The cab dropped me off at the corner of Mission and Jamaica. Mission Beach is a conglomeration of mazelike alleys about ten feet wide and I didn’t want to subject him to the rigors of maneuvering to my house.
I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and heard clapping out near my patio. I walked out of the kitchen and opened the back slider.
Carter, all six-foot-nine of him, was doing a handstand on the three-foot wall that separates my patio from the boardwalk. A group of four Japanese tourists were alternately snapping photos of him and cheering from the boardwalk side of the wall.
“Did you tell them that you can drink beer through your nose, too?” I asked.
He lifted his head in my direction. “I didn’t think they’d find that as charming.”
He brought his legs down and sprang off the wall onto the patio, his yellow board shorts and white tank top falling into place. His fans erupted into more applause.
He bowed to them and held out his hand. They shoved some cash into his massive palm and then shuffled off, chattering excitedly among themselves.
“Do I get a cut of that?” I asked, sitting down in one of the patio chairs.
“No.”
“It’s my property.”
He shoved the bills into his pocket and grinned. “Yeah, but you don’t support my act.”
“That is so true.”
Carter Hamm, my best friend, sat down next to me. His white-blond hair was sticking up like tiny spikes on his head. He propped his huge feet up on the small table in front of us.
“That dude find you this morning?” he asked.
I looked across the boardwalk to where Peter Pluto had waited for me at the edge of the water. “Yeah. Let’s chat about that.”
“Chat? You must really be pissed.”
“Handstands and perceptive. You are one of a kind.”
He leaned back in the chair. “That’s what the ladies tell me.”
I sipped from the beer and shook my head. “Yeah, the dude from this morning found me. When I was out in the water. When I wasn’t looking for a job.”
Carter glanced to me, his dark eyes squinting into the disappearing sun. “So you bailed on him?”
I took another drink and didn’t say anything.
“No, of course not,” he said, nodding his head. “You decided to help him. Plus, you need cash.”
“It’s your fault.”
“Is not.”
“Is too.”
“I just told him where to find you.”
“And you knew I’d say yes.”
“I didn’t even know what he wanted.”
“Not to take my picture doing a handstand, that’s for sure.”
“Well, you suck at handstands.”
Arguing with Carter was like arguing with a three-year-old-a genetic freak of a three-year-old.
I held up my hand. “Fine. My fault.”
He folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “Exactly. So what happened?”
“Went to look for this guy’s brother at his apartment and while I was there, a girl got shot.”
“Shut up.”
“I’d like to, but you keep asking me questions.”
I set my beer down on the table between our chairs. He immediately snatched it, held it up to his mouth, and emptied it.
“Tell me,” he said, setting the empty bottle down.
I told him about Linc’s place, the girls, Rolovich, and the shooting.
“That’s some afternoon,” he said when I was done.
“No kidding.”
“You gonna keep looking for the kid?”
I shrugged because I didn’t know now if I wanted to or not.
We sat there staring for a few minutes at the bouquet of purples and yellows in the sky at the far edge of the water. The crowd on the boardwalk was slowly dissipating as the evening trudged in.
“You wanna go out?” Carter asked, gesturing at the water. “Decent swells should be here soon.”
I closed my eyes. “Nah.”
We sat there again quietly for a few moments.
“You saw her, didn’t you?” he said finally.
“Saw who?”
“The Virgin Mary. Who the hell do you think I mean? Liz.”
I didn’t say anything. Of all the annoying things about Carter, perhaps the one that bugged me the most was his ability to read me like an eye chart.
“Did you talk to her?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t feel like it.”
“Right.”
The truth was I didn’t know why I hadn’t just gone over to talk to Liz. Maybe it was because I was afraid of what she’d say to me. Not talking to her had become weirdly comfortable and I wasn’t sure I was ready to give that up.
Carter stood, yanked off his tank top, and grabbed the eight-foot G amp;S surfboard next to the sliding door. He tucked it under his arm and stepped over the small stone wall onto the boardwalk.
He turned around. “You know I can’t stand her, dude. I really can’t. It would be fine with me if I never saw her again, never had to hear her name again.” He shook his head. “But if you’re in love with her, or whatever, you’re just being chickenshit. Flat out. So she’s pissed at you. Big deal. Liz is pissed at everyone, as far as I can tell. Deal with it and quit sulking. I’ve watched it for too long now and I’m tired of it.” He shook his head. “I’ve never thought of you as a coward, Noah, and I don’t really wanna start.”
He turned and walked down the sand toward the water and the exploding hues of the horizon and left me to think about that.