by Rex Bolt
Author’s Note:
This series works best if the books are read in order.
That said . . . if you are reading one at random, here is a brief
BACKGROUND SYNOPSIS:
Chris Seely is a relatively normal 42-year-old who goes to the doctor with what he assumes is a routine ailment, and receives a terminal diagnosis.
When the shock wears off, Chris decides he’s going to make the most of the time he has left, and just go for it . . .
As well as tie up loose ends . . . which in Chris’s case, means possibly killing off a few people who deserve it.
So he makes a list, and he takes it from there.
A few months in, he’s not getting any worse, and his bartender Shep suggests they may have made a mistake in the lab.
Chris concedes that has crossed his mind too, but at this point he’s in too deep and doesn’t want to know.
He continues to address the list with mixed success--taking into account new developments and making revisions as necessary.
The story alternates between San Francisco and Manhattan Beach, and a couple times Chris is forced to lay low, once in Bingham, Nevada, and once in Eclipse, Arizona.
Eventually he approaches the one-year mark with still no symptoms, and he’s reasonably convinced he’s going to be okay.
His idea is to retire his list . . . and relax on the beach . . . but something always gets in the way.
1 On The Rail
2 Only Hundreds
3 Back A Notch
4 Levity Behind
5 Grapefruit League
6 Far Bench Working
7 Guy Being One
8 Pronto In Case
9 Tacked On
10 Sharp Left
11 Tracks You Cross
12 Quote A Passage
13 In The Presence
14 Name And Basics
15 Mind To Pull
16 Temperature Rising
Chapter 1
“Jeez,” Chris said to the guy leaning on the rail at the end of the pier. “Some kind of fancy set-up down there this morning, huh?”
“Paddleboard race coming in,” the guy said. “Used to be a bigger deal. Lot of these peripheral sports though, the money dries up on ‘em.”
“Ah,” Chris said.
“Listen to the PA, for example. You able to understand anything?”
Chris listened for a minute, and he had to admit he could see the guy’s point. Tinny sound, like a cheap home made set-up, some feedback . . . but it was kind of interesting what he could make out, it sounded like they were comparing your different varieties of paddleboard racing.
“See?” the pier guy said.
“Yeah, but if I understood it right--this one’s 32 miles? You gotta be joking.”
“Oh no, that part’s legit. All the way from Catalina.”
“Dang,” Chris said. “Just trying to wrap your head around the concept . . . I mean you can only use your arms, right? No actual paddle?”
“I did it twice,” the guy nodded. “In ‘98 and ‘03.” He was chewing sunflower seeds, Chris noticed, and casually spit out a couple.
A stream of kids came by, teenagers, black and Hispanic ones, all with the same t-shirts on, apparently finishing off some kind of training run at the end of the pier . . . except no, they were turning it around and continuing back the other way.
“I’d earmark you as more of a wrestler,” Chris said. “If I was going to place you as an athlete.”
What Chris was really thinking was the guy looked awful soft, like his sport would be video gaming at best. One thing he’d learned though, since living in Manhattan Beach, don’t underestimate anyone down here in the fitness department.
The guy smiled. “That’s what a lot of people say. What can I tell you.”
“Well, how’d you train? . . . Before you get into that, you’re looking at me funny.”
“Those things, whadda they call ‘em?” the guy said, still smiling. Referring to the little barbells Chris was carrying, one in each hand.
“I power-walk, if you don’t mind,” Chris said, and this guy was turning out okay, taking a friendly jab, something Chris decided the world could use more of, after spending way too much time on Twitter lately watching bitter people ready to rip each other’s throats out over something Trump did or didn’t do.
“I noticed though,” the guy said, “those kids, the joggers, you were eyeballin’ em.”
“I was?”
“Unh-huh. I get that, we’re not used to much minority population around here. They’re a good outfit though, part of a church in Inglewood. Education and exercise being the focus. I throw ‘em a donation every year.”
“So . . . don’t be scared of them, you’re saying.”
“Exactly. Answer your other question, how’d I train . . . we’ll I know it sounds goofy, but the majority was in a pool.”
Chris swiveled his head around and took a good look down the Strand, wondering could you spot Mancuso and Rosie, but concluding this’d be a little soon yet, if they were going to the Hermosa Pier and back like they’d announced.
“What do you do?” Chris said to the guy, who was starting to fit the doofus category after all, now that he’d thrown in the pool business.
“You mean really do? Movie shit.”
Chris figured the movies would admittedly be more interesting than hearing about refining your paddleboard technique, but he thought about it . . . and decided it could wait.
He checked his wallet. “How much you got on you?” he said to the guy.
“I don’t know . . . why?”
“I’m not great in the ocean,” Chris said. “In fact I’ve only been in the thing a couple times since I moved here . . . Once I took a surfing lesson. The first hour and a half, she didn’t let me go in the water.”
“The instructor you mean.”
“Yeah. Very appealing woman, on the surface, which is why I got duped into it.”
“They do that, I know. They want you standing up on the board on the solid sand first.”
“Which makes sense,” Chris said. “At any rate . . . I’ll beat you to the beach. 50 bucks.”
The guy took a moment to process it and smiled again, little different formation to the mouth this time. “You’re not suggesting,” he said, “what I think you are.”
The guy wasn’t stupid, and they’d been talking water and paddleboarding and even surfing which implied there’d be some swimming involved, that it wouldn’t be a simple running race to the front end of the pier.
“What’s the drop, do you think?” Chris said, meaning how far was it over the rail into the ocean . . . and Jesus, could the impact knock you out or something if you gauged it wrong?
“The way you ask that,” the guy said, rifling around in his wallet now, “tells me you’re having second thoughts.”
“I am,” Chris said. Still, thinking back to when he threw that one guy’s bicycle over the rail, the thing didn’t stay in the air that long did it?
The guy had produced the fifty bucks and was pulling his shirt over his head, and he definitely had a beer-belly on him but plenty of muscle too around the chest and upper arms, and Chris was thinking the fucker maybe really did do those races, in fact probably did.
“All’s we need,” the guy said, “someone to hold our valuables, and kinda ref the thing too.”
This made sense and there was an older man who’d been standing there for a while, off to their left. He had on a fishing hat, one of those baseball cap deals with the extra-long brim, something you didn’t see around here, and bermuda shorts, not common to the area either.
Chris looked at the race guy and the guy nodded that’d be fine and Chris said to the fishing hat person, “If you’re going to be here for a little while, could we impose on you to hold our stuff?”
“For how long?” the older man said, and as he said it he swiveled his head around, following a couple of bikinis that were headed to the ocean end of the pier.
“Why,” the race guy chimed in, “it’s so rough here, you gotta be somewhere else?”
“I know you,” the older man said to the race guy. “I’m not going to embarrass you where.”
“Damn,” the race guy said, scrunching up his face. “Now you got me. Where was that at?”
“Like I said,” the old guy said. “But the original question--a little while. Minutes, hours, what?”
“A little while in your experience,” Chris said, “that runs into hours, typically? And also--you’re from here, or no?”
The race guy said to the older one, “He didn’t mean he’s afraid you’re going to disappear on us. What it is, is your get-up. It’s unique.”
Chris was reversing himself again that this guy wasn’t too bad, that’s twice now he’d read his mind, the kind of person you might be friends with, except he’d gotten under his skin for whatever reason and forced him to throw down this ridiculous challenge.
“What are you fellows doing, if I may ask?” the older guy said, accepting the wallets and cellphones and sticking them in the front pockets of the bermuda shorts, which had so much room you could barely tell anything had gone in there.
“Agnes here,” the movie guy said, “he thinks he can beat me to the sand. The long way.”
“Yeah well we don’t have to,” Chris said, “not like someone has a gun to our heads.”
“Oh but we do,” the guy said. To the fishing guy, “Pardner, can you give us a one, two, three?”
“Just a second there,” Chris said. “You’re saying right here? Over and in? I mean is that legal? I don’t want to get arrested or something.”
“You suggested it,” the movie guy said, “motioning with your head right down to the water . . . but you got a point. All’s we’ll do then, go off the end. That should work.”
There was a roundhouse at the tip of the pier, a sort of beat-up mini-aquarium, but yeah, Chris could see how most people’s view would be blocked if you did it that way, and he took off his shirt and flip-flops and laid them on the bench and took a fairly substantial here-goes deep breath.
“You gonna swim with your sunglasses on?” the older man said, and Chris thanked him and took those off too.
The movie guy was up ahead now, doing circular calisthenics with his arms, looking pretty imposing.
The fishing guy said, “If you get in trouble, you always have the lifeguard. They really are amazing. One of ‘em pulled me out, not too long ago.”
“Well thanks for the confidence boost,” Chris said. Though he had to agree with him, you did feel in good hands with those guys patrolling the water. “And your deal, you got me curious . . . but some other time, I guess.”
“Come back, we’ll get a coffee. I got time.”
“You were awful antsy there, when we wanted you to stay put for a minute.”
“Not antsy. Just don’t like committing to stuff.”
“Join the club,” Chris said, and he moseyed on down to the end of the pier, the movie guy doing some sort of squat thrusts now, Chris not into any warm-up whatsoever, and his legs feeling pretty dang heavy.
“We’ll self-referee it,” the guy said. “On three. One, two . . . three.” The guy not fooling around at all, that was for sure . . . and he niftily straddled the railing, got his bearings, paused on the outside edge for a moment, and let fly.
Chris anticipated. First he wanted to make sure the guy came up. He’d been living down here close to six months now--give or take a couple hiatuses--and never actually had witnessed anyone jump off the pier into the ocean.
The guy popped up fine, no residual effects, though admittedly he’d been under water a little longer than Chris had hoped, and the guy made a left turn and was steadily working his way around the side of the pier, the south face, which meant he’d be heading for home soon enough . . . and he had that experienced open-water-swim deal going where your head was out of the water just high enough to avoid getting splashed in the face, and your arms were windmilling it a little higher than they would in your typical calm body of water . . . and Chris had seen enough people doing daily workouts way out there, around buoys and stuff, and this guy looked just like ‘em. . . and Chris figured no friggen way.
So he took his time, and after a couple minutes he started feeling real stupid and at least swung over the rail and leaned back against it from the little outside landing.
He had an ongoing memory that surfaced now and then and he wondered if he was making it up, or thinking that a dream he had was real, since it kept changing on him.
What it was, he was about 8 years old and he was with his parents and sister Bonnie, and Floyd would have been there too--except Jeez, he might not have even been born yet . . . and it felt like the municipal pool of a small hot town in an inland valley, somewhere like a Manteca.
There was a high dive and he climbed up eagerly, not to dive off but at least to jump, and he’d been seeing plenty of kids his age doing it and having fun, but when he got up there and walked to the end of the board he looked down and said unh-uh, and tried to get back down.
But there was a line of kids and he couldn’t get through and he started crying and kids were making fun of him, and his dad saw what was going on, climbed up there making his way past the other kids, and wasn’t smiling when he reached Chris and took hold of him and threw him off.
You’d think for sure you’d remember something like that clearly if it really happened, and Chris figured the bottom line was it likely did but he was blocking it out, distorting it. He hoped that wasn’t an early sign of mental illness, and he thought you unfortunately might as well ask Dr. Stride about it at some point, provided he ever saw that guy again.
Anyhow . . . now you had to do something, didn’t you, it felt like even the old guy holding their valuables was waiting expectantly, even though he’d be blocked out by the roundhouse at this point.
So Chris reminded himself to just relax, maybe hyperventilate a couple times to expand the lungs, and let the water do its thing, which after all was plenty salty and wanted to bob you back up the surface, it wasn’t trying to fight you . . . right?
He said to himself here goes and just before he launched himself he glanced around to the left toward the beach and spotted the guy, no more than 75 yards away from paydirt now . . . and there was a lifeguard truck in line with him on the beach that hadn’t been there before . . . and thinking about it a little more, it may not have been a straight lifeguard truck but technically one of those LA County beach enforcement vehicles.
He considered it on the way down, decided yeah, the lifeguard ones were yellow weren’t they, and this one was probably the same make and model but a light green . . . and when he made it back to the surface--which was no piece of cake, since there was a brief harrowing moment after you hit the water where you looked up but couldn’t see any surface--but luckily that didn’t last long and you got there, though not quite soon enough to convince Chris he’d ever try something like this again . . . but the point being, it seemed wise to go the other way.
So that’s what he did, the north side of the pier, and Holy Smokes it was ice cold now that the adrenaline was wearing off and you actually had to bear down and swim . . . and for whatever reason he hadn’t taken that into account in this incredibly stupid business he’d engineered, though the movie guy seemed immune to the cold and was operating like a machine.
But yeah, dang, this was still March, around the 17th or 18th Chris was placing it, because it was about 10 days since they’d made it home from South Dakota, that being Thursday the 8th he was pretty sure--Mancuso of course having to bai
l him out of a jam there, after Chris did away with the guy-he-met-in-Winnemucca’s son-in-law.
The good thing about the north side, if you were trying to keep a low profile--and he wasn’t sure anything was going to happen with that truck on the beach and the movie guy, but still--there were lots of people in the water here, this being more the boogie boarding side of the pier and the other being the surfing one.
So Chris blended in and rested a few times, floating on his back, and soon enough he made it to where he could stand up and negotiated his way onto the good old sand.
If they really were racing head to head the guy would have probably beat him by five minutes, at least . . . but what the hay, now that he was on solid ground and the endorphins were kicking in, it hadn’t been the worst way to blow fifty bucks, he supposed.
Surprisingly, the old fishing cap guy was coming down the stairs from the front of the pier to the beach, intercepting him.
“Well I lost,” Chris said.
“I noticed,” the guy said. “Your friend though, it appears he’s being detained.”
“Jeez. Are you serious?”
“It used to be a ticket, if they caught you jumping off,” the old guy said. “Now it’s a misdemeanor, but a serious one, enforceable.”
“How enforceable?”
“Don’t know . . . A few incidents, the last year or two, commanded a good deal of manpower to make rescues and such, and a helicopter was involved, and the city said that’s enough.”
“Wait . . . you knew all this, and you let us go anyway?”
“Well, yeah,” the guy said. “I wanted to see how it played out for you.”
Chris said, “You’re a bit of a devil.”
“Known to be,” the guy said.
“But what, you mean teenagers have been hot-dogging it off the pier, and not landing great . . . that type of thing?”
