Home, at a distance: a silver pond with its cattailed banks and wooden dock, my adobe house on a hillock just beyond, and six casitas below, small and neat, perched along the narrow beach. A big palapa shaded the patio, barbecue, the picnic benches and the Ping-Pong table, ready for play. A scattering of mongrel chaise longues and outdoor chairs left where last needed for sun or shade. My beloved sagging old barn, from which I had recently emerged, and the flat green-dandelioned barnyard overhung with a tremendous coast live oak that a local padre had referred to in a diary from 1887.
That evening at sunset I sat under the palapa with my five current tenants, whom I refer to as the Irregulars. They are not named after Sherlock Holmes’s Irregulars, who are of course only fictional. Cocktail hour is our social time, an informal commitment at best. We are not exactly friends, but we have more than the standard landlord-tenant relationship.
I began renting out the casitas not long after Justine died, which was five years ago last month. In those days I’d felt trapped by the old home in poor repair, numbed by the absence of my someone to love, and suddenly — for the first time in my life — unwilling to live alone. I was also open to the idea of collecting rent. My PI practice had begun to suffer from my own blank ineffectuality and I was casting about for dollars and distraction.
So I ran a for-rent ad in the local paper and online, sensing good conversation and easy money. I pondered ground rules. Anticipating my arrivals, I wrote a brief constitution, had it professionally printed and housed in a weatherproof acrylic frame, and hung it on one of the palapa uprights not far from where we now sat:
Here is the current starting lineup of Irregulars, in order of seniority:
Burt Short, fiftysomething, indeterminate profession and background, a scratch golfer, casita five.
My grandpa Dick Ford, eighties, retired advertising executive, casita one.
My grandma Liz Ford, early seventies, retired teacher, casita six.
Francisco “Frank” Cuellar, nineteen, Salvadoran immigrant, and his dog, Triunfo, casita two.
Odile Sevigny, mid-twenties, psychic, casita four.
I keep casita three unoccupied in case of emergency.
Liz had just proudly poured a round of her “commercial grade” martinis, then set the glass pitcher back in its bowl of melting ice. Francisco’s glass she filled with bubbly water because he’s underage. Burt doesn’t drink.
We lifted the glasses carefully.
“So, you didn’t actually get in to see the blast scene,” said Grandpa Dick.
“I didn’t even get near the building,” I said.
“You’d think a good PI would find a way in.”
“No need for the likes of me,” I said. “They have an entire federal bureau dedicated to things that blow up. And the FBI and local cops, and so on.”
“How bad was the injury to the aide?” asked Liz.
I told them again what Lark had told me. It’s funny how people like to hear grim details more than once.
At seven we watched the news, as usual, with the complete text of The Chaos Committee’s second letter to the Union-Tribune writ large on the palapa-mounted big screen. Apparently the streamed diatribe I’d heard hours earlier had been an impromptu rant.
Dear California,
You have now seen a more powerful and directed sign. The collateral damage will decrease as we increase the payload to reach our intended targets more accurately. You must be asking if there is anything you can do to make us stop, and yes, there is: Join us. Assault your political leaders and all police on the job and in the streets. Bear arms against all oppressors and let your anger be your conscience. Destroy government property no matter how innocent it may seem to you, specifically city halls, county seats, courts, public parks, and public schools. Set afire houses of worship. Drop your cell phones and computers into the nearest body of water. Load up. Lash out. Be heard.
“Pompous horseshit,” said Dick.
“But scary when you think about it,” said Liz.
“Everything’s scary when you think about it,” said Dick. “Just ask our nation’s military-security complex. Scary is what keeps them in business.”
“This letter will make people feel empowered to commit violence,” said Liz.
“There’s a puppet for every string,” said Burt.
“Many guns here, like Salvador,” said Frank.
“I shudder,” said Odile.
Odile has been here for only three months. Her most striking feature is her height — same as mine — six-three. We see perfectly eye to eye. Slender, a kindly face, big brown eyes, and short, corn-silk-yellow hair. Her Psychic Matters parlor/office/studio is a converted downtown Craftsman home next to Little C’s Tattoo. As a psychic, a lot of Odile’s conversation springs from the emotional, premonitory tuning fork inside her. Sometimes she’ll carry on without a comma, halfway in — and halfway out — of what I think of as the real world.
But now silence fell upon her as the commentators tried to parse the communiqué while the text remained on-screen.
“You’ve been gone a lot lately, Roland,” said Dick. “What are you working on?”
“You know the deal, Grandpa.”
“Ah, come on. Just a clue.”
I make it clear to all the Irregulars that prying into my work is forbidden. That doesn’t matter; they never stop trying. I wish I’d posted this important rule along with the others. Thought of adding it but that’s a lot of work. The Irregulars and I have other dustups as welclass="underline" they uniformly point out that although I insist on collecting my rent on time (rule six), I don’t keep up on repairs. I admit to this, but point out that no Irregular I’ve ever hosted, with the exception of Burt Short, has ever paid reliably on time (rules six and seven).
More important, the Irregulars — past and present — have stood behind me in some dire situations, personal and professional, and more than once. They have acted on my behalf. They have given sanctuary to the innocent, protected this property from armed invaders, helped to dispatch terrorists, and given me useful advice on certain love affairs. Collectively, they often reach a higher moral truth than I can manage alone.
Burt in particular has helped me in tough professional moments. I literally owe him my life. We are more than friends and more than partners. There’s no good noun for us. We are a gang of two, bound by loyalty, made stronger than we are as individuals.
Ten
After the cocktail and a fine paella with scampi dinner, I lumbered off to my upstairs home office, poured a bourbon, and called retired colonel Jim Young. I’d served under him in First Fallujah. After his thirty years in service, Jim had settled in Tucson to pursue the pleasures of bird-watching and photography. These are logical pursuits of a retired military mind, if you think about it — all about pursuit, acquiring your target, and forms of capture. After some catching up, I came to the reason for my call.
“What can you tell me about Dalton Strait in Fallujah?”
“A good enough marine,” said Jim. “But he carried himself more like an officer than an enlisted man, which he was. He served because his father served and his grandfather served, and of course nine-eleven. I think Dalton was eager to get on to more important and less bloody things. Then he lost the leg and he was on his way home. He’s your state assemblyman now, isn’t he?”