Paul parked behind the Kayak Shack, in the gravel lot that spanned the short distance between his business and the South Spit Yacht Club. The patio outside the yacht club was flooded in sunshine, packed with sunburned tourists tossing french fries to a crowd of barking harbor seals. Lana ignored the busy picnic tables and swept inside the club, letting Paul hold the door for her and admire her calves as she passed by.
Inside, the dining room was quiet and cool, all dark wood and brocade curtains. Lana took a slow lap around, her eyes adjusting to the faded light, the black-and-white portraits of high-waisted bathing beauties smiling down on her from behind the bar. She could smell the memory of salt in the air. Three long-retired fishmongers sat on bar stools, swaying to Sinatra, their wrinkled hands mirroring the grooves in the mahogany bar.
After a brief conference with the bartender, Lana pointed Paul toward a worn velvet booth in the corner. She slid into the bench with the more flattering light. Paul scrambled to keep up, tripping on his way into his seat. But once he was there, something shifted. He lounged in the middle of the bench, legs spread wide, his arms draped across the table. It was as if Paul had just remembered that he was the local, Lana the interloper.
“Scotty,” he called out, his voice booming across the room. “Heyo. Can we get some service over here?”
The bartender straightened his apron, turned his 49ers cap backward, and stepped out from behind the bar. Where Paul was blond and lean, Scotty was dark-haired and muscular, with thick, curly hair covering his tattooed forearms.
Scotty dropped two menus on the table and handed Paul an already-opened Corona. “Who’s your friend, bro?”
Paul took a long pull from the beer and winked at Lana.
“We’re just getting to know each other. Lana Rubicon, this is Scotty O’Dell.”
“A pleasure,” Lana said. She made a mental note to examine her plate before eating.
“Want a beer?”
“Gin martini,” Lana purred. “Straight up.”
Lana’s shrimp salad was halfway decent. Not that she could enjoy it. Chemotherapy had stripped her tastebuds and clenched her stomach, so she could smell everything and taste none of it. But Lana had never been a foodie. She’d picked her way through LA power lunches, feasting on the power, barely touching her plate. Yogurt for breakfast, salad for dinner, Chardonnay for dessert: the Lana Rubicon wonder diet. It had kept her lithe and active and making a killing in size 2 Chanel for three decades.
By the time Paul finished attacking his fried snapper sandwich, his mouth was loose and unguarded. It took only the gentlest of prodding for him to spill a story of Silicon Valley exploits, followed by an ayahuasca-induced awakening that spurred him to renounce the fast lane and switch to rowboats when he turned forty. He’d been running the Kayak Shack for five years now and claimed he had never been happier. As he boasted about the billion-dollar deals he’d turned down, Lana felt a rare pang of desire. She flexed her feet in her heels, imagining herself back in her old corner office towering above West Los Angeles. She could almost smell the real estate developers, their Italian cologne laced with sweat, lining up to ask her to fill their high-rises.
A spray of tartar sauce hit Lana’s hand and brought her back to reality. “Now the only board I answer to is my paddleboard,” Paul said, beaming across the table. “I’ve got the water, and the Shack, and that’s all I need.”
Lana put her hands in her lap, out of spitting range, and gave Paul a wan smile. “I’m so glad you found such”—Lana hunted for a vaguely flattering option—“clarity.”
Paul nodded, pumping his smile.
“And that you’ve been able to provide employment for young people like my granddaughter.”
“She’s a good kid, Tiny. Great kid. Course, when I met her, she didn’t know much about kayaks. You’d think a girl who grew up next to—”
“I have to ask you, Paul.” Lana’s voice cut in low, forcing him to lean in. “Why are we here?”
His neck went pink. “Uh . . . I’m gonna need something stronger than a beer to answer that one. Maybe later we could head out on one of my boats and—”
“Paul.” She stayed just on the purring edge of a growl. “Why are we”—Lana used her hand to draw an imaginary line between them—“here?”
He tried again. “The yacht club? Unless you want to go to the Shack?” Paul started to shift in his seat.
Lana stayed still, her eyes locked on Paul. It was a trick she’d learned from a land-use attorney in Malibu, André Medina, whose first career had been in the FBI. When you want someone to go somewhere they don’t want to go, introduce confusion. Maybe even a little pain. And then make your destination the solution, the alleviation of that pain.
“Paul, we are here because of the man who was killed.”
Paul smiled with relief. Nodded. Lana made a mental note to send André a bottle of cognac.
“I’m worried for my granddaughter.”
Paul nodded again. He squared his shoulders in his best imitation of someone dependable.
Lana rewarded him with a cautious smile. “Can you please tell me what you know about what happened?”
“I wasn’t there,” he mumbled. His eyes skittered around the room. Scotty O’Dell was watching them. One of the regulars at the bar gave them a thumbs-up. Another shot a gesture she chose not to follow to completion.
“So Jacqueline tells me.”
Paul snapped back to attention. “What did she say? Did she tell the cops?”
“Is there something you’d prefer the sheriffs not know?”
“Look, I already told them, it’s none of their business. I wasn’t there. So what? I’m the owner. I don’t have to be there every second . . .” Paul’s eyes were growing wider, his hands juggling imaginary balls in the air.
Lana put her hand lightly on his forearm and brought him back to the table. “Paul, they didn’t even bring it up. When the detectives came to our house, they focused completely on Jacqueline.”
“Really? That’s good.” Lana’s eyes narrowed, and Paul quickly changed his tone. “I mean, not good. But I guess they know what they’re doing.”
“Hardly,” Lana said. “Seems to me they don’t know squat.”
Paul shot her a smile. “You want another drink?”
Two martinis, six Coronas, and a basket of fried calamari later, Paul and Lana were old friends. Paul extolled his business acumen—beers two and three—and then expounded—beer four—on the incompetence of the local authorities. The harbormaster was a watered-down, sauced-up version of the three previous harbormasters, all of whom were related. The coast guard cared more if their uniform pants were creased than if the waterways were in order. The sheriff wanted total control of the marina, except when anyone who’d donated to his reelection campaign got in trouble. The jurisdictions crisscrossed in dizzying permutations, leaving parking tickets double-charged, boat fires uninvestigated, and enterprising businessmen like Paul completely on their own.
Which was apparently the way he liked it. Paul described the marina as a kind of Wild West, himself and his buddy Scotty O’Dell the heroic duo working together to keep the peace. Lana squinted up at a grainy photo of bristly fishermen in a gilt frame above Paul’s head, trying to imagine Gary Cooper among the crabbers lined up in their rubber waders. It was a stretch.
Lana shuddered and gave Paul her widest eyes.
“It sounds lawless. Do you really think it’s safe for Jacqueline to be out there?”
“Tiny’s my best guide. I’m gonna need her back at work this weekend, now that the slough’s reopened. And she’ll be safe with me.”
“You mean, when you’re there. Which is when, exactly?”
“Look, Lana, I’m not gonna lie. What happened to that guy was terrible. But whoever hit that dude over the head knew him. A crime of passion, they said. Committed by someone who was seriously pissed off. So unless your granddaughter was close with Ricardo Cruz—”
“She wasn’t.”
“Then I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her.”
“He was hit in the head by an acquaintance? How do you know that?”
Paul’s hands went still on the table, as if he was surprised to hear his own words spoken back to him. His eyes darted around the room. “Uh . . . that’s what Fredo told me.” Paul pointed to a shriveled man in dungarees at the bar. “His great-nephew is the harbormaster.”
“With what?”