Swift Vengeance

39

My nerves were steady and my eyes sharp and my body felt light and strong. How I used to feel before a fight. Took Park Boulevard to the 163 to I-5 north. Headlights and taillights, traffic heavy but moving. Off at the Lindbergh Field exit, then all the way to North Harbor Drive, which runs along the bay and comes into downtown from the north.

The evening was clear and the stars began to emerge above the city lights. The yachts bobbed easily on the water and the traffic was steady. We passed Glorietta. A weak light inside.

I drove past the smaller charter boats and the pleasure craft to where the Azure Seas, berthed at one of the cruise-line docks, disgorged a river of tourists onto the Embarcadero. Many headed for Unconditional Surrender, no doubt.

“Do you think he’s convinced?” asked Ali. “Or will he run us around some more?”

“If we passed his sniff test at the park, I think he’ll show,” I said. “He wants that money. But if something looked wrong to him, he’s gone by now and he won’t talk to the Warrior of Allah again.”

“The damned motorcycle,” said Ali. “It was conspicuous and noisy and out of place. Easy to remember if he sees it again.”

Traffic thickened near the Midway, and we picked our way toward the parking lot. The enormous aircraft carrier presided over the city waterfront like a city of its own, multi-storied and brightly lit, a chapter of history afloat on glimmering black water. Paid my money and parked.

We made the Embarcadero and rounded the stern of the Midway. Then mixed in with the steady flow of holiday visitors, cruise-ship patrons, and local families out for a look at the harbor lights and the city skyline and maybe dinner. I scanned the parked vehicles for Caliphornia’s 4Runner, Blevins’s Lincoln, and the Taucher-O’Hora Challenger. Up ahead I could see Unconditional Surrender — the sailor and the nurse, locked in their eternal public kiss — brightly towering in the night.

The statue is based on the iconic photograph V-J Day in Times Square, which captured the sailor kissing the nurse. It was originally installed in Sarasota, Florida, but some San Diegans had to have one, too. Others did not. As they argued, private donors and city boosters ponied up a million dollars, bought another Unconditional Surrender statue, and installed it here on the waterfront.

Where it now loomed before us, immense and boldly lit. Twenty-five feet high. Bronze, but painted to resemble skin and clothing. An average human adult is roughly the length of one of the nurse’s shoes, and comes to about the middle of the nurse’s calf. The closer you get to it, the more vertigo-inducing and weirdly monstrous it is.

All of which was arguable to the scores of people milling beneath the sculpture — posing for pictures alone and together, trying to re-create the postures of the kissing couple — laughing and snacking and drinking as they ambled or stood or sat on concrete benches, craning their necks.

We worked our way to the edge of the mall in which the statue stood. The Midway presided to the north, the downtown hotels and offices sprouted densely to the east, and to the west I could see the twinkling necklace of Coronado on the black water of the harbor.

Ali carried his briefcase to an open bench and sat, facing Unconditional Surrender and the Midway. With his trim suit and briefcase, he looked out of place here among the tourists. Uptight and somehow false. All the easier for Caliphornia to spot. And to doubt?

Across the mall, Taucher stood with her back to the statue, taking or faking phone pictures of the aircraft carrier. Her apparent companion, O’Hora, waited not far from her with a convincing air of boredom.

From the Embarcadero, homeless Lark wandered toward Unconditional Surrender as if he’d walked all the way from Balboa Park.

But no Caliphornia.

I stood just off the Tuna Lane sidewalk, a hundred feet away from Hassan on his bench. Tuna Lane curved one-way past the statue and the waterfront restaurants, then back out to North Harbor. One side was bordered by diagonal paid-parking spots, much coveted during the holidays. Cars pulling in and cars pulling out, cars waiting, patience required. I scanned them, hoping that simple good luck would bring Caliphornia’s gray SUV into focus. I wondered if he’d switched vehicles for this meeting. Did Kalima have a car?

Turning away, I saw Lark, already ambling down the sidewalk along Tuna Way toward us.

Then:

Text to the team:

Hassan stood and turned my way. I stepped around the tourists, looking for Caliphornia or anyone else who might be closing on the money. Saw a couple with a stroller and twins. And an old couple, he with a walker and she with a steadying hand on his arm. A group of Japanese tourists. A laughing boy in overalls running loose, with Mom in hot pursuit. Sailors on leave, taking selfies for families or lovers — one of them maybe the next serviceman to be immortalized by a photograph.

Ali waited, then we started off toward the Midway under the dress of the kissing nurse. Drifted through Taucher and O’Hora with nothing more than glances.

Then, like a guest appearance in a strange dream, Hector Padilla came shuffling across the grass toward us, his face uncharacteristically grim and his eyes raised toward Unconditional Surrender.