Night warriors, p.5
Night Warriors, page 5
‘That’s enough; you can always slice some more later.’
Gil’s mother came in, carrying two cartons of Coco-Puffs from the storeroom at the back. ‘Oh. Gil, I’m glad you’re back. You can stack these on the shelf for me.’
Gil took the cartons, and carried them around to the cereal display. His mother followed him, and stood beside him. She was a small woman, still handsome at forty-four. Phil said she reminded him of a statue, a Greek statue, not the one without the arms but the other one, with the classic face and the classic figure. She was smiling as she watched Gil cut open the cartons and take out the boxes of cereal.
‘Who’s the girl?’ she asked him.
‘You mean the girl who came around looking for me?’
‘There’s another girl?’
‘Well, Dad told me about her, but I don’t know who she is.’
‘She’s very pretty,’ said Fay Miller, looking at her son closely to see if he was telling the truth.
‘That’s what Dad said.’
‘And you really expect us to believe that you don’t know who she is?’
Gil slapped his hand over his heart. ‘Mom, believe me, I wish I did.’
About ten minutes later, Gil’s friend Bradley came in. Bradley’s father ran a fishing-tackle store in Encinitas, a few miles up the coast. Bradley was lanky and funny and almost invariably wore Hawaiian-style beach shirts and Bermuda shorts. He and Gil had been classmates in grade school, and although Bradley was now studying to be a computer programmer, while Gil was taking business studies, they saw each other practically every weekend and all through the summer vacation, and went fishing, and swam, and told each other absurd jokes.
Bradley lifted the new issue of Hustler off the revolving rack and appreciatively leafed through it. Gil’s father had made sure that his general store had an adult magazine rack. He derived benign amusement out of watching teenage boys pluck up enough panicky courage to buy themselves a copy of Chic or Penthouse, paying for it red faced and then rushing out of the store as quickly as they could. The adult magazine rack was part of a general store’s mystery and excitement, along with the strange bottles of Japanese cooking ingredients, the lurid candies and the peculiar kitchen gadgets.
‘How’re you doing, Bradley?’ asked Gil. He took a quarter from a small ginger-haired boy who had carefully been counting out eight liquorice whips, and gave him a penny change.
‘Oh, bored, pretty much,’ said Bradley. ‘Did you hear about what happened at the beach?’
‘Yeah, I heard. “They’ve still got it cordoned off. Jellyfish warning, that’s what they’re saying now.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
Bradley opened up Hustler’s centre-spread. He was silent for a very long time. Then he said, ‘Do you know something, it isn’t fair. It just damn well isn’t fair. Some guy got paid for taking this picture. Paid, can you imagine that? And I couldn’t get to see a girl like that with her legs wide open if I crawled all the way to Mount Palomar and back pushing a rat’s turd with the end of my nose.’
‘Well, that explains it,’ Gil told him. ‘Girls like that don’t really go for guys who push rat’s turds up and down mountains with the ends of their noses. Didn’t anybody tell you that? Your social science teacher?’
Bradley swatted at Gil with the rolled-up magazine.
‘Hey, you take care of that,’ warned Gil. ‘Some jerk-off is going to want to buy that.’
‘I’d buy it myself, but I just couldn’t stand the unfairness.’
Gil shook his head, and said, ‘You’re a real dork, sometimes, Bradley. I hate to think what the inside of your brain is like.’
‘Listen, I have to tell you this joke,’ said Bradley. ‘What do you get if you let an elephant walk across your living-room?’
‘For God’s sake, Bradley, I don’t want to know about that.’
‘No, come on, what do you get if you let an elephant walk across your living-room?’
Gil sighed in exaggerated exasperation. ‘I don’t know, Bradley. What do you get if you let an elephant walk across your living-room?’
‘You get a thick pile on your carpet.’
Gil said, ‘I should throw you out of here, right on your head, you know that?’ But then he turned around and there she was, standing in the doorway, with the sunlight shining brightly behind her so that Gil had to narrow his eyes to make out what she looked like. Bradley turned around too, and was suddenly silent. Gil’s father had been quite right. She was tall, almost as tall as Gil, and dark haired. Her hair was brushed and clean and shining and it reached right down over her shoulders. Her eyes were wide and her lashes were extravagantly long; her mouth was slightly parted as if she were about to say something or as if she were about to kiss somebody. She wore a tight white tee-shirt which clung to her overfull breasts, and it was obvious from the way that the darker tint of her nipples showed through the cotton that she was wearing no bra. She wore white rolled-up shorts and white sandals, and that was all.
‘Gil Miller?’ she said.
Bradley whispered, ‘My wish has been granted. Did she say Bradley Donahue?’
Gil looked the girl up and down, trying to be steady, trying to be cool, but with an extraordinary tightness around his heart.
‘That’s –’ he began, in a choked falsetto. Then, much deeper, ‘That’s me.’
The girl stepped into the store, and smiled at him. ‘My name’s Paulette Springer. I hope you don’t mind my surprising you like this.’
‘Well, uh, no,’ said Gil, wiping his hands on his denim shorts. ‘No, no. My folks told me you called by earlier. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here.’
‘I know, you had to take Susan Sczaniecka home. But that’s all right. I had a cup of coffee at the second-hand bookstore. That’s quite a place, isn’t it? I bought a book called De Sortilegio.’
Gil glanced at Bradley, but all Bradley could do was look baffled.
Paulette came closer. Gil couldn’t help noticing the tantalising sway of her breasts underneath her tee-shirt. Close up, he could smell her perfume, which was like sweet-peas and roses and something else altogether, something subtle and arousing and barely perceptible, like the smell of a warm clean body.
‘I was hoping you could help me,’ she said. ‘Well, sure,’ Gil told her. ‘Anything, you name it.’
‘I’m writing an article for San Diego magazine about the different things that get washed up on the beaches.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Gil’s heart still felt tight; in fact it felt tighter than ever.
‘I know it sounds silly,’ said Paulette, ‘but actually it’s going to make a pretty interesting piece. You’d be amazed what gets washed up. I mean apart from whales and driftwood and things like that. There’s an old man who lives about a mile north of here, and he’s furnished his whole cottage with chairs and tables and beds that were washed right up on the beach.’
Gil drummed his fingers on the top of the cash-register. ‘That’s pretty interesting. The only thing is, what does it have to do with me?’
‘Well,’ Paulette smiled, her eyes sparkling at him, ‘you go down to the beach every morning, don’t you? You have to jog, because of your leg.’’
‘That’s right,’ Gil agreed. ‘It’s part of the therapy. But I still don’t see –’
She lifted a finger to silence him. He didn’t know why, but he was silent. She said, quite sweetly, ‘You’re almost always the very first person down on the beach, aren’t you? Sometimes you’ re down there as soon as it’s daylight. So if anything was washed up during the night, anything at all, you’d be the very first person to find it.’
Gil looked at her closely. Then he looked away, and jammed his hands into the back pockets of his sawn-off jeans, and made one of those faces that means hey, hold up a minute, what exactly in hell is going on here? Paulette watched him, her soft smile never wavering once, and Bradley watched Paulette. His face was saying, it isn’t fair. The nearest living thing I’ve ever seen to a Hustler centre-spread walks right into my life, and wants to talk to Gil, not me.
Gil said, at last, ‘Have you been talking to anybody?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Have you been talking to Susan Sczaniecka? Or that old guy who lives along the beach?’
‘Who’s Susan Sczaniecka when she’s at home?’ Bradley wanted to know.
Paulette didn’t answer Gil’s questions, but said in the simplest of voices, ‘You’ve found one or two interesting things washed up on the beach, haven’t you?’
‘I found a case full of Johnny Walker once. My dad made me hand it over to the Coastguard. I expect they drank it. I’m pretty damn sure they drank it.’
‘And then of course you found what you found today.’ Paulette’s mouth may have been smiling, but the expression in her eyes was completely serious.
‘You talked to Lieutenant Ortega?’ asked Gil.
‘Gil,’ Paulette coaxed him, ‘all I want to do is to write my article. You don’t have to be mentioned by name. All you have to do is describe what happened to you, how you felt about it.’
There was no doubt that Paulette was almost irresistibly attractive. If Gil had seen her in a crowd of girls, he would have picked her out straight away. She was exactly the type of girl that turned him on the most. Long brunette hair, sooty-lashed eyes, and the kind of figure that just had to be felt to be believed. She was standing even closer now, so that her breasts were almost touching his arm, and he could see the tiny green flecks in the irises of her eyes.
The tip of her tongue ran lightly across her lower lip. Gil melted inside, into white-hot liquid boy. He was confused by Paulette, and irritated by how much she knew about him. She even frightened him just a little. But he knew that whatever she suggested, he wouldn’t be able to refuse, because a girl who looked like this would probably never walk into the Mini-Market ever again, not in a grillion years, and what a dork he would look if he chased her away.
Who cared what she knew? Who cared what she wanted? His throat was dry and his shorts were uncomfortably tight and she was so goddamned nice, as well as sexy, as well as beautiful, and, if she went to the second-hand bookstore and bought books with names like Day Sortie Ledgey, as well as intelligent, too.
‘What exactly do I have to do?’ Gil asked, cautiously.
‘You have to answer some questions, that’s all,’ Paulette told him. ‘There’s nothing to it.’
‘Questions about ... what I found on the beach?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘You really want to know about that?’
There was a look in her eyes that warned him not to ask her any more, not in front of Bradley, at least.
‘We can’t do it here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you meet me this evening? We could talk over dinner.’
‘Sure, if that’s what you want. Sure.’ He tried to sound off-hand.
‘Okay, then,’ said Paulette. ‘Meet me at seven at Bully’s North. You know Bully’s North?’
‘Well, yes, but I can’t afford to buy you dinner there.’
‘That’s okay,’ Paulette smiled. ‘The magazine will pay for the meal. Expense account.’
Just then, Phil Miller came up to the front of the store. He nodded to Paulette, and then said to Gil, ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
‘I’m sorry Dad. This is Paulette Springer, from San Diego magazine. She wants to write an article about some of the things that people find on the beach. Paulette, this is my dad.’
They shook hands. ‘Good to know you, Mr. Miller,’ said Paulette. ‘How’s your insurance problem?’
‘Oh, I guess we’ll get the money eventually,’ said Phil. ‘The insurance company’s been arguing that a brown-out doesn’t constitute a black-out, and so none of our freezer-food was covered; but our lawyer seems pretty hopeful about it.’
He suddenly stopped himself, and frowned at her. ‘How do you know about that?’ he asked her.
She smiled at him, half knowingly, half provocatively. ‘Word gets around,’ she said, winking.
‘Word gets around about three hundred dollars’ worth of spoiled pizzas?’
Paulette wouldn’t say any more, but gave Gil’s hand a squeeze and told him, ‘I’ll see you later. Don’t be late. Bully’s North, at seven.’
‘I’ll be there,’ Gil promised.
All three of them watched her walk out of the store, and the way that she moved in her tight white shorts. Bradley whispered, in a reverential voice, ‘No panties, did you see that? Not a pantie-crease in sight.’ He stared wide eyed at Gil, and clenched his fists, and said, ‘God! I could hit myself in the face with a brick.’
‘It might do you some good,’ said Phil.
Gil just stood behind the cash-register staring at the open door of the Mini-Market as if he couldn’t believe that Paulette had actually been real.
Phil said, ‘You’re seeing her tonight?’
Gil nodded. ‘She’s buying me dinner.’
Phil laid his arm around his son’s shoulders. ‘You know something?’ he said. ‘There do seem to be times when you can fall on your feet.’ He glanced behind him, but Gil’s mother was still in the stockroom. ‘Just make sure, you know, that you take all the necessary precautions. She might be a lovely young lady, but I don’t know her well enough yet to entrust her with my first grandchild.’
Bradley wrenched his golfing-hat down over his head. ‘Precautions! What are you doing to me? I could hit myself in the face with two bricks.’
Phil laughed, and gave Bradley a playful punch in the stomach. Bradley coughed and spluttered and pretended to expire.
‘Listen,’ said Phil, ‘I’ll do you a favour. You can have that Hustler at fifty per cent discount.’
‘While he goes out with Miss Super Bosom, 1986? Are you kidding?’
Gil served behind the deli counter until lunchtime. Then he made himself a salt beef and onion submarine, and took off for San Pasqual Valley, out by the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where his friend Santos Ramona lived. Santos had briefly attended the same business college as Gil, but after two semesters his father had been hospitalised with emphysema, and he had been obliged to give up his education and work in the San Pasqual vineyards to support his family. Bradley was fun; but Santos was the man to see if you felt serious or reflective. Santos had sampled peyote and yage, the mind-expanding drugs taken by the Jivaro Indians. Santos claimed that he could see the future.
Gil ate the salt beef submarine as he drove one-handed along the winding road that led up from Solana Beach to Rancho Santa Fe. Beyond the quiet retirement community of Rancho Santa Fe, with its whitewashed houses and its neat streets, the road ribboned out into more mountainous country, around the edge of Lake Hodges, and out into the San Pasqual Valley. Hot and sheltered, with slopes of dry, tawny soil, the San Pasqual Valley was ideal for growing grapes. The vines stood hand-in-hand on the hillsides, their green leaves fluttering in the afternoon breeze like tattered shirts.
Santos Ramona’s house was set close by the road, in a steep sloping hollow, so low down that its clay-tiled roof was almost on the same level as the pavement. Gil steered the Mustang down the dusty gradient into Santos’s front yard, and five or six chickens scattered around his wheels. Santos himself was out back, with a spanner in one hand and a can of Mexican beer in the other, staring without much optimism at a battered John Deere tractor, and occasionally wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.
Gil brought the Mustang to a halt, and a cloud of sandy-coloured dust drifted away through the eucalyptus trees which shaded the back of Santo’s property. Gil jumped out, and walked over to stand next to Santos and join him in staring at the tractor.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked Santos.
‘You’ve been eating onions,’ Santos remarked.
‘So what? What’s wrong with the tractor?’
‘Won’t go.’
‘Do you know what’s the matter with it?’
Santos swallowed beer, and then spat into the dust. ‘If I knew what the matter with it was, I’d fix it.’
‘Maybe the fuel line.’
‘Maybe the fuel line what?’
‘Well, maybe it’s clogged. That happens with tractors, working in dirty conditions.’
Santos stared at the tractor for a moment or two longer, then let the spanner drop on to the ground with a clank. ‘Come inside,’ he said. ‘Do you feel like a beer? Where have you been for so long? These past two months, I’ve hardly seen you.’
They walked into the house. It was shadier inside, but not much cooler. In the blue and yellow-tiled kitchen, Santos’s mother was making empenadas, and occasionally flicking away flies with the fringe of her black embroidered shawl.
‘How’re you doing, Mrs. Ramona?’ Gil asked her.
‘Phoof, don’t ask me,’ Mrs. Ramona replied. Her face was thin and wrinkled and her eyes were as black and glittering as two beetles, nestling in the sockets of her skull. ‘My husband is still sick, you know; the winery is cutting their workforce; who knows what will happen?’
Santos went to the icebox and took out two more beers. He lobbed one across the kitchen to Gil, and Gil caught it left-handed.
‘Come through,’ said Santos, and they walked through to Santos’s bedroom. Santos kicked the door shut behind them, and suddenly Gil felt peaceful and quiet and very enclosed.
To look at Santos, it was almost impossible to guess that he had a room like this. He was short and podgy, and his shirt was always hanging out of his jeans. He had one of those Mexican faces that reminded Gil of Mayan masks, flat as a pancake, and featureless. His black hair was combed into a 1950’s crest at the front and duck-tailed at the back. He spat a lot, by way of punctuation.
His room, however, was almost monastic. It was white painted and cool. The bed was neatly draped with a plain light-blue cover. There was a pale oak closet with brass hinges and a shelf with half a dozen books on it, all in Spanish and all concerned with mysticism. On the wall between the two shuttered windows there was a large gilt and enamel crucifix, set with red glass rubies and pieces of mirror. The Christ that hung on it was like a pink-painted doll, with an almost ludicrously agonised expression on His face.
