Tapping the Source (11 page)

Ike looked up at the tinted windows high above the boardwalk. He decided to start back himself and get some breakfast. Still, it was difficult to tear himself away from the railing and he turned back once more toward the ocean—in time to see the surfer he’d been watching get still one more wave. The guy was easy to spot. He was tall and blond and while most of the others wore full wet suits, he wore only a swimsuit and a vest. “That one guy’s really good,” Ike said, pointing him out to Preston.

“Your hero, huh?” Preston asked, and the grin had given way to a slightly crooked smile. A moment passed while Ike looked out to sea then back at Preston. “Just don’t go getting too sweet on him,” Preston said. “He’s your man. And that other guy”—he waved toward a dark figure in a full black wet suit with what looked to be red stripes down the sides, sitting farther to the south and way outside—“there’s another one for you. Terry Jacobs. He’s a Samoan, usually the biggest dude out there.” Preston thumped at the pier with his heavy boots and began to walk the bike away, back down the center of the boardwalk, the people spreading to let him pass.

Ike went after him. Preston didn’t say anything else; he just kept walking the bike through the crowd. When he had gotten down next to the tower he pulled himself up and came down on the stick. The engine didn’t catch and he hauled himself up once more. Ike reached out and grabbed his arm. He grabbed him right on the biceps, on top of that coiled serpent, and it was like grabbing hold of a large pipe. Preston let himself back down and looked at his arm, at Ike’s hand. He did it real slow and Ike released his grip. He stared into Preston’s shades. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You can’t let it go at that.”

Preston just looked at him. “I can’t?”

Ike hesitated. “Well, what about them?” he asked at last.

“What do you mean, what about them? That’s them, ace. Two of them, anyway. What do you want me to do, swim out there and have a word with them?” Preston kicked hard and the big engine jumped to life. Just above them the speakers had begun another order—something about
walking
the bike off the pier, but the voice was lost in the roar of the engine. A cloud of pale smoke hung in the air and Ike stood in the midst of it, watching Preston.

“Look,” Preston yelled at him. “Let’s get something straight. I’ve been thinking about what you told me. You let me think about it some more. In the meantime, do like I told you, keep your story to yourself. If I come up with anything I think you ought to know, I’ll tell you. But remember something. This is not your scene. Can you dig that? You don’t know what the fuck goes on around here. And one more thing. Don’t ever come runnin’ up and grabbin’ at me like that. I might pinch your fucking head off.” With that he popped the big bike’s clutch and was off, right down the middle of the boardwalk with pipes blasting and chrome bars burning and people scattering in front of him like leaves in a wind.

10

The swell ran through the rest of the week. Each day, however, the sea grew a bit calmer. And as the spectators on the pier went back to the beach and the circus atmosphere began to dissipate, the number of surfers entering the water grew. By the end of the week the waves were down to a consistent and well-shaped six feet and more crowded than Ike had yet seen them. Fistfights were not that uncommon, both in the water and out. Ike went to watch. At first it had been too big for him, and now that he had at last put faces to two of the names on the scrap of paper, he wanted to get a better look. If his surfing had been further along, he might have ventured out near the pier; as it was, he stood on it, watching from above.

The two men Preston had pointed out to him were there each morning: Hound Adams and Terry Jacobs. Hound Adams was tall, lean but well built. And Preston had been right about the Samoan; he was always, it appeared, the biggest dude out there—maybe just a bit shorter than Hound, but with a chest like a refrigerator. They were both excellent surfers, particularly Hound Adams. Terry seemed to surf effortlessly enough, but with none of Hound’s fluid brilliance. His was not a dance with the ocean but a contest of strengths. He could drive through incredible sections of breaking waves, like a fullback pounding through a line, looking simply too heavy and too well planted to be knocked from his board. He was awesome on the beach as well, wearing his hair in a great puffball of an Afro that bounced as he walked.

As a rule they surfed with the first light, with the dawn patrol, as the kid in the desert had told him. But with the swell running they surfed in the evenings as well, so Ike made it a practice to go there after work. He had taken note of the direction they took upon leaving the beach and he had it in mind to follow them. He was certain it was an idea of which Preston would not approve, but then Preston had not been around again since the first day of the swell.

•   •   •

He watched from the pier until the sun slipped into the sea and the lights began to flutter and buzz above the boardwalk, then he turned and walked quickly back to the highway. They usually crossed the street in front of Tom’s and then turned left, moving away toward the north end of town. He waited at Tom’s. When they passed, he fell in behind them.

He stayed too far back to pick up anything of their conversation, but he could see them gesturing and laughing. For a time their bare feet left wet prints across the dirty pavement. In front of the Capri Room the neon lights cast a pink glow on the concrete and flashed in the chrome of the half-dozen choppers that lined the curb. He saw Hound gesture once in the direction of the bikes and heard Terry Jacobs laugh.

People parted in front of them as they passed. They turned right at Del Taco and walked along a dimly lit street. Ike stayed behind them. He could feel his pulse now, up in his throat, a dampness in the palms of his hands. They were the only people on the street besides him. He slowed some and let them stretch their lead.

They went on for another three blocks before turning into the lawn of a two-story house. There was a light on in an upstairs window and it made a yellow circle on the dark grass, caught in the whispering fronds of an old palm that grew in the front yard. Ike could hear them talking again, pulling off wet suits. He had meant to go on by, do his best to look casual, but suddenly he wanted more. The house next door was dark, its lawn black with the shadow of old trees. A thick hedge separated the pieces of property and Ike ducked behind it. And then he was moving along the hedge, ducked down in a kind of crouch, thinking how stupid it would be to get caught. But the house was dark and silent, the windows shaded. Through the hedge he could hear them talking, running a hose. He got to his knees and crawled, found a spot in the hedge where he could see through.

They were stripped to their trunks in the front yard. Hound was hosing down wet suits. As Ike watched another man came out on the porch. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. He was shorter than either Hound or the Samoan, rather thin but wiry. He had wavy blond hair that was combed straight back, and looked wet, as if he’d just gotten out of the water. He put his hand to his mouth, taking a toke off something, it appeared, cocking his head a bit when he did, and there was something about that gesture, the angle at which he held his head, perhaps, or the light on his hair, that made Ike think of the alley in back of the shop. He was almost certain that this was the guy he had seen there talking to Preston, and a name formed on his lips. He whispered it to himself.

“You shoulda come back out, brah.” It was Terry who spoke to the man on the porch. The guy shrugged and passed Terry the joint. “Tomorrow,” he said. Terry nodded and went up the steps and into the house. The new man and Hound Adams were left alone in the front yard. The two men were silent for a time. Hound hung the wet suits to dry on a small line that had been run from the porch out to a tree in the yard. It was finally Hound Adams who spoke, and Ike heard his voice clearly for the first time. “It’s a good swell,” Hound said. He had a smooth, even voice. “Should be a good summer. I can feel it. You know what I mean?” The blond man nodded, then sat down on the porch. Hound moved to stand in front of him, taking the joint from him and then passing it back. They continued to talk about the surf, about storms and swells, and how they ran in cycles, and how this was the year. Ike listened. The ground was slightly damp beneath his hand and knees and he could smell the musty green of the old hedge. A car passed on the street, but its lights were too far away to find him. And then he started thinking about something. It was a strange thing to think about, perhaps, but he thought about it anyway. He couldn’t help himself. He started thinking about how good they were, especially Hound, how they knew about these cycles and storms and a distant energy and how they had been alone in the big swell when he had thought no one could’ve gotten out and how Hound Adams had ridden the first wave. He thought back to those names scribbled on a scrap of paper and he wondered for a moment—why did it have to be them?

Someone killed the light in the upstairs window and the patterns of shadow died on the grass. But Ike could still make them out through the hedge: Hound standing up now, the other guy taking the boards beneath the cover of the porch. Hound stood for a moment alone, his hands on his hips, staring into the dark yard, then he turned and went inside. The front door banged shut in the blackness. Ike waited for a few minutes and then straightened up. The knees of his pants had circles of wetness on them and he brushed at them with his hands. He walked slowly back along the hedge and turned on the sidewalk.

There was another light on in the house now, in what looked like the kitchen, and he could see them through the glass: Hound Adams and Terry Jacobs seated at what must have been a table, although it was too low for him to see. They were still bare-chested, their faces turned down, intent on whatever was before them. For a moment Ike flashed back to what he had thought of behind the hedge, but then it was gone and there was just the oddly metallic taste of fear far back in his mouth and throat. As he moved along the sidewalk, passing in front of the house, he turned once more to look. It was a different angle and he could see them even better. The two men were bent slightly forward, their faces hard and chiseled-looking in the yellow light, faces that seemed suddenly both arrogant and cunning; murderers beneath the eaves.

A sudden spasm seemed to pass through him and he moved away, into the darkness of the street. But later, alone in his room, he thought it all through again. He thought, too, of Ellen Tucker. Though there was not a day in which he did not think of her, the work and the swell had managed to fill his mind with other things. But not tonight. Tonight it was all right there, like it had been that second week, working on Preston’s tank. Only now he had seen them, had put faces to the names on that scrap of paper, and he thought again about what the kid had told him—that they were not lightweight people, that unless he could find some real help … And for the first time since he’d come, he found himself fighting in a new way against what Gordon had told him, that part about making up his mind to it, that he would not see her again. He could hear those words now, like the walls were telling him, and he fought against them all night long, until the first gray light was swimming on the cracked plaster ceiling. And it was like finally, somewhere at the edge of a troubled sleep, his eyes hot and scratchy as if he’d been staring into a desert wind, he knew the words were true. He knew it with a terrible certainty, and with a fresh rush of anxiety he thought about that man he’d seen Preston talking to in the alley—the same man he’d seen tonight: Frank Baker. Had to be. And he wondered what they had said to one another that night in the alley, behind the shop.

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