Shamus In The Green Room (15 page)

was that good . . . that good hippie mojo. They pumped it into

the air up there.

Myrrh was not the woman I would’ve expected Rafe to

marry.

Annie was gardening when I arrived. She was always so

hopeful. But her succulents didn’t look good. Vincent and

Alexander were out, buying a new collar for Pandora, their

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hairless chihuahua. They came home around seven and we had

dinner, something stewlike that I’m guessing involved tofu,

tamari, and most assuredly yeast. I’d made the mistake of ask-

ing in the past. It was better not to know.

Maybe, after Maren, Rafe was looking for someone more

down-to-earth. I wasn’t surprised to hear he didn’t want a

child. Why would he want a child? He was a child.

Alexander wore his fireman’s costume to dinner. After we’d

cleared the table, he decided he wanted to show their neigh-

bors, the Ellises. Annie shoveled the leftovers into a Tupper-

ware container for them. They were going to be thrilled. The

Ellises were the source of the yeast fixation. They even put

yeast in guacamole.

After everybody left, I checked my messages. There were

two. My mother called from New Jersey, wanting to know how

I could have cheated on my wonderful fiancé. Nice to know

she was keeping up on the literature. The curveball came from

Lisa Lapelt: Call me instantly, she said.

Lisa picked up on the first ring and let me have it. Appar-

ently, I’d alarmed her husband’s secretary, who, thanks to the

wonder that is caller ID, had made a note of my number.

She’d described me as a crazy woman and considered calling

the police, which struck me as overkill to say the least, but in the

spirit of cooperation I forced myself to apologize, explaining to

Lisa that if I’d overstepped, it was only because I’d been des-

perate to speak with her. This begged an obvious question.

“Why?” she asked.

Why? How was I supposed to know why? I had no idea why.

“Because,” I started feebly, “well, because—you do know

I’m employed by Rafe, don’t you? Did he mention that?”

“No, he didn’t mention it.” She continued in the feeble vein

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I’d opened up. “Because we haven’t really spoken, I mean. Just

at the funeral, in the parking lot. We talked for a minute,

maybe two minutes, before I left.” Lisa put her hand over the

receiver for a second, then came back. “I have to put you on

hold, okay?” There was a click. She was working hard, I had to

give her that. Meanwhile, I had a minute to think strategy. I

had no strategy.

“I’m back,” she said.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Not for poor Rafe,” I said.

“Why is that?”

“Like I was saying before, Rafe hired me—actually, Will

hired me, to prep Rafe for his upcoming role. Maybe you’ve

read about it? Dash! is the movie’s name. It’s about the writer

Dashiell Hammett.”

“That must be interesting work.”

“It’s very stressful. Shooting starts soon. And the thing is,

Rafe is so consumed with what happened to Maren I can’t re-

ally get him to focus.”

“I’m not sure what I can do,” she said.

“Well, you knew him so well, and Maren, too, I thought

maybe you’d have a handle on how to deal with this. I really

want to help him.”

“Someone we loved is dead,” she snapped. “There’s no good

way to deal with it. It’s a problem for everyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Look.” She took a deep breath. “Maren is a

hard one to get over. It’s going to take all of us a long time.”

“What was she like back in high school?”

“Maren? She was funny and smart. A great athlete. A

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champion debater. Organized the blood drive. Was president

of the film society. Prom queen. Of course Rafe loved her.

Everyone did. She was a golden girl.”

Talk about hard work. On a scale of one to ten, Lisa got a

ten. I coughed in response.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, a nasty edge to

her voice.

“Nothing. It’s just interesting to hear you say that.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because that’s not exactly how you described her the other

day. ‘Young and stupid,’ I think that’s what you said.”

“I was upset,” she retorted. “Don’t hold me to anything I

said that day.”

“It’s just that I heard Maren used to hang out with these

scary surf punks—you know what I mean, hang out hang out ?

I only mention it because I’m wondering if, well, maybe in the

end, it’s those memories that are getting Rafe down.”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Hello? Lisa?”

No fool, she chose her words carefully. “From the moment

she saw him, Maren was utterly devoted to Rafe.”

“You would know better than me,” I said.

“That’s right, I would. Look, I don’t know who you got

your information from, but if you’re talking about the Bay

Boys, Maren wouldn’t give any of them the time of day, and

that’s the truth. It’s laughable! She hated them, and they hated

her. They slashed her tires when she went surfing at Lunada.

More than once, I might add. They were hoodlums.”

“That must’ve made her mad. Or did she get even?”

She let out a breath. “Now I get it. You’ve been doing some

reading.”

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“Actually, I—”

“Just do me a favor and don’t believe everything you read.”

“I don’t.”

“Of course you don’t,” she continued. “You more than any-

one know exactly what I’m talking about. I just saw your pic-

ture at the market checkout stand. Rafe’s new girlfriend. Ha!”

I heard the front door open. Pandora the hairless dog raced

in, hopped up on the bed, and ran around in circles before

curling up into a tiny ball. My family was back.

“Listen, Lisa, I’ve got to run. I think I know what to do

now. You’ve been really helpful.”

Silence.

“I’ll send Rafe your regards,” I said.

She hung up without saying good-bye.

Alexander came in wearing a beatific grin.

“Mom, where are you?” Annie called from the kitchen. “We

brought cookies from the Ellises. No dairy, no oil, no sugar!”

Alexander handed me something small, dark, and oozing. It

reminded me of the slime the saber-toothed tigers and woolly

mammoths got stuck in at the La Brea Tar Pits.

“Eat it,” he demanded.

I looked at Pandora, bald as a billiard ball, and inspiration

struck. “I’m going to take it home for Barbie.”

Alexander nodded his approval. “Barbie’s very hungry.”

t

I g o t h o m e a r o u n d t e n . I t o o k c a r e o f

the pets, changed into sweats, and checked the mail. Bills and

junk, as usual. Then I whipped out the old George Foreman

grill, which I’d repurposed as a panini maker.

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A person needed dinner after dinner at Annie’s.

I had half a bottle of Chianti. I had fontina, still in decent

shape. And I’d saved the last of the prosciutto, even though it

was graying unbecomingly around the edges. The staples of

the Mediterranean diet. I ate lustily, thinking of Sophia Loren.

When I was finished, I went out to my office, turned on the

computer, and learned that there are five surf meccas to avoid:

Pakistan, Java, Morocco, the Maldives, and Lunada Bay.

The reasons to avoid Pakistan, Java, Morocco, and the Mal-

dives are pretty obvious.

The reason to avoid Lunada is the Bay Boys.

The Bay Boys were all over the Internet.

For thirty years and counting, they’d practiced gang-style

intimidation to guard the waves in Palos Verdes from being

surfed by nonlocals.

You can tell a nonlocal because he’s the one wearing his wet

suit down the cliffs. You can tell a Bay Boy because he’s the one

in his old soccer cleats slashing the other guy’s tires, smashing

his windows, crippling his engine, and throwing rocks at him

as he makes his way down the trail. And god forbid the guy

tries to paddle out on his nonlocal board to take a place in the

lineup.

The Bay Boys describe themselves as a brotherhood, with no

written rules, dues, or officers. Instead, there are codes, pacts,

and taboos. Their number holds at around fifty, ranging in age

from the midteens to the sixties. They’re rich and white and the

cops won’t touch them. Why should they? The folks in P.V.

seemed to be pretty happy with things the way they were. No

outsiders means no petty crime, no tacky surfmobiles, no

riffraff tossing beer bottles or peeing on the lawns of their

multimillion-dollar homes.

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I learned the following from Surfer magazine, May 1998:

Matt Cavenaugh, a champion longboarder from Torrance, was

surfing alone when four locals paddled out and told him he

had to leave or there’d be hell to pay. When he reached his car,

Cavenaugh used his cell phone to call police, who arrived on

the scene only to cite him for expired plates.

And this, from the archives of www.surfline.com: Tobias

Stevens of Hermosa Beach got both kneecaps shattered and a

two-inch laceration on the side of the head when he and his

teenage son decided to surf Lunada. The cops later described

Stevens as “aggressive,” and arrested his son, who had inflicted

a bruise on the upper thigh of one of his father’s six attack-

ers—all of whom were let go without so much as a warning.

This from the O.C. Weekly, November 11, 1999: Jim Barron,

a visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, lost four teeth and four tires when

he wandered down to photograph the surf break and encoun-

tered four members of the Bay Boys. After talking with the cops

for two hours, Barron suddenly decided not to press charges.

And that wasn’t even the good part.

The good part was buried in “I Was a Fucking Bay Boy,” a

twenty-page memoir of the seventies, posted anonymously,

and I quote:

It’s 1978. Reverend Jim Jones has fed 900 of his followers

cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. “Dust in the Wind” is playing on

the car stereo. And my good buddy, Oscar Nichols, a fellow

Bay Boy, a legendary board shaper at the age of twenty, gets

arrested for rape. The victim is a sixteen-year-old girl, another

surfer. Pretty. Popular. A local. The community is in an up-

roar. The charges, however, are dropped two weeks later. The

chief of police apologizes. Turns out the girl took back her

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story. Claimed she was confused. Sex is complicated when

you’re young and innocent. Young and innocent. Yeah, right.

This is what Lisa was talking about when she told me not to

believe everything I read.

Maren.

The pretty, popular surfer was Maren.

After the incident, Oscar Nichols left town for a while. He

later said he thought he was a smart guy, but he wasn’t used to

being played.

At the tender age of sixteen, however, Maren was obviously

used to being a player.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

It was five in the morning when I awoke to the sound of glass

breaking.

There was no mistaking that sound.

I bolted upright in bed. My heart started to race, my hands

started to sweat, and every hysterical thought I’ve ever enter-

tained flooded into my brain simultaneously: this is what you

get for living alone in a big city; don’t look strangers in the eye;

why aren’t you married by now?; if you were murdered in your

bed it would be days before anyone noticed; they’re going to

boil your pets alive; there’s anthrax in your mailbox; never

open the door to men selling magazine subscriptions; use your

car keys as a weapon when walking through an underground

parking lot.

I fumbled around on the night table. Where was the phone?

Not here, of course. Should I turn on the light? No. Why not?

No idea. My knee brushed against something unfamiliar,

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something hard under the covers on the other side of the bed.

Gambino’s new phone, a not-cheap Samsung flip top. I cupped

it in my sweaty palm. He must’ve forgotten it here yesterday.

Thank god.

I studied the display. Damn. Low battery. Gambino always

forgot to charge his phone. Just as I was about to dial 911, it

started to ring. The sound was deafening. Frantically, I switched

it to vibrate. The vibrations felt like jackhammers. Sweet Jesus,

I almost threw the thing across the room.

“Hello?” My lips were moving, but I wasn’t sure if I was

making a sound.

No answer. And it was too late for 911. The indicator had

faded to black.

Power out.

I put the phone down, wrapped myself up in my sheets,

crept out of bed, and crouched down next to my armoire. Was

I being robbed? I didn’t have anything worth stealing. But the

burglar didn’t know that. I could push the armoire over on top

of him if he came in here. I could make a break for the front

door. I could sneak out the French doors and hide in my office.

But where had the sound come from? I’d been sleeping. I

didn’t know. The living room? The kitchen? I didn’t exactly