Desperation Reef

10

Casey distractedly fills drink orders and tries to yak with his customers while checking his balances. His thoughts are spinning and he can’t slow them down. Tessie and Aurora have stayed late. Tessie asks after Mae, who is often on her pad in the Barrel lobby, leashed to the ankle of the bronze statue of Casey’s dad.

“She’s at home, resting,” he says. “Worn out from the fishing today.”

Tessie looks at him doubtfully. “You okay tonight, Case?”

“Worn out, too, I guess. That was a big fish.”

“I’m ready for that surfing lesson whenever you are!”

“You got it, Tess. Maybe next week.”

Keeping track on the back of a bar check, he logs in the $648 in his checking account down at Wells Fargo, easily gettable in the morning. It’s mostly from tips and his small bartender’s hourly.

There’s another account with various sponsorship and endorsement money in it, about $4,000.

And $10,000 in CDs he opened with signing bonuses from a hip young clothing company and a start-up watchmaker. It will cost him an early withdrawal penalty of who knows what, but he thinks he can get most of that money tomorrow because the bank manager likes him.

Subtotaling $14,648, exactly $10,352 short.

“Fudge,” Casey mutters.

He’s got $1,500 in a savings account. And about a thousand in undeclared tips safe under the towels in a bathroom cabinet at home.

He adds it all up and writes the new $171,480 total excitedly, then takes a breath of deep relief. Checks his addition to find he’s slipped in an extra zero so the correct amount should be $17,148.

Still almost $8,000 to go.

Fudge me.

He knows what his tax returns say about gross income — just under $35,000 — annually, for his last few years at the Barrel.

Also knows he has plenty of new sponsor merch but it’s not like the pirates are going to want surfboards, XL wetsuits, trunks, beach shorts, T-shirts, hoodies, leather flip-flops, surf-inspired jewelry made of shells, beads, and sea glass. Certainly not organic sunscreen, Day-Glo nose-coats, CBD lip-savers, or blocks of scented surfboard wax. Maybe the Seiko Waterman watches, he thinks. He’s already given most of them to friends, but he’s got six of them with different-colored dials, still in their boxes, worth five hundred bucks a throw, though technically he’s not allowed to sell them.

“Casey! Another margarita! And a couple of Bohemias!”

A bank loan?

Or maybe money from Mom or Brock?

But Casey knows that Brock’s funding for the Breath of Life Rescue Mission isn’t steady, and he’s got Mahina depending on him. Plus, Brock blows money like crazy, getting the Go Dogs to the latest disaster with generous donations, but many of the life-saving supplies are covered by his always meager personal funds.

His mom has eight grand, though how much she can put her hands on, quickly, he doesn’t know. The idea of borrowing from your mom at age twenty-four doesn’t seem right.

Makes Casey feel like the dumbass that Brock and everybody else have always told him he is.

Later, after locking the Barrel doors for the night, he joins his mother on the outside deck for their customary vodka rocks.

It’s the only alcohol he drinks. One vodka with Mom, per night. Doesn’t love the woozy booze buzz; never has. He honors this ritual for her, though. She has her single drink with him, but Casey knows she drinks more at home, later, to help her sleep. He isn’t sure how much she drinks but he knows she’s up before dawn for her miles of paddling, swimming, running, weight lifting, breath exercises in the high school pool. All in preparation for the Monsters of Mavericks in a few short weeks. Then there’s her fourteen-hour days here at the Barrel, noon to 2 A.M. Six days straight and one day off.

His mother has always run on some inner fuel that Casey has never clearly understood. At times it seems desperate. He thinks it has to do with his father. Maybe with her near worship of him. And maybe to do with some things between them. Secrets. Regrets. Things unsaid. Maybe to do with trying to fill the immense hole that’s been in her for as long as he, Casey, has been alive. The same hole in him.

His just a different shape and size.

Now, from the deck, Jen can see the Brooks Street break she’ll be paddle-surfing just a few hours from now, the hotel lights on the beach, the shining low-tide boulders, the moonlight wobbling on the water.

The waves are small, just a puny west swell, the water temp down to the high fifties. But nothing like the cold Mavericks had been — and will be, she thinks — remembering the bone-deep shock that gripped her there as she powered the jet ski in search of John, her body numbed not just by the water but compressed and constricted by four millimeters of neoprene head to toe. Hard to feel her toes and fingers. Ears aching. Then the sudden recognition: John under the ice-cold water, leashed to a boulder like an infant by his cord.

Yes, so much to fear there. So much to fear at the Monsters.

Enough. Think “do.” Think “strong.”

“I’ll have the money by ten tomorrow,” she says. “Does it matter what kind of bills?”

“Twenties. Thanks, Mom. I’ll pay you back really fast.”

So Casey, she thinks. So good and sweet and sometimes naïve. “I know you will.”

It makes her almost sick, thinking what might happen to Mae. Those men out in the water today looked strong and dangerous.

“I keep thinking I should call the FBI,” he says. “They won’t let me pay the ransom but they’ll help me set the dognappers up, then try to nail them. At least they do that with people. But what if it doesn’t go perfect? What if the pirates smell the sting and Mae ends up dumped? To hide evidence? The feds flub up kidnappings all the time. I just can’t take that risk. Am I being stupid?”

“I urge you to call the police, Casey.”

Jen locks eyes with her beautiful son.

“No, Mom. They’d just mess things up. I called Brock instead.”

A bolt of fear hits her. “The pirates could end up with the money, and Mae,” she says.

Immediately regretting it.

Jen has spent the last twenty-five years not allowing herself to fear small things. Small things like Bette Wu, or her father the Kings fan, or his leering sidekick, Polo. Not allowing herself to be afraid of anything. So she hates it when second-rate fears come drifting over the terrifying pit that is Mavericks. Hates to infect Casey and Brock with them. And herself, too.

“But I don’t think they will,” she says, overriding her last unnecessary, fearful sentence. “So stick to your plan with your brother, Case. We’ll get Mae back. I’ll do anything you need. I can help you pack up the money, drive you to the dropoff, keep an eye out for anything going wrong. I’m not afraid of these people.”

Casey taps his empty glass on the table. “They’ll want me alone, probably.”

“I’ll hang back,” she says.

“Brock’s on his way.”

“The three of us will get her back, Case. We’ll be drinking toasts after work tomorrow night, Mae asleep on somebody’s feet like she always is. I’m feeling it. We’re going to own this thing, just like those waves at Mavericks.”

For twenty-five years, it’s been pure Jen Stonebreaker to encourage her sons to face what she’s afraid of. So long as they’re not.

And just a few weeks from now, to tow Casey into the deadly heart of her own fear. Can she save him from John’s fate?

Of course I can, she thinks: that’s the whole point of the Monsters. To beat what I’m afraid of. To slaughter the fear.

She won’t let Casey sense it.

“I told Brock and Mahina not to bring guns,” he says.

Always the pacifist, Jen thinks. Always the peacemaker, the good, the fair, the God-fearing.

“And?”

“He said don’t worry.”

But worried she is, knowing that Brock’s heart will always beat with anger, no matter how many churches he founds, or “sermons” he gives or disaster victims he helps out.

Jen sighs, says nothing more on this topic.

Almost noon, sheltered by the flowering walls in his fragrant backyard in Laguna Canyon, Casey zips the last thousand-dollar bundle of bills into his backpack, takes pictures and video.

“Heavier than I thought.”

“Two-point-six pounds,” says Brock, just back from gassing up the Go Dogs Econoline.

“Don’t tell me how you know that,” says Jen.

“My colorful past,” he says.

Mahina hefts the backpack by its handle, nods. “Feels like power.”

Casey gets the Barrel bar napkin from his wallet and a pen from his shorts pocket, then sits and dials Bette Wu. He’s on speaker so everyone can hear.

“Bette Wu. Yes?”

Casey says his full name, quietly, then listens and writes.

She gives him the slip number for Empress II in the National City Marina.

“Let me guess,” says Bette. “You are on the speaker with your mother and brother and his wife.”

“Yes, I am. Is Mae alright?”

“Yes, and hello, everybody! I have read so much about all of you. A family of celebrity American surfers!”

Brock leans into the phone and whispers a profane curse.

“I recognize that voice and ’tude, Brother Brock! I love the Breath of Life Rescue Mission. People need anger. And comedy.”

Jen crowds close: “Don’t hurt Mae, you conniving bitch.”

“Mae’s fine, Jen. No worries! But there is now another small wrinkle.”

“No more of those,” says Casey.

“Very easy and simple, though,” says Bette. “Jen, we have business to discuss. So you come with Casey to deliver the money. See? Easy wrinkle! Casey, Jen, and the money. In Casey’s truck. We see any police, any car that is not your truck — then Mae goes overboard. We see Brock or Mahina, or the Go Dogs van, then maybe Mae runs away and we can’t find her. We find guns or phones on you... well, you know what happens. Okey dokey?”

Casey pictures Bette from last night in his bar. He’s never felt real anger before, at least nothing like this. Bette Wu has more wickedness in her than anyone he’s ever met. His first brush with evil. She seems to be made of it. To enjoy it.

“Mae misses you so much,” she says. “We will be watching for you, Casey and Jen!”

She rings off.