CHAPTER 11

I drove out to the Tomales Bay Lodge, booked a room for two nights and parked my car in front of the room. I hung the do not disturb sign on the doorknob, and put the keys to my car under a rock at the foot of the big rusted anchor that leaned against the Lodge sign at the edge of the road where Davy could find them. I walked the half-mile back into Inverness and waited in front of the grocery store for the little bus that came out to West Marin. It arrived forty-five minutes later and I boarded the bus. It stopped in Olema, again at Forest Knolls and then went over White’s Hill to Fairfax where I got off. I walked back up to my house. It was Monday afternoon and tomorrow would be the day when I would stab with my beak, impale the minnow that finned at my feet, make Earl Antony Winslow pay for his carelessness.

Tuesday morning I left the bike locked to the bike stand in front of the Ross Post Office and walked to Carmel Drive. It was nine-thirty. If he were going to come out today it would be at ten. I felt in my jacket pocket for the Glock. I leaned back into his hedge on what would be the passenger side of his car when he came out. I heard the hum of the electric gate as it swung open. The car appeared, paused at the edge of the road and the gate swung shut behind it.

I strode over to the window on the passenger side and waved at him. He looked at me. I motioned to him to roll down the window.

Nice middle-aged guy, must be asking for directions. The window rolled smoothly down. Which meant that if the door was locked I could reach in and unlock it.

“Mr. Winslow?” I said.

He nodded.

I reached for the door handle and pulled. The door was unlocked. I jerked the door open and slid in. He froze, staring at me..

“Who are you?” he said. “What the fuck is this?”

I pulled out the Glock, held it to his temple.

“Is this a carjack?” he said. “You want my car?”

“I don’t want your car. I want you to drive.”

“You want money? Is that what this is?”

“No. No money.”

“Do I know you?”

I pressed the barrel of the gun harder into his skull. Hard enough to hurt.

“You knew my daughter. At least you had a passing acquaintance with her. It only lasted a few seconds, but it made a lasting impression on her.”

“What was her name?”

“Just shut the fuck up and drive,” I said. “Drive to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, then head out toward the coast. It’s a route you know well. We’re going to Inverness.”

“I have a house out there.”

“I know, now shut up and drive.” I lowered the gun and pressed it into his crotch. “If you do anything odd or anything to attract attention, I will pull the trigger and blow off your cock and balls. Is that clear? You won’t be able to fuck that pretty wife of yours any more.” I pressed the barrel of the gun harder into his crotch.

“What do you want?”

“Shut up and drive,” I said. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. It was the first time I had been in a hundred thousand dollar car. The ride was smooth, and there was no road noise. It was like floating in money.

We went through Fairfax, climbed over White’s Hill, then threaded our way through Samuel P. Taylor State Park. He was silent, concentrating on the road and I kept the Glock pressed to his crotch. When we came to the turnoff to Inverness I said, “Turn. You know the way!” He turned onto the two-lane road and in a few minutes we were opposite White House Pool. Just beyond it, I said, “Slow down. Pull over.”

He found a wide spot on the verge and brought the car to a halt.

“You recognize this spot?”

“I’ve been past it a hundred times. My cottage is down the road.”

“No, I mean three years ago, you came around this curve on the wrong side of the road and clipped a car. Remember that?”

“No.”

“Bullshit. You not only remember it, you drove off and two days later you took your car to a body shop in San Rafael to get it fixed.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Were you so fucking drunk that you don’t remember the collision, the other car in the water? The other car pinwheeled. That’s the word the truck driver behind you used. Pinwheeled. And you just fucking drove away. You killed my daughter, you fucking murderer.”

“I didn’t do that.”

“No, I’m not mistaken. You drove on and you had your car fixed and you wrote it off, like some bad debt, some incidental thing that you could fix with a check to somebody, and then it was over for you. Write a check and everything is OK.

Money takes care of it, doesn’t it? Put your pen to the checkbook and whatever happens is cancelled out. But it was not over for me, you fucking cretin. And now you’re going to pay for it.”

“You’re going to shoot me.”

“No. You’re going to keep driving. You’re going to drive out to North Beach on the west side of the Peninsula. The big beach side. You’re going for a swim.”

“You’re going to shoot me and dump my body in the ocean.”

“No. I’m not going to shoot you. Unless you do something stupid between now and North Beach.” I pressed the gun harder into his crotch.

“Drive,” I said. “Out to the end of the peninsula. Where the big beaches are. And remember that if you do anything to attract attention, swerve or drive too slow or drive erratically, I’ll pull the trigger.”

We passed the Tomales Bay Lodge and I could see my car in front of the room I had rented. Hopefully Davy would do what I had asked. If he didn’t, I would have a long hike back from that beach, ten miles of walking, although a passing car could possibly give me a lift.

“Look,” Winslow said. “I didn’t sideswipe your daughter’s car. You’ve got the wrong person.”

“No, I haven’t. You have a house out here. In fact, we’ll pass the turnoff to it in just a moment. You had that Ford repaired two days after the accident. You paid cash for the repair and you gave a phony name and address to Gotellis. They’ve got a witness that says it was a Ford Expedition. A man driving it. It’s you, alright.”

I realized that he was speeding up. No doubt he was going to turn the car off the road, risk surviving an accident rather than take his chances with me. “Slow down,” I said. “Thirty, that’s the right speed for this road.” I pressed the gun against his crotch harder for emphasis. We had reached the turn to the south to the big beaches, South Beach and North Beach and Drakes Beach off to the left. It would only be a few more minutes before the turnoff to North Beach. Off to the right the ocean was spread out, a low fog obscuring the horizon. It was a perfect day, cold and foggy, enough to discourage visitors. With any luck the beach would be empty. “Here,” I said. “Turn here.” We went down the narrow one-lane road. The road ended in the parking lot and I said, “All the way to the end.” We stopped opposite the empty ranger’s building. No cars other than the Mercedes.

“Leave your coat here in the front seat,” I said. “When we get out, lock the car and put the keys in your pocket.”

I opened the passenger door, slid out and stood, leaning back in, the gun pointed at him. “If you try to run I’ll shoot you,” I said.

“There must be something I can do,” he said. “You’ve got the wrong man.”

“No, I’ve got the right man. And there isn’t anything you can do. You can’t give me enough money to make up for what you did. You admit to the cops what you did and you’ll get a high-priced lawyer and plead guilty to vehicular manslaughter and you’ll find a way out of it. No, there’s nothing you can do. Now get out.”

He opened the driver’s door and I moved to the front of the car, still holding the gun on him. “Now lock it. Put the keys in your pocket.”

“What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to take a walk on the beach.”

I waved at the path with the gun. “Down there.”

He moved toward the path that descended to the beach. He was wearing loafers with a silver tassel, brightly polished. My guess was that he didn’t polish them himself.

He began to reach into his hip pocket but I said, “No. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“There’s money in my wallet,” he said “You can take the car. I can get you more money. More than you can imagine.”

I pointed the gun above his head and squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp report, and he involuntarily ducked, and I said. “It works, doesn’t it? You say one more word about money and I’ll put a bullet in your spine. You won’t be able to move, ever again.”

By now we were on the soft sand just below the bluff. Ahead of us was the surf, pounding up against the sharply angled beach. The waves came in, one on top of the next, rushing madly up the sand and back into themselves. As far out as I could see, the surf was in a frenzy, the wind whipping the tops into a white mist, the faces of the waves ugly and in disarray. We had reached the edge where the white foam was at our feet. The noise of the surf was constant, the kind of noise that a subway train makes when it comes out of the tunnel, echoing, pressing against your ears. There was no way that anyone could survive more than a few seconds in that bedlam of water, a pandemonium of deadly churning.

“What you’re going to do is walk into that,” I said. “You can stand here and I can shoot you and push your body into it, or you can walk into it.”

“I can’t survive that,” he said. “Nobody can survive that.”

“That’s what it says on the sign up at the parking lot. The sign that says it’s a dangerous beach. The sign that says people have died here.” He stood there in his sharply creased suit trousers, his tasseled loafers, a white shirt with expensive jeweled cufflinks and a red tie, carefully knotted.

“You took a walk out here this morning. On a whim, you drove out here to get some fresh air and clear your head. You slipped and a sneaker wave pulled you in. And you got pulled out into that.” I gestured with the pistol at the surf. “My daughter hung upside down by her seat belt and her car settled into the water and she drowned. A truck driver behind you on the road went down to try to save her. You drove off. But he couldn’t do anything. Her car was upside down and it took two tow trucks to pull her car out and there she was, hanging by her seat belt, dead. Lovely girl. She wanted to be a schoolteacher. She was a swimmer, but her seat belt was jammed and the water rose and she held her breath and then the water entered her lungs and you were half a mile down the road. I wish I could put you in that fucking big car of yours and turn it upside down in the water, but I can’t. So this is the next best thing. Now step into the next wave.”

“You’re a fucking mad man,” he said.

“You got that right. I’m a fucking mad man. An angry man. Angry enough to shoot you, but that wouldn’t be the way I want this to end. I want it to end with you breathing in some water. Just like she did.”

He took a step closer to the water. I had the gun trained at his midsection.

“No chance of me missing at this range,” I said. “You go into that water with all your faculties working, or you go into the water with a bullet in your gut. It’s your choice.”

He turned to face the water and stepped out of his loafers. He was careful, as if he intended to later come back and slide his feet into them. He took several steps, and dove into the face of the next wave. It was the dive of a swimmer, someone who had taken a dive into the surf before. But this surf was wild and cold and he wouldn’t last. It would tumble him and he would quickly succumb to hypothermia. His body would float ashore in a matter of hours. I watched as the next wave brought him to the surface. He was trying to swim, but the wave turned, the weight of the water pushing him down. He popped up again, this time farther out, riding the crest of another wave. I watched until he disappeared. I imagined him looking up through that transparent green, trying to get to the surface and feeling the rip tide pulling him under. North Beach was famous for its currents, which was why the sign warned people that others had died here. The next wave came up a bit farther and took his loafers, sweeping them into the sea. I watched them disappear. I looked at my watch. A half hour until Davy was scheduled to show up. I went back through the soft sand that led to the path to the parking lot. I walked past the Mercedes, until I came to where the road entered the parking lot. I waited there, the gun tucked again into my jacket pocket. This was when the egret ate its catch.