Scavenger hunt

Chapter 4

Sugar grabbed the phone on the second ring and dropped the receiver, still watching the seagulls floating overhead, looking for lunch.

"It's me."

"Been a long time," murmured Sugar, glancing around. Nothing and no one who didn't belong there. He adjusted his Dodgers cap, pulled it low over his eyes. "You're not calling me from home, are you? Not from the house or the office, remember?"

"I remember."

Sugar went back to watching the seagulls, squinting into the sunlight as the largest one swooped low, its beak sharp and cruel against the sky. Most folks liked birds, thought they were cute, and Sugar had to admit they did look graceful on the wing. But they were predators, every one of them, built to rip and tear, to gulp down life and not think twice about it. People who fed seagulls-it was an insult to Mother Nature.

"Sugar?"

"I'm here." Sugar smiled as the big gray gull came up with a fish, flapping across the water, the scales of the fish rainbowing in the sunlight as it wriggled in the gull's beak.

"I-I was expecting more surprise on your part."

"He's out. Sooner or later you're going to call. Why should I be surprised when you finally do?"

"What are we going to do about him?"

Sugar turned away from the seagulls, staring now at the three girls lying face-down on fluffy white beach towels, munching at small bags of French fries. They had their tops off. He didn't know what the big thing about tan lines was; they were sexy, if you asked him, innocent somehow. The thong bikinis that the girls were wearing-Sugar still hadn't decided about that.

"Sugar?"

Sugar sat in an aluminum chaise longue, wearing baggy blue swim trunks, his bulky torso slathered in oil. The girl in the polka-dot bikini was rolling over. Sugar watched her try to cover her breasts with an arm as she reached for her top. She wasn't completely successful, and he saw a flash of white skin, soft white skin that had never felt the sun. Still, he appreciated her efforts to maintain a semblance of modesty-so many of the young ones were whores. Pardon his language, but there was just no other word for it.

"We have to do something."

"I don't have to do anything." Sugar moved the phone to his other ear. "I see a sleeping dog, I let him lie there."

"I don't think that's wise."

"You don't, huh?" One of the gulls floated over the three girls and their French fries, squawking-if they weren't careful, they were going to have an unwanted visitor. Girls should know better, particularly the pretty ones. They were just asking for trouble. Sugar reached into the cooler beside his chaise longue, pulled out a bottle of organic apple juice, and took a long drink. He smacked his lips into the receiver. "Well, you know your business, I know mine."

"I want you to take a more proactive approach."

One of the other girls shifted on her beach towel, and Sugar watched the taut rise of her hip, the sweetness of her shadow. If he had had his binoculars, he could have counted the sweat beads on her inner thighs. He pinched his own belly, got a handful of fat, then smoothed his warm oiled skin. Not bad. "Proactive-that's a word you don't hear in conversation very often, and every time you do, it's an asswipe who's using it."