Bad Things (5 page)

it used to be. Perhaps it was this that made me grab a couple beers

from the fridge; could also have been the half joint fl oating around

B A D T H I N G S 17

my system, coupled with a feeling of restlessness I’d had all day; or

merely that I was home a little earlier than usual and Becki and Kyle

had, without trying, made me feel about a million years old.

I decided I’d take the beers down onto the beach. A one-man

Friday night, watching the waves, listening to the music of the

spheres. Party on.

I walked to within a few yards of the sea and sat down on the sand.

Looked up along the coast for a while, at the distant glow of windows

in the darkness, listening to the sound of the waves coming up and

going back, as the sky grew lower and matte with gathering clouds.

I methodically drank my way through the fi rst beer and felt calm,

and empty, though not really at peace. To achieve that I would have

needed to believe that I had a place in the world, instead of stand-

ing quietly to one side. I’d been in Oregon for nearly three years.

Floating. Before the Pelican had been bar work up and down the

coast, some odd jobs, plus periods working the door at nightclubs

over in Portland. Service-industry roustabout work, occupations that

required little but the willingness to work cheaply, at night, and to

risk occasional confrontations with one’s fellow man. My possessions

were limited to a few clothes, a laptop, and some books. I didn’t even

own a car anymore, though I did have money in the bank. More than

my coworkers would have imagined, I’m sure, but that’s because all

they know about me is I can hold my own in a busy ser vice and pro-

duce approximately circular Italian food.

Finally it rained.

Irrevocably, and very hard, soaking me so quickly that there was

no hurry to go inside. I sat out a little longer, as the rain bounced off

the waves and pocked the sand. Eventually I fi nished the second beer

and then stood up and started for home.

As Friday nights go, I couldn’t claim this one had really caught

fi re.

18 Michael Marshall

Back inside I dried off and wandered into the living room. It was

nearly two o’clock, but I couldn’t seem to fi nd my way to bed. I played

on the Web for a little while, the last refuge of the restless and clini-

cally bored. As a last resort I checked my e-mail—another of the exis-

tentially empty moments the Internet hands you on a plate.

Hey, world, want to talk?

No? Well, maybe later.

Invitations to invest in Chinese industry, buy knockoff watches,

and stock up on Viagra. Some Barely Legal Teen Cuties had been

in touch again, too. As was their custom, they were keen to spill the

beans on how they’d got it on with their roommate or boss or a herd

of broad-minded elk.

I declined the offers, also as usual, hoping they wouldn’t be of-

fended after the trouble they’d gone to for me, and me alone. I’d se-

lected all the crap as a block and was about to throw it in the trash

when a message near the bottom caught my eye.

The subject line said: please, please read.

Most likely more spam, of course. One of the Nigerian classics,

perhaps, the wife/son/cat of a recently deceased oligarch who’d squir-

reled away millions that some lucky randomer could have 20 percent

of, if they’d just send all their bank details to a stranger who’d spelled

his own name three different ways in a single e-mail.

If so, however, they’d titled it well. That combination of words is

hard to ignore. I clicked on it, yawning, trying and failing to remem-

ber the last time I’d received a message from someone in particular.

The e-mail was short.

I know what happened

Nothing else. Not even a period at the end of the sentence. The

name of the apparent sender of the e-mail—Ellen Robertson—was

not that of anyone I knew. Just a piece of spam after all.

I hit delete and went to bed.

C H A P T E R 3

Next morning started with a walk up the beach, carrying a big cup of

coffee. I’ve done that every day since I lived in Gary’s house. Far as

I’m concerned, if the beach is right there and you don’t kick off the

day by walking along it, then you should move the hell inland and

make way for someone who understands what the coast is for.

I was up early, and the sands were even more deserted than usual.

I passed a couple of guys optimistically waving fi shing rods at the sea,

and a few people like me. Lone men and women in shorts and loose

shirts, tracing their ritual walkways, smiling briefl y at strangers.

Sometimes when the sun is bright and the world holds no shadows at

all, I imagine what it would be like to have a smaller set of footprints

keeping pace with mine. But not often, and not that morning.

I walked farther than usual, but it was still only eight-thirty

when I got back to the house. There was already a message on the

machine. It was from Ted.

“Christ,” he’d said, without preamble. “Look, I hate to call you

like this. But could you come lend a hand? Someone’s broken in. To

the restaurant.”

His voice went muffl ed for a few moments, as he spoke brusquely

to someone in the background.

20 Michael Marshall

Then he came back on, sounding even more pissed. “Look, maybe

you’re out for the day already, but if not—”

I picked up the handset and called him back.

Rather than wait for me to walk, Ted came down, arriving out-

side the house ten minutes later. It’s always been evident where Becki

acquired her driving style. Ted turned the pickup around in the road

without any notable decrease in speed, and drew level with me. I was

leaning against the post at the top of my drive, waiting, having a ciga-

rette. I leaned down to talk through the open passenger window.

“You need me to bring any tools?”

He shook his head. “Got a bunch in the store. Going to have to

go buy glass and wood, but I’ll get onto that later. Fucking day this is

gonna be.”

I climbed into the truck and just about got the door shut before

he dropped his foot on the pedal.

“When did you fi nd it?”

Ted’s face was even redder and more baggy-eyed than usual.

“One of the cooks. Raul, I think. Got there at seven with the rest of

the crew, called me right away.”

“Which one’s Raul?”

“You got me. I think they’re all called Raul.”

“What happened to the alarm?”

“Nothing. It went off like it was supposed to. It was still going

when I got there.”

“Isn’t someone from the alarm company supposed to come check

it out? Or phone you, at least?”

Ted looked embarrassed. “Stopped paying for that ser vice a while

back. It’s eight hundred a year, and we’ve never needed it before.”

By now we were decelerating toward the right-hand turn off the

highway.

“How bad is the damage?”

Ted shrugged, raising both hands from the wheel in a gesture

evoking the diffi culty of describing degrees of misfortune, especially

B A D T H I N G S 21

when however much “bad” is still going to cause a day of fetching and

form-fi lling and expense that a guy just doesn’t fucking need.

“It’s not so terrible, I guess. I just don’t
get
it. There’s signs on all three doors—front, back, kitchen—saying no money’s left on the

premises overnight. So what the hell? Huh? What kind of fuckhead

comes all the way over here in the middle of the night, just to screw

up someone else’s day?”

“Maybe they didn’t believe you about the money,” I said.

“Fuckheads can be strange like that.”

As the car slowed into the lot I saw Becki’s car “parked” down the

end. “Don’t tell me Kyle’s here already?”

Ted laughed, and for a moment looked less harried and disap-

pointed with mankind in general.

“I had to call Becki to work out how to get your phone number off

the database. I told her she didn’t have to do anything, but she came

right over.”

He pulled the pickup to come to rest next to his daughter’s ve-

hicle.

“You called the cops, I assume?”

“Been and gone. They sent their two best men, as I’m sure you

can imagine. Not convinced either of them aced the ‘How to pretend

you give a shit’ course, though. And I’ve comped a
lot
of appetizers

and drinks for both those assholes in the past.”

We got out and I followed Ted to the restaurant. He led me

around the side to the back door, the one you’d enter if you’d been out

on deck with a drink before coming in for dinner.

The remains of the external door there was hanging open, most

of the panes broken. The slats that once held the glass in place lay in

splinters on the fl oor. Becki was hunkered down in the short corridor

beyond the doorway, working a dustpan and hand brush.

“Hey,” she said.

“It doesn’t look so bad.”

“Not anymore,” she said, straightening up. She’d evidently been at

22 Michael Marshall

the job awhile, and a couple of blond hairs were stuck to her forehead.

She looked pissed off. “The guys are still working in the back.”

I went through the second door—which had been more gently

forced—and into the main area of the restaurant. The Pelican’s reg-

ister and reservations system runs on a newish Mac with an external

cash drawer. The latter had been unsuccessfully attacked with a chisel

and/or crowbar. I looked at this for a while and then headed into the

back, where the brigade was tidying the kitchen.

“They messed it up some in here,” Ted said, unnecessarily, as he

joined me. It looked like one or two people had really made a meal of

throwing things around. “And it seems like we got a machine missing.”

“Juicer,” confi rmed one of the cooks—the guy who’d stared at me

on the way out of the lot last night. He looked less moody now, and

I could guess why. He and his fellow non-Americans would not have

enjoyed the police visit earlier, most likely spending it on an extended

cigarette break half a mile down the road. They would also be very

aware of being high on most people’s list of suspects—either for do-

ing the job themselves, or passing the opportunity to an accomplice,

along with the information that any alarm would go unanswered.

“Kind of a dumb break-in,” I said, directly to him. “I mean, ev-

erybody knows there’s no cash left here, right?”

“Yeah, of course,” the cook said, nodding quickly. “We all know

that. But some people, you know? They think it’s fun, this kind of

thing.”

“Probably just kids,” I said, looking past him to the anteroom

off the side where staff changed and hung their coats. “Anyone lose

anything out of there?”

“Well, no,” Ted said. “Nobody here in the middle of the night,

right? The lockers were empty.”

“Duh,” I said. “Of course.”

I turned, and saw Becki standing out in the restaurant looking

at me.

B A D T H I N G S 23

I have no formal training in fixing things, but common sense and good

measuring will get most of the job done. My dad had game at that

kind of thing, and I spent long periods as a child watching him. Ted

and I measured the broken panes and the wood that needed replacing,

he listened to my instructions for a couple more items, then drove

off to get it all from a hardware store in Astoria. Meanwhile Becki

headed out to get a replacement cash drawer from a supplier over in

Portland that she’d tracked down on the Net.

Ted was gone well over an hour. I sat on deck and slowly drank

a Diet Coke. I was feeling an itch at the back of my head, but didn’t

want to yield to it. I knew that if I was back at the beach house, how-

ever, as normal at this time of day, then I’d already have done so. I also

knew it would have been dumb, however, and that it was a box in my

head I didn’t want to open. The smart tactic with actions that don’t

make sense is to not do them the fi rst time. Otherwise, after that,

why not do them again?

Nonetheless I found myself, ten minutes later, at the till com-

puter. The Web browser Becki had been using was still up on screen.

I navigated to my Internet provider’s site and checked my e-mail,

quickly, before I could change my mind and fail to yield to impulse.

There was nothing there.

That was good. I wouldn’t be checking again.

Eventually Ted got back with the materials and I started work. The

external door had been pretty solid, and so kicking the panes out had

badly splintered the frame around the lock. I levered the damaged

side off under Ted’s watchful eye.

“You know what you’re doing, right?”

“Kinda,” I said. “More than you do, anyhow.”

“I get what you’re saying,” he said, and went inside.

I worked slowly but methodically, which is the best way of dealing

with the subversive ranks of inanimate objects. Ted proved to have a

24 Michael Marshall

thorough selection of tools, which helped, as did having gone through

the process of fi guring out how to replace Gary’s screen door a few