Winter Tides (6 page)

And then, as if she had in that moment appeared from within a veil of fog, a woman stood looking at him on the front walk, her features unfocused in the murk so that she seemed almost faceless, her dark amorphous clothing misty beneath the streetlamp. Her hair was long and black. Momentarily her features nearly coalesced in the heavy mist, and he was struck with the feeling of vague recognition, but then a window seemed to open in the fog, and just as quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared. He heard the footfalls scraping again on the wet sidewalk, but even they sounded dreamlike, as regular as a heartbeat, and abruptly they fell away, and the night was silent around him.

He got up from the chair and descended the concrete porch steps to the front walk, and it seemed to him that there was cool air rising from the concrete like an upwelling of ocean water drawn to the surface by a passing wave. He smelled smoke on the wet night air, just a trace of it that lingered for a moment on the lanquid breeze and then was gone. The sidewalk and the street were empty. The street-lamps cast misty circles of yellow light on the curb and the grassy parkway. Moisture from the telephone lines dripped slowly onto the driveway, and now that he was out from under the shelter of the porch, he could hear waves breaking along the distant beach.

To satisfy an uneasy curiosity, he walked toward the corner. The neighboring houses were dark, their porches and driveways empty. He crossed the street at the end of the block and continued on, heading down toward the ocean, which was six blocks away. It seemed to him that she must have disappeared in this direction, although he couldn’t quite say why, since she had merely vanished from where she had stood, and might just as easily have ascended into the clouds.

The entire episode began to seem unreal to him, and it dawned on him that she might simply have been a waking hallucination, a trailing remnant of his dream. He turned around and headed home, realizing that he was merely chasing phantoms. It was time for bed—past time. His house loomed into view, the living room light shining out onto the porch. Through the screen door he could see his coffee cup on the table next to the couch. A folded-open copy of
Fine Woodworking
magazine lay on the floor along
with the disassembled parts of an old wooden carpenter’s plane that he was restoring. He climbed the steps, picked his book up from the chair, and went inside the house, where he shut the door and bolted it. For a few more moments he peered out through the blinds, listening to the quiet night and watching the foggy, empty street.

He walked to the library table that sat against the back wall of the room, opened the single drawer, and reached far into the back of it, in among a scattering of old photographs, finding the beaded bracelet that he had kept in the years since Elinor’s drowning. He couldn’t say why he hadn’t given it back to the drowned girl’s mother, to Elinor’s mother, that morning on the beach. He simply hadn’t. The moment had never come. He hadn’t been able to face her. He had slipped away, crossing the Highway to where his car was parked on the dirt shoulder near the boatyard, the bracelet in the pocket of his trunks. He looked at it now, the ivory-white beads with blocky red letters spelling out her name, a heart and a diamond on either side. The rest of the bracelet was elastic string, which had lost its stretch in the intervening years.

After a moment he slipped it back into the drawer, losing it once again among the photographs.

R
IGHT
N
OW
N
OTARY AND
T
AX
P
REP OPERATED OUT OF AN
aging strip mall on Beach Boulevard near Talbert. There was a Laundromat next door and a liquor store next to that, which was also a
carnicería
that sold
asada
and
carnitas
tacos to go, and which cashed paychecks and did a limited pawn business. The counter in the liquor store was shielded by bulletproof glass, and the doors and windows were
covered with a sliding wrought iron gate after two in the morning. The Laundromat was open all night.

Ray Mifflin sat at the office desk reading a
People
magazine and drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. He could hear a muffled churning from beyond the wall, a washing machine chugging away in the Laundromat. From time to time he glanced out the window, waiting for his client to show—a Mr. Edmund Dalton of Huntington Beach, son of a very rich man. Dalton was fifteen minutes late. Ray didn’t normally open until ten, although he was usually in the office a couple hours early. This was ridiculous, though. This morning he had pulled in shortly after dawn for an appointment with a man who was too busy to wait for business hours. Ray had just turned sixty, and he was damned if he would put up with being treated like a fool by some rich young punk.

He was tired, but it was only lately that he had realized it. He
looked
tired. His hair was thin. Rogaine treatments hadn’t done a thing for him. Neither had diet pills. He was sedentary, his back was a wreck, and he was simply goddamn weary of the whole thing. He missed his breakfast, too. When he got up early like this, he always felt starved within a half hour, and this morning he craved a Hostess apple pie, which, of course, he couldn’t put his hands on because the damned liquor store didn’t open until eight, when the vagrants sleeping on the Laundromat chairs woke up hungry.

He was charging his early-morning customer a hundred dollars to notarize a quitclaim deed, but at this moment the pie was more attractive to him than the money was, and if the man didn’t show up in another ten minutes he was going to hang the be-back-soon clock on the door and head down to the all-night market.

This whole transaction smelled wrong anyway: the rush to get it done, the early-hours appointment, the money….

Ray had notarized another deed for the man barely a month ago, and that one had smelled a little high, too, although it was true that he wouldn’t have thought more than twice about last month’s work if it weren’t for this second one. There was nothing really out of the ordinary about the
deed that he had notarized last month. It involved an old guy, pretty much on the ropes, quitclaiming a piece of property to his son, getting out from under some of his assets before he dropped dead and the estate got caught up in probate and taxes. There was something about the son, though, that Ray didn’t like—he was way too anxious and smug. You’d think that if the old man was giving you a gift-wrapped piece of Newport Beach you’d be a little bit deferential, a little grateful. But this had been hurry-up-and-get-it-done, and when the deed was signed, the son had called the old man a cab, given him some folding money out in the parking lot, and drove away by himself in a Mercedes. The old man had hit the liquor store for a pint of bourbon while he was waiting for the cab.

On the other hand, it wasn’t any of Ray’s concern. If you ask too many questions about another man’s business, it becomes your business, and pretty soon you’re wading through mud and you don’t have any galoshes. And besides, there were lots of ungrateful sons out there, and lots of fathers who boozed it up.

There was a knock on the door now, and whoever was standing outside leaned hard enough against it that the dead bolt clanked against the frame. Ray got up and looked out past the curtain. When he saw it was Dalton, he unlocked the door and let him in. “Take a seat,” he said, motioning at one of the two office chairs opposite the desk.

Dalton looked far too fresh and pressed for this early in the morning, and the sight of him made Ray feel even more tired than he already felt. He also felt powerless, dressed in yesterday’s limp shirt and a pair of slacks that should have gone to the cleaners last week. Dalton wore a suit and tie, and his shirt had a monogram on the pocket, a stylized D. He wore his clothes easily, too, as if he was born to model shirts. He was slightly taller than Ray, who was five-ten, and he had a medium build. There was a lot about him that was medium—a lot of restraint, a magazine image. He looked a little like Frank Sinatra in his prime, but with wavier hair and a tan that must have come out of a tanning salon, given the time of the year. Women probably found him handsome.

Ray rubbed the top of his head and sat down heavily in his own chair. “Cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks. I don’t drink coffee.”

“My coffee’s no good anyway,” Ray said. “I usually chase it with Rolaids.”

“Why do you drink it, then?” Dalton was apparently serious. He had no sense of humor at all, despite his smile.

“Force of habit,” Ray said. “What have you got?”

“Same as last time. Nothing complicated. This won’t be the last one, either.”

“Where’s your father, out in the car?”

Dalton shook his head. “He’s not too well, I’m afraid. I believe I mentioned that they were going to do bypass surgery on him?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Unfortunately they couldn’t, not in the shape he was in. So they put him on a diet and exercise regimen, which was completely worthless. He’s weaker than ever. You saw what he looked like last month.”

Ray nodded. Last month the old man had looked like a street drunk wearing somebody else’s clothes.

“I’m pretty sure that there’s something more wrong with him. His stomach problems get worse every day. He can’t eat. My guess is it’s cancer, but I’ll be damned if I want them to run the tests on him. What’s the use? If they find out it’s cancer, what are they going to do—chemo therapy? Not in the shape he’s in. I’m just trying to keep him comfortable now. He might hang on six months, or he might go tomorrow.”

“He’s insured?”

“With Kaiser Permanente.”

Ray clicked his tongue.

“They’ve taken good care of him. The HMO is the wave of the future. But when a man’s dying of heart disease, cancer doesn’t interest him all that much. He’s got a big enough fight as it is.”

“And that’s why he wants to get rid of these properties?”

“That’s exactly it,” Dalton said. “He’s clearing the decks, I guess. It’s sad, but it’s practical.”

“Well, it’s not all
that
practical. We’ve got a small problem.”

“What’s that? I’ve got his signature here on the deed.”

“Even so,” Ray said, “we need him, too.”

“Well, we’re not going to get him. I’m not exaggerating about his condition. It would kill him to have to deal with this now. You’ve already met him. What’s the sudden interest in his personal appearance?”

Ray held his hands out helplessly. His instincts had been right. There was a problem here. And now his instincts told him that it was a problem that was bigger than a hundred bucks.

“It’s the law, Mr. Dalton.” The only thing to do for the moment was to stonewall him—shift the blame to the government. Hell, there were other notaries around. Let him go hose somebody else if he didn’t want to play ball.

Dalton looked at him for a moment, as if considering Ray’s objection. “What’s that picture on the wall there?” he asked suddenly, pointing at a framed photo.

“That’s the Mifflin hacienda. Belonged to my folks.” The photo was of a U-shaped ranch-style house with a wide verandah and shuttered windows. The blue of the ocean was visible beyond the dry scrub that surrounded the house. There was a terra-cotta and tile fountain in front with a sporty-looking old car parked beside it.

“And now the place is yours?” Dalton asked him.

“It sure as hell is, whenever I can find the time to get down there.”

“It was your birthright, your inheritance?”

“I guess you could put it that way. It’s only about four hours away, too. Outside a little village called Punta Rioja—just below Ensenada.” Ray instantly regretted saying this. He was talking too much, getting too familiar with a man he didn’t know. That was against the rules.

“That’s how you learned the language, then?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s come in handy for you, too.”

“There’s a big Hispanic population up here. They pay taxes.”

“That’s good to hear. They need help, and they come to
Ray Mifflin. I bet they need all
kinds
of help.”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

Dalton shook his head, as if what he’d said wasn’t important anyway. He waved his papers in the air. “Well, you’ve got
your
little hacienda already. I guess you understand what I’m talking about here.”

“Yes, sir,” Ray said. “And so will your father. All we need is his signature, like I said.”

“You’ve seen the signature before, though. It’s not as if this thing doesn’t have a history. I mean, this isn’t the first of these. And as I said before, you’ve already met my father.”

“Well, the county doesn’t have as much respect for history as you and I do, Mr. Dalton. Legally, either your father’s got to be here or else you’ve got to have two witnesses to attest to the fact that this is his signature.”

“Are you implying that you don’t believe this is his signature?” He laid the papers on the desktop and gestured at them.

“Hell
, no,” Ray told him. “But this isn’t about what
I
believe. This is about what’s legal and illegal. I’d love to do you a favor, Mr. Dalton, but I’ve got a career on the line here, and I’m afraid I’ve got to follow the rules.”

Dalton shrugged and sat back in his seat. “I guess maybe we can get an ambulance to transport him. I don’t like it, though. I can’t imagine that’s what the law had in mind.”

“Like I said, how about a couple of witnesses to the signature? That ought to be easy enough. Either that or I could run on out to Huntington Beach with you. I’d have to charge you my hourly plus travel, but if that’s the only way to work it …” He held his hands out and shrugged. “What is it, anyway? Another quitclaim deed? Not that it’s any of my business, aside from the signature question.”

“That’s it. Quitclaim deed again. Real estate. I’ve still got to get his estate under control before the tax man gets hold of it. I already feel like a vulture, you know, grabbing these deeds like this. But the government doesn’t let you do anything else. And like I said, I don’t want to bother my father with this. There’s no use for the two of us to go pushing into his sickroom and shoving a pen into his hand.
He’s my father, for God’s sake. He deserves a little bit of respect.”