The Gold Coast

39

Sandy manages to talk Tash into accompanying him on his sailing trip to rendezvous with the incoming shipment of Rhinoceros. As always it’s the personal plea rather than financial arguments that convince Tash.

Soon after that Sandy is visited by Bob Tompkins, who gives him the latest information on the smugglers, and the keys to the boat moored in Newport harbor. When that business is done they retire to Sandy and Angela’s balcony for a drink. Angela comes out and joins them.

“So how’s Raymond doing?” Sandy asks casually when they are suitably relaxed.

“Oh, okay.”

“Is he still involved with this thing in OC, the defense industry vendetta?”

“Yeah, yeah. More than ever.”

“So he has people up here that he’s recruited, then?”

“Hired, to be exact. Sure. You don’t think Raymond would do all this by himself?”

Sandy hesitates, trying to figure out an unobtrusive opening; Angela takes the direct approach. “We think some of our friends might be working for him, and we’re worried that they’ll get in trouble.”

Bob frowns. “Well… I don’t know what to say, Angela. Raymond’s going about it with his usual security measures, though. He swears it’s all going very quietly.”

“Rumors are flying up here,” Sandy says.

“Yeah?” Bob frowns again. “Well, I’ll tell Raymond about that. I think it’d be nice if he stopped, myself, but I don’t know if he will.”

Sandy looks at Angela, and they let the conversation drift to other topics. Afterward, thinking about it, Sandy decides he didn’t really find out much. But he might have sent some useful news up the line to Raymond.

The next afternoon Sandy goes down with Tash to the upper bay. They’ve got all the keys they need: one for the marina parking lot, one for the marina, one for the cage around the boat’s slip, one to turn off the boat’s alarm system, three to get into the boat, and one to unlock the beam and the rigging.

It’s a thirty-three-foot catamaran, big-hulled and slow as cats go, named Pride of Topeka. Solid teak paneling, dark blue hull and decking, rainbow sails, little auxiliary engines in each hull. They get it out of the slip and putter down the waterways of Newport harbor.

Past five thousand small boats.

Past Balboa Pavilion, and the ferry kept running for tourists.

Past the house split in two by feuding brothers. That’s History.

Past the buoy marking where John Wayne moored his yacht.

Past the Coast Guard station (look innocent).

Past the palm trees arched over Pirate’s Cove. That’s your childhood.

And out between the jetties. They’re caught in the five-mile-per-hour traffic jam of the busiest harbor on earth. Might as well be on the freeway. To their left over the jetty is Corona del Mar, where Duke Kahanamoko introduced surfing to California. To their right over the longer jetty is the Wedge, famous bodysurfing break. “I wonder where they got the boulders for the jetties,” Sandy says. “They sure aren’t local.”

“Ask Jim.”

“Remember when we were kids and we used to run out to the end?”

“Yeah.” They look at the metal tower at the end of the Corona del Mar jetty, the green light blinking on its top. Once it was one of their magic destinations. “We were crazy to run over those boulders.”

“I know!” Sandy laughs. “Just one slip and it’s all over! I wouldn’t do it now.”

“No. We’re a lot more sensible now.”

“Ahhh, hahaha. Speaking of which, it’s time for an eye-dropper, eh?”

“Let’s get the sails up first so we don’t forget how.”

They put up the mainsail, the boat heels over, they sail south.

Engines off. White wake spreading behind.

Sun on water. Wind pushing onshore.

The sail bellies

Full.

Sandy takes a big breath, lets it out. “Yes, yes, yes. Free at last. Let’s celebrate with that eyedropper.”

“Really change the routine.”

After a few blinks Sandy sighs. “This is the only way to travel. They should flood the streets, give everyone a little Hobie cat.”

“Good idea.”

They’re headed for the backside of San Clemente Island, some sixty miles off the north San Diego coast. It’s owned by the government, inhabited only by goats, and used by the Navy and the Marines to practice amphibious landings, helicopter attacks, parachuting, precision bombing, that sort of thing. Sandy and Tash are scheduled to rendezvous sometime the next day or night with the boat from Hawaii, off the west side of the island.

They sail in a comfortable silence, broken only occasionally by stretches of talk. It’s an old friendship, there’s no pressure to make conversation.

That’s the sort of companionship that brings people out; even the quiet ones talk, given this kind of silence. And suddenly Tash is talking about Erica. He’s worried. As Erica rises ever higher in the management of Hewes Mall, her complaints about her layabout ally and his eccentric life-style become sharper. And no one can get sharper than Erica Palme when she wants to be.

Sandy questions Tash about it. What does she want? A businessman partner, kids, a respectable alliance in the condomundos of south OC?

Tash can only blink into an eyedropper and declare “I don’t know.”

Sandy doubts this; he suspects Tash knows but doesn’t want to know. If Sandy’s guesses are correct, then Tash’ll have to make changes he doesn’t want to make, to keep the ally he wants to keep. Classic problem.

Sandy has the solidest of allies in Angela; she’s biochemically optimistic, as he’s joked more than once, she appears to have equal amounts of Funny Bone, Apprehension of Beauty, the Buzz, and California Mello running in her veins. If he could get his clients to Angela’s ordinary everyday mental state, he’d be rich. Sandy treasuresher, in fact they’re really old-fashioned that way; they’re in love, they’ve been allies for almost ten years. Some kind of miracle, for sure. And the more Sandy hears from all his friends, the more he sees of their shaky, patched-up, provisional alliances, the luckier he feels.

So he can only sympathize with Tash concerning his problem; he can’t really claim to offer any help out of his own experience. It’s a difficult situation, no doubt about it; it is, in fact, a dilemma. Choosing either course of action means painful consequences. Change to suit Erica, remain the same and lose her; what will Tash do?

As night falls they talk less and less. Events from their childhood, events from the world news. Among the blurry stars overhead the swift satellites and the big mirrors slowly move, north, south, east, west, like stars cast loose and spinning off on crazy courses of their own. “Death From the Stars.” “No lie.” Sandy shivers in the wind, watching them. He pulls out soggy Togo’s sandwiches and they eat. Afterward Sandy feels a bit queasy. “Marijuana reduces nausea, right?”

“So they say.”

“Time to test it out.”

It works only indifferently.

To their left OC bounces up and down.

The coast an unbroken bar of light.

The hills behind bumpy loafs of light.

Lights stationary, lights crawling about.

A flat hive of light, squashed between black sea and black sky.

The living body of light.

A galaxy seen edge-on.

Sandy retires to the cabin in the left hull, leaving the first watch to Tashi. He wakes to find Tashi drowsing over the tiller in gray predawn.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Fell asleep.”

“I take it they didn’t show.”

“That’s right.”

“Tonight, then. Hopefully.”

Tashi retires to his cabin in the right hull. Sandy has the dawn to himself. Gentle offshore breeze blowing. Tash had the tiller and sail set perfectly, even in his sleep. Sandy can see Catalina to the north behind him, and San Clemente Island poking up over the horizon to the south, perhaps another ten or fifteen miles ahead.

The stars and satellites wink out. Color comes to sea and sky. The sun rises over the mountains behind San Diego. Morning at sea. Sandy thinks about his usual schedule and feels blessed. Hiss and slap of water under the hulls. So peaceful. Maybe it’s true, what Jim always says; there was a better way of life, once, a calmer way. Not in OC, of course. OC sprang Athena-like, full blown from the forehead of Zeus Los Angeles. But somewhere, somewhere.

Midmorning Tash comes up, they eat oranges and make cheese sandwiches. They sail around San Clemente Island just to pass the day. It’s strange: scrub-covered, except where erosion has ripped out raw dirt watersheds, the hills are everywhere littered with wrecked amphibious landers, tanks, helicopters, troop carriers. And the west side, the side away from the mainland, is heavily pocked with bomb craters. Top of one hill gone. Another is covered by a mass of concrete, from which springs scores of radar masts and other protuberances.

“Is it really a good idea to pick up sixty liters of illegal aphrodisiac right under the Navy’s nose?” Tash inquires.

“Purloined letter principle. They’ll never expect it.”

“They won’t have to! Those surveillance arrays up there will probably analyze the goods by molecular weight. And hear our conversations.”

“So let’s not talk about it.”

Their instructions are to lay to, four miles directly west of the southernmost tip of the island. They do some compass work and establish triangulated landmarks that will keep them near the spot after dark.

The southwest end of the island is benched in a series of primordial beaches that terrace the hills a hundred feet high or more. They can see some goats on one terrace. “Those must be the most paranoid goats on earth,” Tash remarks. “Can you imagine their lives? Just peacefully eating sage, when suddenly wham bang, they’re being strafed and bombed again.”

Sandy can’t help but laugh. “Horrible! Can you imagine their world view? I mean, how do they explain it to each other?”

“With difficulty.”

“Like flies to small boys are we to the gods, or something like that.”

“I wonder if they have a civil defense program.”

“Something about as good as ours, no doubt. ‘Hey, here they come! Run like hell!’” They laugh. “Like flies to small boys… how does that go?”

“Need Jim here.”

Sandy nods. “He’d enjoy this, those benches and all.”

“Should have brought him instead of me.”

“He’s got class tonight.”

“So do I!”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to teach it.”

“Not most nights, anyway.” They laugh. “Hey, did you know he’s seeing a woman who teaches across the hall from us?”

“Good for him. Beats suffering with Virginia.”

“No lie.… I wonder what ever happened with Sheila. I liked her.”

“Me too. But Jim is…”

“An idiot?”

“Ah, hahahahaha. No, no, you know what I mean. Anyway, maybe with this teacher.”

“Yeah.”

After dark the island gets more active. As they eat more sandwiches they hear roars, clanking, grinding, the soft feathery whirr of combat helicopters. All without a single light anywhere, except for one red on-and-off to mark the high point of the island. Once or twice Tash spots the bulk of a helicopter against the stars. Then swuBAM, BOOM, and the island is momentarily lit by a ball of orange fire blackened with the dirt it’s thrown up. Both of them jump convulsively. “Damn!”

Tash laughs. “Let’s hope none of those things’ heat-seeking targeters lock on to us.”

“Tash, don’t say that!”

“They’re like clotheslines, tied from firing platform down to the target, which is located by its heat. Infrared system. Then you clip a bomb on the clothesline, and down it slides.”

The island elaborates: whooshBOOM.

“Lucky we don’t have any heat here.”

“Just us.”

“Well hey! Maybe we ought to go in the cabins?”

“Nah. These are the best fireworks we’ll ever see, unless they draft us. Every burst probably costs a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Man, that’s a lot of money!”

“No lie.”

The battle exercises go on for an hour, until their ears begin to hurt. When it ends Sandy retires again. “Wake me this time.”

Tashi does, at 3:00 A.M. They appear to be at the same heading off the island. All is dark and calm, there’s hardly a breeze. Up and down on a deep groundswell. Salt air fills Sandy to the brim; he’s suddenly happy.

Tash is in no hurry to retire. “Do you ever think about leaving OC?” he asks.

“Ah, yes, I suppose so. Sometimes.” Actually it has never occurred to Sandy; he never has time to think about that kind of thing. “Santa Cruz, maybe.”

“That’s just OC north.”

“What isn’t?”

“I was thinking of Alaska.”

“Wow. I don’t know, man. Those winters. The people I’ve talked to from up there say it’s a manic-depressive life, manic in the summer and depressed in the winters, with the winters twice as long. Doesn’t sound like such a deal to me.”

“Yeah, I know. But it’d be a challenge. And it’ll always stay empty, because of those winters. And it means I could get out into the real world every day, you know?”

There’s a strain in Tashi’s voice, a kind of poignant longing that Sandy hasn’t heard before. He thinks, When you’re on the horns of a dilemma, you do your best to find a third way. But he doesn’t say this. “That would be something, wouldn’t it. Surfing might be a problem, though.”

Tash laughs. “No more so than here. The crowd scene is too much.”

“Even at night?”

“Nah, but look around—can you see the waves? It beats war with nazis, but still, it’s not the same.”

“Alaska, then. Hmm. Sounds like a possibility. Maybe you can grow pot for me.”

“Maybe.”

“Speaking of which…” They rock on the water. Tash falls asleep. Sandy keeps a hand on the tiller, worrying about his friend. Maybe he’ll mention it to Jim. Maybe Jim will think of something to say to Tashi. So many troubles, these days… alliances going bad left and right… things falling apart. What to do, what to do?

In the predawn he starts awake, then falls into a doze. He’s half-awake, now, watching gray swells surge up and down under his fingertips, up and down, up and down, up and down. There’s a light mist smoking off the swell tops, liquid turning to gas. There is a lovely glassy sheen to the water’s surface, it’s so smooth, so smooth. Maybe he’s dreaming. The terraced benches of the island are obscured by mist, the gray hills rise out of it as on the first day, an unreal solidity intruding into a liquid world. Everything seems surreal, dreamlike, mesmerizing.

Suddenly there’s a creak, and a forty-foot yacht has hove to alongside them. Three men jump down onto the deck of the cat, frightening Sandy. The thumps and the sudden tilt of the deck wake Tash, and he appears out of his cabin to stand beside Sandy. Sandy still feels like he’s in a dream, he’s too groggy to move. The three strangers form a chain and small metal drums are hefted over the water onto the cat’s middeck, behind the mast.

While they’re at it, right in the middle of their operation, there’s a deep crump from the island, followed by a huge sonic boom. BOOOOMM!!!! Whoah!

That’ll wake you up. Tash stares out to sea. “Look there, quick,” he says urgently, and points. Sandy looks. A black dot, just over the water out on the horizon, skimming in over the mist… it’s moving fast and jinking from side to side as it approaches, zoom past the two boats faster than Sandy can turn his head, and crump into the island. BOOOM! a racking sonic boom, like the fabric of the world has been ripped. And another dot has appeared out there.…

Bizarrely, the strangers from the yacht have continued to sling the drums over onto their deck, not missing a stroke, completely ignoring the missiles screaming overhead. When there’s twelve drums on board they stop. One man comes back to them. “Here.” A card is put in his hand, the man hops up to the deck of the yacht. It pulls away, all its sails angel-wing white over the mist. Around the southern tip of the island, and gone.

Sandy and Tash are still staring at each other, wordless and bleary-eyed. Here comes another skittering black dot, another crump, another shattering roar. “What are they?” Sandy cries.

“Cruise missiles. Look how fast and low they fly! Here comes another one—”

Skimming black dot. One every couple minutes. Each sonic boom smacks their nerves, makes them jump. Finally Tash stops waiting for them to cease. He checks the drums on the middeck, returns. “I guess we’re the proud owners of twelve drums of aphrodisiac,” he says. BOOM! The mast is quivering in the blasts of air. “Let us get the fuck out of here.”