the road. This caused an explosion of jeering laughter from the onlookers—“There they go! Get ’em, get ’em!”
The chase was on. With cruel persistence the boat continued to harry the couple as they fled, the tour guide making great hay of their obvious panic, hounding them to the last as they rounded the point and finally vanished behind a huge rock outcropping.
Awww—the fun was over. With a razzing cheer, the boat turned for home.
Chapter Six
RETURN TO SENDER
The next morning, Henry carefully gets out of bed so as not to disturb Ruby or the baby. It’s been a rocky night and he can’t lie down any more. He goes to the window and looks out at the misty, sleeping town—early morning has always been his favorite time of the day, especially on weekends. That’s the problem: it’s Monday, Labor Day, and he feels funny about not being at work. Checking his cell phone for messages, he finds there’s no signal—in a way it’s a relief.
Gingerly putting clothes on, he sneaks out and walks to the pier. It’s brisk, the last day of the tourist season. Standing overlooking the water, he vividly remembers the feeling of casting his line out and reeling it back. He wishes he had a pole again, just for one try.
Looking at the sleepy tourist town, Henry can’t imagine that such a place could ever harbor anything bad. And so much of his childhood seems like a dream to him that if it weren’t for the living proof of his mother, he would gladly dismiss the past and forget it ever happened.
From somewhere deep in town, he hears a scream. A series of screams—a child’s screams—increasingly frantic, pealing high and wild and then abruptly cut short. Silence clamps down again like a vise.
Henry and Ruby are spending the morning on the town beach, watching Moxie dig in the sand. The weekend crowd is gone; they just about have the place to themselves.
“This is nice,” Ruby says, leaning back against Henry’s chest.
“Uh-huh,” he says, a bit tense. “When do you think we should go see my mother?”
“Soon. Not yet.”
“This afternoon.”
“Yes. This afternoon.”
It’s perfect weather, sunny but not hot, with a slight breeze. The water is colder than Ruby likes, but Henry takes a dip and Moxie splashes at the glassy edge of the shallows, collecting pebbles.
Coming up from dunking his head, Henry is suddenly aware of a scum of debris and cigarette butts floating around him—there’s crap in his hair. He splashes it off and gets out.
“I don’t know how clean this beach is,” he says.
“Really?”
“It’s like a giant ashtray.” He points out drifts of butts in the hollows of the sand. “I didn’t realize until just now. It’s pretty gross, actually.”
“Yuck. I didn’t even see that.”
“You know what it is? Look—the street drains right onto the sand.” He suddenly notices the spouts in the concrete sea wall. “All the spit and filth of the night before, they just hose it all down here for the tourists to sit in. Unbelievable.”
“So we’re basically wallowing in a big gutter? Ugh.” She begins folding up their towel to leave.
Walking out, they see a gawky teenage lifeguard wearing an oversized pith helmet. He resembles a gnome squatting under a toadstool.
In passing, Henry asks pointedly, “Excuse me. Is this beach clean?”
The guard looks at him, eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, pimply mouth an exaggerated moue of pure contempt. “Cleaner than back there,” he sneers, indicating the mainland. It is as if he’s referring to some absolute sink of foulness; the source from which all corruption flows. Meaning them.
Partway back to the hotel, Ruby has to pry something away from Moxie. “Oh shit,” she says. “Honey? Look what she was playing with.”
Henry peers at his wife’s cupped palm in disbelief. In it is a human tooth—a big, ugly molar.
After they’ve showered and changed, Henry and Ruby ask the desk clerk at the Formosa about the address he has for his mother. It is in a letter he received some months ago from an acquaintance of his mom’s—an elderly neighbor who he thinks was probably her only friend in recent years. The handwritten letter reads:
Dear Mr. Cadmus,
I am a friend of your mother’s. Some weeks ago she was very excited to tell me she had a wonderful opportunity to move to a condominium on Catalina Island, and asked me to forward her mail to this address: Box 327B, Shady Isle, Avalon Township, Los Angeles CA. She promised to contact me as soon as she arrived,