As I continued south the breeze picked up, and now I was working a bit just to keep from veering back toward land. A few minutes later the first sign of riptides appeared—narrow pipes of coiling water braiding the skin of the Pacific. As I passed over them the kayak bucked, then settled down gently.
Three more estates, two with intact steps so steep they were little more than ladders. Norris’s tale of a fast-vanishing beach might have been hyperbole, but signs of erosion were obvious in the furrows that corrugated the bluffs. An outcropping of rock fingers stretched into the water, and I pushed the kayak farther out to sea, skimming the eastern border of a floating mass of kelp. Suddenly, the sun hid itself again and the water gotdark. I was a good fifteen yards from the tide line when Tony Duke’s funicular came into view.
Duke’s property was wider and higher than those of his neighbors, and his property line was more sinuous—a series of S-curves created as the cliff twisted and relented. The hillside had been planted with succulents, but all that remained were scraggly gray-green patches, and the erosion scars were long and deep, impossible to mistake for anything but inevitable. Down below was Duke’s patch of beach, a spoon-shaped hollow visible only from the water. The funicular was a low-key affair, redwood car and dark metal tracks blending in with the mountainside. The passenger compartment rested atop the cliff, shadowed by a brown metal arch that I assumed was some kind of power source. The tracks dropped from the hilltop to the sand in a near-vertical drop, adhering to the dirt as if by magic. If plants couldn’t take root, could metal bolts be trusted?
Someone thought they could. Nestled in the spoon were a woman in a beach chair and two small white-blond children. I was too far away to make out the woman’s age. Her big straw hat and blowsy white dress provided no help. The kids looked to be around three or four. The smaller one—a girl in a pink one-piece bathing suit—sat in the sand, legs splayed, digging with a bright orange shovel and adding sand to a green bucket. Several feet in front of her a naked boy ran along the shore, kicking water, picking up clumps of seaweed and tossing them ineffectually at the ocean.
The woman’s body was loose in a way that could mean only sleep or hypnosis. In the sand near her right arm, something glassy kicked back reflection.
I stopped rowing, backpaddled to remain in place, and watched them. The naked boy saw me, stared back, raised his arm. Not a greeting— a tight-fisted wave, combative. The woman didn’t move. I resumed rowing—slowly. The breeze bumped me over a riptide, and water splashed into the boat. The air was colder, and the pool around my bare feet had become an ice bath. When I was well past the Duke estate, I looked back. The little boy had lost interest in me, was in thigh-high water, splashing.
I drifted past several more properties, caught sight of a couple of cathedral-sized houses but no people. The wind had grown adamant, and my feet, immersed in salt water, were numb. I crossed a few more rips, found easy water, sat there for a while, bobbing and staring out across theocean, wondering why I’d come. A shadow passed over the kayak as a pelican—a big, fat, gray creature, maybe the bird I’d seen atop the pier— glided toward the horizon. I watched the bird cross the kelp bed and settle. Waiting. Dipping, retrieving, gulping. Oblivious to anything but the task at hand, a jowly monarch.
I rowed a bit more, hit increasingly angry waves. Fifty minutes had passed since I’d slipped into the wet suit. Time to get back.
I’d be bringing back no tales of naked babes for Norris and nothing of an evidentiary nature for Milo. The little towheads were most likely Tony Duke’s second installment of offspring, and the woman could be anyone.
As I began the row back I decided not to tell Milo of my little ride. Maybe he’d call today, maybe not. One-handing the kayak into reverse, I began my return trip. Rowing faster and staying as close to the shore as the shallows would allow, because the wind had kicked up the waves. Working up a chilly sweat by the time the funicular appeared.