast an eye back toward the shore. None of his assailants had followed him into the water.

  He was out perhaps 200 yards now. He made a slow turn to the right, paralleling the shore. Up ahead, towering now and then above the waves, was the Ferris wheel, its multi-colors sparking the horizon. He aimed for there. For the Santa Monica Pier. For all of its people, and lights and carnival trappings. And particularly for the security guard that would be there. He hoped his assailants wouldn't follow.

  He looked back again. They were having an animated discussion on the beach. Likely arguing over who was to blame for his escape and what they should do next. One put his back to the wind and raised his cellphone to his ear.

  The Judge had another problem. The knife wound was worse than he'd supposed. It felt like the wound went clear to the bone. He was losing blood in significant quantities, leaving a scent in the water.

  He thought about the hammerhead shark loitering off the pier earlier in the day. He didn’t want to be dinner. But the immediate problem was blood loss. He was growing weaker. He suspected he was in shock. The cold water wasn't helping. He was turning numb and finding it difficult to think.

  Nor were the waves friendly. Large swells were alternately lifting him up and casting him down, making it difficult to make headway toward the pier. He was running out of steam. But there was no one to help. He was on his own. Like on the Ferris wheel, sliding off over the top and crashing for the bottom, trying to hang on.

  CHAPTER 2

  8:45 PM Thursday

  He saw the shore only intermittently now. He was too far out. It had gotten very dark. The swells loomed high, periodically lifting him up. Mostly sinking him down, or so it seemed. He used to joke about walking to school as a boy, uphill in the snow in both directions. He smiled at that. Trying to maintain some sense of humor. He maintained focus on the only marker he could see on the crests.

  The swirling circle of the Santa Monica Ferris Wheel, each brightly lit spoke revolving in the dark sky, reflecting its ambiance on the tops of the swells. Promising warmth and safety. The seats on its circumference filled with people tearing around in circles. And beneath, and to its sides, the shops and the roller-coaster, spawning gold and yellow light across the water.

  He swam mechanically, concentrating only on his strokes. Suddenly the pier loomed up out of the water at him. The current now doing its best to take him cascading into the thicket of supporting beams that held the pier anchored above the tide. With his last ounce of reserve he pivoted toward the shore and with a desperate flurry of strokes catapulted himself back into the curl of a breaking wave, forcing his shoulders and head down as he caught the wave, body surfing the last 50 yards. It took him all the way until his belly slid along the sand.

  He lay there a few seconds as the tide receded. Exhausted. Flat on his stomach, sand-caked hair across his face, shoeless, soaked shirt, no pants, scotch plaid polo boxers, and an ugly gash oozing blood down one arm.

  He heard a sharp squeal, part surprise, part fear. He moved his head up to see a young couple sitting on the sand twenty feet above the tide line. A blanket spread under them. Wine glasses held suspended as they stared down, distressed now. The young man rising. Preparing to defend. The young lady, blond in a skimpy swimsuit partially hidden by gauzy cover up, clutched at his arm.

  "Help me!" croaked the Judge, surprised at his faint voice. “Help me!"

  The young man unlatched his companion’s death grip. Stood up. Cautiously advanced down the beach.

  “I've been attacked,” rasped the Judge, doing a bit better with his voice. “Call the police.”

  “You're bleeding,” said the young man.

  “Yes.”

  "An ambulance too then," betraying a slight English accent.

  "I guess."

  "Hang on old chap, I’m Tony. That’s Claire. We’ll get help."

  "'Kay," said the Judge, rising on to his knees now with considerable effort. Looking back down the beach for
his assailants. There was no one visible.

  The young man strode purposefully back to his blanket, grabbed the girl's hand, helping her up, and started off, heading for the entrance to the pier. "No cell phone," he called back. "Just tourists. We'll find someone to make the call."

  The Judge watched their backs get smaller. He managed to half-stand half-stumble up the beach toward their blanket. Slumping down beside it. Watched them as specks, reaching the edge of the raised parking deck, turning the corner, disappearing. He reached over and poured himself a glass from the bottle of chardonnay. A 2012 Aubert Chardonnay from the Eastside Vineyard. Gulped it down, feeling the liquid bring heat to his throat and then his belly. It was good.

  Five minutes later the young couple came around the deck parking structure, stepping onto the sand, followed by an elderly security guard, fitted out plump in a starched grey and blue uniform and a utility belt with everything on it except a gun. The guard walked like his feet hurt.

  The Judge was suddenly washed in the stark glare of a light atop an open jeep, flying across the sand hell bent for leather. Its young driver looking like he'd just woken up. The Judge had a sudden vision of tire treads across his back. He hobbled to his feet, picking up and waving the wine bottle in self-defense. It was the beach patrol.

  To add to the commotion, a Los Angeles Sheriff's police cruiser sped to a stop at the curb at the sand’s edge, red lights flashing but no siren. It must be a slow night, thought the Judge. He could feel the adrenaline dissipating now help was close, replaced by a shakiness he couldn't quite control. His arm was pounding. Blood continued to ooze out and splatter, leaving an encrusted circle of dark brown sand around him.

  They reached him about the same time, the young couple standing back, the others huddling close as he slumped back to the sand.

  The L.A. Sheriff immediately proclaimed himself in charge, shining his light in the Judge's face and then across his bleeding arm, scrawny white legs, polo shorts, and wet dress shirt covering his protruding tummy.