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“Yer shittin' me,” Curtis sputtered in disbelief.

“No, Mr. Ames, I'm afraid we're not, er, doing that,” the man replied. “Town ordinance clearly states that it is the responsibility of every home and business owner to make sure that he prevents undesirable effluence from entering the city sewer system from his personal or business property.”

Curtis waved the pink piece of paper at them. “Well, then I expect that if I go down to city hall I'll find records of citations of every goddamn business and homeowner in this town who ever spread chemical fertilizer or weed killer or bug flicker on their lawns, right?
Because we all know goddamn well that every time it rains all that shit goes right down the sewer and out into the ocean, where it's already killed off the entire population of local lobsters, and it's in the process of killing ninety percent of the worlds living reefs, not to mention feeding red tides and freakish algae blooms and more or less destroying the last great natural resources on this great cesspool of a planet we call Earth.”

“All I can tell you, Mr. Ames, is that we do cite polluters whenever we can find them,” one of the men said. There was something odd about both men. Kai realized their upper torsos looked thick and out of proportion to their heads and lower bodies. One of them kept dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. It was definitely hot out, but not
that
hot.

Curtis held up the pink sheet before their eyes and began to tear it into little pieces. “Who put you up to this? How much did they pay ya to come out here and hassle me with this shit?”

“Uh, sir, by tearing up that citation I'm afraid you will be found in contempt,” one of the men said.

“Contempt? You want to see contempt?
I'll show you contempt.” Curtis spun around and stomped toward the motel office.

Kai had a bad feeling about what was about to happen. He quickly followed Curtis inside. The door from the office to Curtis's living room was open and Kai could hear Curtis banging around as if he was looking for something while he muttered, “Contempt, huh? I'll show those petty bureaucratic lightweights what contempt looks like.”

Kai heard the sound of a breech opening and clacking shut. He stepped through the door and closed it behind him. Curtis was standing in the middle of the living room with his sawed-off shotgun in his hands.

“Curtis, don't,” Kai said.

The older man jerked his head around. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass.”

“Sorry, grommet, it's too late for that,” Curtis growled. “This is the last straw. I've had it with this crap. I'm renaming this place the Alamo. The only way they'll take me out is in a body bag.”

“And they will, too,” Kai said. “You walk out there with that gun and you'll be doing exactly what they want you to do.”

Curtis frowned.

“Come here.” Kai went to the window and parted the blinds slightly. “Look at those guys. See anything?”

“Yeah, I see a couple of geeks from the town engineer's office. So what?”

“Look at their chests,” Kai said.

Curtis squinted through the blinds. He frowned. “What the hell?”

“Kevlar vests. Body armor. Not exactly the normal dress code for geeks from the town engineer's office, is it?”

“Well, I'll be,” Curtis muttered.

“That means they expect you to go out there and do something crazy,” Kai said. “Want to know what they don't expect? They don't expect you to go back out there and apologize for tearing up that citation. Say it was temporary insanity and ask for another one.”

Curtis grit his teeth. “The hell I will.”

“Why are you trying to make trouble for yourself?” Kai asked. “Know how easy it would be to fix your problem? All you have to do is move the Dumpster. Maybe you don't even have to move it. Maybe all you have to do is put a bucket under the leak. But if you don't go back out there, they're going to have
this contempt thing hanging over your head. I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm pretty sure you can't fix it with a bucket.”

Curtis pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. His shoulders drooped. “Christ on broken crutches.”

Kai waited and said nothing. Finally Curtis heaved a big sigh. “You're a smart kid, grom, but you're missing the big picture. Maybe you're right about this battle, but the war ain't over. They're gonna keep coming back at me again and again. They're grinding me down, grom. It's like they know I can only take so much of this before I blow.”

“Maybe something will change,” Kai said. “Maybe you'll be able to stop it once and for all.”

“Not a chance,” Curtis said. “It's me against the world, grom. There's too much money to be made by booting my sorry ass out of here. Greed's a powerful force, my friend. If it was a wave, it would be twice the size of Maverick's going off twenty-four-seven, three hundred sixty-five days a year.”

“Okay, but for right now you could make your life a lot easier by putting down the shotgun and going back out there and asking
for another copy of that citation,” Kai said.

Curtis looked down at the gun, then tossed it onto the couch. Kai flinched. It was crazy the way he tossed that gun around. Like he didn't care that it might go off accidentally.

“Okay, grom, this time I'll do it,” Curtis said. “But I'm making no promises about next time.”

W
hen Kai got to the T-shirt shop he found the Alien Frog Beast Hockaloogie standing on the sidewalk outside, staring at the window.

“This surfing display ain't working.” Kai's father was talking about a display he'd asked Kai to create after he'd noticed that the only store in town that seemed to get foot traffic on hot sunny afternoons was Sun Haven Surf. The reason people went into the surf shop at that time of day was that in the afternoons the onshore breeze would start to blow out the waves. The surfers had nothing better to do than look at surfboards and ogle Jade, Kai's sexy “friend” who worked behind the front counter. Pat figured that if he had Kai do a
surfing display for T-licious, he might be able to sell a few T-shirts to those surfers, but Kai, who hated the scams his father pulled on people, made the display as ugly as possible by featuring T-shirts with pigs and ducks on surfboards.

“So what do you want to do?” Kai asked his father.

“How else do they get surfer kids to shop?” the Alien Frog Beast asked.

Kai thought of suggesting that his father hire a sexy girl like Jade to work the counter, but that was out of the question. Instead he said, “You could become a sponsor.”

“How's that work?” Pat asked.

“Usually you pick out the hottest, coolest surfer around and the store gives him some free stuff,” Kai said. “In return, the surfer puts the store's logo on his boards and maybe on his wet suit. Other kids see the cool surfer wearing the store's stuff and they want to wear it also.”

“So you gotta have some kind of logo?” Pat looked unhappy.

“It's pretty key,” Kai said. He figured that would be the end of the conversation. Any idea that involved Pat giving away anything
for free, not to mention actually
paying
for someone to design a logo, would pretty much blow the deal clear out of the water.

“There he is!” someone suddenly said.

Kai and his father looked down the sidewalk where a man was pointing at them. It was Mr. Asoki, the tourist Pat had scammed the night before. With him was a man wearing a green plaid sports jacket and slacks.

“Crap!” Pat grumbled and dashed into the store.

Meanwhile Mr. Asoki and the man in the sports jacket came toward Kai. Mr. Asoki was clearly excited. “He charge me seventy-five dollar a shirt!” he was telling the man in the green plaid jacket. “In other store same shirt twenty-two dollar.”

Kai stayed on the sidewalk. As Mr. Asoki approached, his eyes fixed on Kai and he pointed at him. “Him. He work there too.”

The man in the plaid jacket stopped. “You work in this shop, son?”

Kai nodded. By now, other people on the sidewalk had stopped to see what the commotion was about.

“Why don't we go inside and talk this over,” said the man in the plaid jacket.

They went in. Not surprisingly, Sean and Pat had vanished. The man in the plaid jacket turned to Kai. “Would you ask the older gentleman to come out, please?”

Kai went into the back room. It was empty and the back door was slightly ajar, allowing a thin slice of sunlight in. Pat and Sean had bailed. Kai pulled the door closed and went out front again. Mr. Asoki and the man in the plaid jacket were waiting by the counter.

“They're gone,” Kai said.

The man in the plaid jacket didn't seem surprised to hear that. He held out his hand. “I'm Eric Blake, with the Sun Haven Chamber of Commerce. And you're?”

“Kai.” They shook hands.

“Just Kai?” Mr. Blake asked.

Kai tried to remember which
South Park
character's last name Pat was using this time. “Garrison.”

“Well, Kai, it seems Mr. Asoki has a problem with what you charged him for his shirts,” Mr. Blake said. “Mr. Asoki, can we see that receipt?”

Mr. Asoki handed the credit card receipt for the shirts to Mr. Blake, who turned it over to Kai. “Mr. Asoki has discovered that other
shops in town will sell him the same shirt for considerably less.”

“Twenty-two dollar,” Mr. Asoki said.

“Seventy-five dollars a shirt seems a little extreme, don't you think?” Mr. Blake asked.

“Sure does,” said Kai. “Must be a mistake.”

“One that I imagine you can correct very easily,” Mr. Blake said, tilting his head toward the cash register.

Kai opened the cash register. Twenty-two times four was eighty-eight. Three hundred minus eighty-eight was two hundred and twelve dollars. Kai counted out ten twenties, one ten, and two ones and handed them to Mr. Asoki. “I'm sorry about that, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Asoki,” Mr. Blake said, “I hope that helps remedy your problem.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a light blue certificate. “In addition, for your trouble I'd like you to have this gift certificate to my restaurant, the Lobster House. I'd like you and your family to have a free dinner on behalf of the citizens of Sun Haven.”

“Thank you very much, sir,” Mr. Asoki said. “Thank you.”

“And thank you for bringing your family here to Sun Haven,” Mr. Blake said. “I hope
you will tell all your friends about your very pleasant visit to our town.”

“I will, thank you.” Mr. Asoki left the store.

Mr. Blake didn't.

“
K
ai Garrison.” Mr. Blake placed the elbows of his plaid jacket on the glass counter and leaned toward Kai, holding him steady in his eyes. “Where're you from, Kai?”

“No particular place,” Kai answered.

“Here and there?” Mr. Blake guessed. “Move around a lot?”

Kai nodded.

“Change your name about as often as you change your address?”

Kai didn't answer.

“You know, Kai, many of us who live here in Sun Haven take a great deal of pride in our little town. We like to think that when people come here to visit they have a good time and
they get what they pay for. They leave Sun Haven with smiles on their faces and fond memories that they share with their friends, so that the following year, their friends might want to come here as well. Now you may be surprised to hear this, Kai, but even before Mr. Asoki came to my office today, I'd been hearing rumors that there might be a problem at this particular location. Actually, I bet you're not surprised to hear that, are you?”

Kai shook his head.

Eric Blake had not taken his eyes off Kai, nor had Kai taken his away from Blake. If this was a staring contest, Kai had no trouble playing. Blake raised one eyebrow and glanced toward the door that led to the back room.

“Your friends really gone, Kai?” he asked. “Or are they back there waiting for me to leave?”

“They're gone. You're welcome to go back there and see for yourself.”

“No, thanks, I believe you,” Mr. Blake said. “So the older gentleman, he saw trouble coming and he ran, leaving you behind to deal with it. How old are you, Kai?”

“Fifteen.”

“Little young to be left minding the store, don't you think?” Blake asked.

“Family business,” Kai answered.

Now both of Blake's eyebrows went up. “The one who left you here … He's your father?”

Kai nodded.

Mr. Blake took a moment and gazed around the store. He stepped over to a rack of T-shirts and thumbed through them. Then moved over to another rack. Then studied some of the transfers displayed on the walls. He looked back at Kai. “None of these items has a price attached to it. How are people suppose to know what it costs?”

That, of course, was the key to his father's scam. The items in the store cost whatever Pat thought the buyer would pay. If you looked like you could pay thirty dollars for a shirt, Pat charged you thirty dollars. But if you looked like you could pay seventy-five dollars, that would be the eventual price once the heat transfers and other “extras” were added on.

Mr. Blake came back to the counter. “Any idea when your father might be coming back?”

“Not a clue,” Kai replied.

“When he does, I want you to give him a message,” Mr. Blake said. “State law requires
that the price of every item be clearly marked on or near that item. Next time I visit this store—and believe me, that's going to be very soon—I expect to see that all the items are in compliance with state law. Can I count on you to relay that message?”

For the first time, Kai smiled. “You bet.”

“
D
amn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Pat stomped around the store like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum. Kai had just relayed the message from Mr. Blake that all the items in the store had to have clearly marked prices.