“We had it,” says his father. “We had everything here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Life.”
“It seemed pretty good.”
Bruce nods. “It’s incredible how bad a man can fuck things up. Without even meaning to.”
By the time they’re heading back to Third Street, Bruce has calculated a record-breaking 212 searches. Combined with the many residences obviously home to children, the old and the infirm, they’ve done three times his best day with Laurel. Figuring conservatively, Matt realizes they’ve covered well over half the city.
“Check this, Matt.”
From his briefcase Bruce removes a tablet of quarter-inch graph paper, sets the briefcase across his lap, and squares the graph paper tablet before him.
“Last night, I sketched a street map of Laguna onto twenty-four sheets,” he says. “Which makes one quarter-inch square for almost every house in the city. It’ll show us where we’ve been and where we still have to go. We made some real progress today.”
Bruce uses the ride home to log one- or two-digit alphanumeric address references from Matt’s and Laurel’s interview notebook into the quarter-inch squares. His numbers and letters are perfect. Matt thinks he got his own smidgen of artistic aptitude from his dad. Years ago, Bruce told him he’d rather be an engineer or pilot than a cop. Guiding the Westfalia toward Third Street, Matt glances at the graph paper map and the man making it, realizing how much about him he does not know.
Matt sits on the red bucket to fold and rubber-band his newspapers in his former Third Street driveway.
Bruce sits in the beach chair with the maps and a pack of colored pencils, coloring each graph paper square appropriately:
Orange for search completed.
Yellow for search not warranted — meaning old people, the handicapped, women, parents with young children.
Blue for no answer or nobody home.
Red for call the police: warranted, suspicious, and denied.
No reds yet, Matt notes. There was a guy over on Catalina who seemed worried and untrustworthy. His dog was barking viciously from a bedroom as Bruce pled his case, but the man was dramatically obese and looked nothing like the men stashing his sister in the van.
Now Matt takes a minute to look at the big GTE building and the blue summer sky and its wispy clouds. He feels oddly wonderful to be sitting here in the driveway getting his papers ready, the Heavy-Duti gamely standing by, just as he’s done for well over the last two years of his life. He didn’t think he’d ever be here again. Didn’t think he’d miss Third Street. He definitely never thought he’d be sitting here folding papers with his dad.
“I’ll drive and you can throw,” says Bruce.
The proposition catches Matt off guard, and so does his answer. “No, thanks, Dad.”
“Why not?”
“This route is more efficient on the bike.”
“And?”
“And it’s something I like to do.”
“Because you’re the boss?”
“Because I’m good at it.”
“That’s a good reason to do a thing. I’m proud of you for that, son.”
Matt hears the engine before the shiny blue Porsche whines past him down Third, hooks abruptly into the GTE parking lot, decelerates around its perimeter, and rumbles back onto Third, parking on the driveway behind the pile of papers. The top is down.
“Matt Anthony, where’s my fork and picnic basket!”
Matt’s up off the bucket. “They’re out in Dodge, Sara. Mom got hurt. I’m living there for now.”
“I’ve been calling but no one answers. I saw the for-rent sign. Nobody at the Jolly Roger would tell me where you went. I get the feeling you’ve been avoiding me.”
Matt approaches, a folded, rubber-banded Register in hand. “I wouldn’t avoid you.”
“Well that’s a relief.” She’s wearing little round John Lennon sunglasses and a Chairman Mao cap. Her hair spills out from under it in a tangle.
“Mom broke her leg in two places, and two ribs, out at the festival on Sunday.”
“Bummer,” says Sara. “Some of my friends went, said it was horrible. Hippies mating in the bushes and people overdosing on LSD.”
“Two babies got born.”
“You take Laurel?”
“Yeah.”
She glances at Bruce then back to Matt.
“Look, I need that fork and basket. But I also need to talk to you. I’ll pick you up after your door-knocking tonight for Jazz. Say nine thirty?”
“Nine thirty is good. You’re not going to make me carry logs up and down hills, are you?”
“You just be here and be ready, Buckwheat. I swear, you’ve grown in the last week.”
“Two inches and twenty pounds in six months.”
“Wear something nice tonight, and bring an appetite. That shouldn’t be hard.”
Matt watches the Porsche trundle down Third toward Forest.
“Be on time for that one,” says Bruce.
Matt and his father have TV dinners in Matt’s old digs. Bruce has brought a small color television with him and they watch the news.
Cronkite suggests again that the war is not being won and might in fact be unwinnable.
“Fucking communist patsy,” says Bruce. “He’s worse than Frontly and Pinkley.”
He makes a gun-finger at the screen and fires.
That night they knock on 142 doors, get 120 invites in, and make almost that many full searches.
On their way back to Third Street Bruce thoughtfully flips through his twenty-four page Laguna residence map, framing the alphanumeric address references in the tiny quarter-inch cubes. Matt sees him make a quick calculation in a margin.
“Roughly thirty percent of Laguna,” he says.
“Already covered?”
“Left to go, Matt. Left to go.”
43
Sara Eikenberg’s favorite restaurant is La Cave in Costa Mesa. It’s hidden underneath the spacious High Time Liquor store, and it really feels like a cave when Matt walks in behind her. His hardly-ever-worn Sunday trousers are tight but he keeps his back straight and his stomach sucked up and his surfboard-pattern Hawaiian shirt untucked to help cover his over-snug pants.
It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust: brick archways overhead, a central chandelier, dark walls hung with sconces and lanterns that look medieval. The booths are thickly padded red leather, the tables have white tablecloths and flowers.
Every table and booth is occupied. Matt’s keenly aware of being watched, and of Sara being watched. He feels as if he’s surrounded by people who notice things and keep secrets. Sara’s father has an ownership share in La Cave, which means Sara has a table whenever she wants it.
The maître d’ ushers them to a two-top tucked up against a brick archway with an iron wall sconce throwing faint orange light. He hands them menus and adjusts a standing tapestry for privacy.