“They?”
“Corporate syndicate.”
“How long’s it been going on?”
“Months. Almost a year.” He looked back at the site. “Owner died, kids inherited, squabbled, sold out to some chain seafood outfit, and they sold to some holding company. They say they’re gonna preserve it, make it even better. Mostly, I see guys in suits driving in and out. Every so often they bring in a squad of Mexicans and there’s some hammering and nailing for a few days, then weeks of nothing. But they keep paying me, and they don’t bother the rest of us who live up there.” His thumb hooked toward the mobile homes. “Be nice, though, to have somewhere to eat out without driving to Malibu Road.”
“Yeah,” I said, waving the twenty. “Gonna take a look, anyway. For old times’ sake.”
“You’re sure? I don’t even think the Porta Potties are working.”
“I can handle it.”
“Wait till you’re my age— Nice car. Take much maintenance?”
“Just a bit. It’s old but it works.”
He smiled. “Like me.” He started to take the money, shook his head. “Aw, hell, forget it—someone asks you, though, you paid.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me, just change the oil every two thousand miles and keep that thing alive.”
I parked south of the construction zone, well away from the heavy machinery. Gulls picked and pecked in the dirt, and a dozen more birds perched noisily atop what was left of the roof. The shingles that remained were wind-warped and salt-grayed and shit-specked. The birds looked happy enough, squawking and jockeying for space.
I got out, righted my baseball cap, and ambled south along the cove, veering diagonally toward the waterline. Medium tide. No beach chairs like in the old days, just plenty of open, creamy sand. The ocean was even lazier than yesterday, oozing in slowly like a giant glue spill, its retreat discernible only as the gradually deepening stain of water-saturated silica. Off at the southern edge was anothe’r shack, white-frame like the guardhouse and not much larger. The blackboard bolted above the door was crowded with sloppy script in that same bright red, proclaiming, KAYAKS! SNORKELS! WET SUITS! COLD DRINKS! Rusty hasp, bolted. I kept walking. Walls of bluff rose behind me. Against the dirt stood a bank of five bright blue plastic Andy Gumps—three of the latrines marked HIMS, two, HERS. Next to the male loos was a large pile of something under layers of bright blue tarp.
I headed toward what was left of the Paradise Cove pier. A few storm seasons ago the gangly structure had been wind-sheared in two, the jut-tying face washed out to sea and never replaced. Now the remains, condemned and blockaded by count}’ chain link, were a listing, bleached skeleton, the vantage point for yet more noisy gulls and a big, solitary, dignified-looking pelican who’d distanced himself from the din.
A squirt of light hit me full-face as I walked across splotches of yel-low sand. The glare made me squint and lower the brim of my cap. False dawn in the afternoon. The flying saucer cloud bank had reversed direction—gliding out toward Japan and leaving behind a pink-pearl residue through which sun struggled to leak. The light that made it through was glossy, almost liquid—squibs of golden ointment.
Even in this ruinous state, the cove was a glorious bit of geography. Thinking of what Tony Duke and his neighbors owned, I sighted down the coast, aiming for a glimpse of the beach estates that claimed the bluffs. But the shoreline curved sharply, and the only home I spotted was a single glass-and-wood thing on stilts, squat and aggressive, ovoid as the cloud bank.
A door slamming from the direction of the latrines made me turn, as a voice behind me said, “Cool, huh?”
I completed the swivel, focused on a red-tan stubbled face. A wiry, midsized man wearing only baggy red swim shorts, standing a few feet away, swinging a key chain. Fat-free torso, corded arms, knees deformed by calcium knots. Coarse peroxided hair with black roots was a crown of thorns above his narrow face. His sharp nose was crooked and zinc-whitened, and a puka shell necklace circled a gullet starting to sag. The stubble on his chin was white as the zinc. Forty, maybe older.