Killer Swell

52

I spent the night wrestling with Emily’s reaction to me and new thoughts about Liz. I ended up getting about two hours of sleep. When I woke, I felt too sluggish to hit the water or take a run, so I took a long shower, read the paper, and watched a thick marine layer build over the coast. A day without sunshine.

I drove up to Clairemont about mid-morning to see Carter’s key guy. About twenty minutes from the beaches, the only notable thing about the area was that the high school with the same name was rumored to have been where Cameron Crowe did his undercover research for Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The school did not put that on its enrollment materials.

Situated between the canyons, the area housed middle-class homes and lots of strip malls. Clairemont Square had undergone numerous renovations, trying to keep up with the changing retail times, but it never seemed to quite make it with each new face-lift. The giant theater that still loomed as the anchor of the outdoor plaza was the place to see movies when I was a kid. Now it ran films you could see at half price if you didn’t mind the grainy print quality or that it had already been out for a month.

I found the kiosk in the middle of the plaza. A guy with a long ponytail was lounging on a tall director’s chair, his feet up on the cart and a cigarette in his mouth. Long, skinny arms emerged from a grubby white tank top that matched the dirty jeans and work boots.

“You Charlie?” I asked, admiring the vast quantity of keys hanging in every possible place on the cart.

He pulled the cigarette from his lips and squinted at me. “Yeah. What can I do for you, man?”

“Got a question about a key.”

He spread his arms wide, grinning. “Well, you’ve found heaven then.”

I pulled the key out of the pocket of my shorts. “Carter Hamm sent me.”

He tapped the cigarette and ash fell to the ground. He cocked an eyebrow at me. “No shit? My good buddy Carter?”

“Yeah. Said you might be able to tell me what this belongs to.” I handed the key to him.

He jammed the cigarette back into his lips and turned the key over in his palm a couple of times. “Probably.” He grinned at me. “For the right price.”

“I said Carter sent me.”

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, tossed it to the ground, and stepped on it. “Exactly. That’s why it’ll only cost you twenty instead of forty.”

I extracted a twenty from my wallet and handed it to him. “What a deal.”

His laugh sounded like a hiss. “I know, dude. You’re lucky.”

Charlie turned around, his ponytail whipping over his shoulder. His bare neck exposed a tattoo of a black panther with its fangs bared. I tried to imagine the pain of ink needles dancing around the top of my spine.

He turned back around, an old metal toolbox in his hand. He set the box on the cart and opened it up. He rummaged through what looked to be thousands of keys. Old, new, shiny, rusted, big, small.

“Heard Carter was in the hospital,” Charlie said, moving some more keys around.

I tried not to look surprised. “Yeah. Actually, he is.”

He hissed or laughed or whatever it was again. “That dude gets in more shit.”

“He’s gonna be alright.”

“Good to hear.” He stared at a particular key he’d pulled from the toolbox, then at my key. “That’s it.”

“What?”

He held up my key. “This goes to one of them rental lockers. Put a quarter in and pull the key out and it’s locked, you know?”

“Yeah. Like at the airport.”

He shrugged. “Or Sea World. Or wherever.”

“Is it possible to tell where it came from? I mean, exactly.”

Charlie held the key up and flipped it around with his fingers, then nodded. “Probably.” He smiled at me.

“For a price,” I said.

His grin grew. “Right on, brother. Something with a one and a couple of zeros in it.”

I pulled four twenties, two tens, and one of my cards out of my wallet and handed them over. “I need to know as soon as possible.”

He shoved the money in his pocket and examined my card. “An investigator. Like Magnum, dude?”

“Just like him.”

“Cool,” he said, nodding his approval. He folded the key in my card and slid them into the front pocket of his jeans. “I’ll call you.”

“When?”

He smiled. “When I know, Magnum.”

I walked away wondering if I was the only normal friend that Carter had.