Ben Soul

by Richard George

change of ownership by registered letter two days later. Mae Ling immediately called the City to protest its confiscation. She got no satisfaction. The Ling lawyer (a distant cousin from Fukien) had missed this insignificant piece of property when he registered things in Mae Ling’s name. The City had, by INS assignment, the right to sell the property. The new owners had the right to evict the tenants and raze the old building.

  Resort to Retreat

  La Señora cleared her throat and looked around her living room at her invited guests. Their small talk quieted. Elke and Rosa sat closely together, holding hands in the folds of Elke’s skirt. Willy Waugh, clad only in briefs, sat at Rosa’s feet. Dickon sat in a shadow, his lowered lids hooding his green eyes.

  Dapper Malcolm Drye sat perched on his chair, as though he might get up and run out at any moment. La Señora did not think he would; he commonly sat on the edge of a chair because he was too short to be comfortable with his back against the chair’s back.

  Next to Malcolm, The Swami, dressed in his customary blue chambray shirt and pinstriped overalls leaned back in his chair, arms folded over his chest. Next to him Mae Ling sat in silence, her hands folded in a steeple that propped up her nose.

  “My friends,” La Señora began, “Let me first introduce my cousins, Emma Freed and her daughter, Notta. They are at a crisis point in their lives just as the rest of us are.” Emma Freed held Notta Freed on her lap. They sat between Mae Ling and La Señora. Brown hair crowned Emma’s round face. Her figure was not quite plump, though no longer girlish. Notta appeared to be about eight years old. Her face mirrored her mother’s. Notta’s brown hair was coiffed in sausage curls, a current fashion among girls her age. It was a lighter brown, streaked with golden threads, as though the sun had carelessly shed its whiskers on her. Her eyes were blue, and looked warily at the assembled group.

  Several people murmured “Nice to meet you” or nodded recognition of Emma and Notta.

  “You all will soon lose our shops and some of you your homes,” La Señora continued. “I must close this mission. I have consulted attorneys, and there is no way to stop Slash and Burns from razing this block to build their new high rise.” Several people muttered angrily.

  “We have in these past years since the Great Temblor become a community. All of us, that is, except Emma and Notta. My friends, I do not want to break our community apart.”

  “How can we stay together?” Elke asked. La Señora turned to her.

  “I may have a way. Slash and Burns are offering each of us a cash settlement if we do not sue. If we invest the money wisely, we can provide a basic living for ourselves.”

  “The amount is not very large,” Malcolm said. “I doubt it will provide enough return, conservatively invested, to pay more than the rent or the grocery bill, but not both.”

  “Yes. Therefore, we need to eliminate one or the other,” Dickon said. “Either don’t live anywhere or don’t eat. It’s simple.” He smiled a twisted smile.

  “I can offer a different solution,” La Señora said.

  “What is that, Señora?” Rosa asked.

  “I own a property on the North Coast. At a place called San Danson. It is run down, but title to it is free and clear.”

  “Does it have a building large enough to accommodate us all?”

  “The property was a resort, of sorts, my grandfather owned. It has several cottages, a large home on the hill, a small building we call the Chapel, and, on the highway, a shop, a restaurant, a motel with six rooms, and a gas station.”

  “It sounds like a bit of paradise,” Mae Ling said. “Far away from the madding crowds, and all that.”

  “Terribly remote, is it?” Malcolm Drye asked. “On the coast?” He frowned. “Dahlias might not do too well in such a place.”

  “No, but African Violets will,” Rosa Krushan interjected.

  “True,” Malcolm said.

  “Are the shop, motel, gas station, and restaurant open now?” Elke asked.

  “Only the gas station and motel, and then only in the summer driving season,” La Señora said.

  “What rent would we owe you?” Emma asked.

  “Repair and maintenance of the cottages, until each of you can establish a further income.”

  “Won’t jobs be hard to come by out on the coast like that?” Dickon asked.

  “Yes, but Pueblo Rio is only a half hour’s drive, and Las Tumbas about twenty minutes more,” La Señora said. “Either community would offer several opportunities for augmenting one’s income.”

  “As for me,” Mae Ling said, “I have a series of children’s books in mind. I can write as well or better on the coast as I can in the City.”

  “There are certain problems,” La Señora said. “The Coastal Commission wants to condemn the property, as they do any property right on the ocean’s shore. The Village comes with acreage along the coast to the north. I will offer to sell that to them at a modest price, in return for keeping the resort property free and clear. I think I can sway the Commission. Particularly if I tell them we are converting it to a private community.”

  “Converting it?” Dickon asked.

  “From its former, shall we say, ‘resort’ use to a series of private residences.”

  “It was a resort of ill repute,” Emma said, “back in the day.”

  Dickon chuckled. “Sounds like a good place to resort to,” he said. “There should be an ambience to the place that gladdens the hearts of men.”

  “But not women,” La Señora said sternly. “I do not approve Grandfather’s income source. I do like to have the property.”

  “The wages of sin,” Dickon said, and seemed about to say more, until he saw La Señora’s stern face. “Sorry, Señora,” he muttered.

  “When should we plan to move?” Elke asked.

  “We have sixty days here,” Malcolm said.

  “And, I suggest we make the most of it,” La Señora said. As the others left, talking excitedly about the future, she asked Dickon and Willy Waugh to remain.

  “I have a further problem,” she said. “I may need assistance with a clandestine operation.” Dickon grinned. Willy looked puzzled.

  “We may have to do something sneaky,” Dickon interpreted for Willy. Willy grinned.

  “My mother’s people willed several llamas to me. They are currently in the City Zoo. I wish to take them to the resort, to be free on the mountain. Jackson Hoff, the Zoo Director, opposes me in this. I may have to liberate the llamas without his authorization. I need someone to work at the Zoo, to discover how secure it is at night. I suggest you both apply; maybe at least one of you will get a position there.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Dickon said. “And a way to earn a little extra cash.”

  “Okay,” Willy said.

  The Codfather

  La Señora consulted the small scrap of paper with the slip number and vessel name on it. Yes, number 39, and the vessel, a 60-foot long fishing boat, named the Half Shell. Rosa Krushan had been enthusiastic recommending the vessel’s owner, Captain Anna Locke, as a knowledgeable coastal sailor. La Señora wondered, perhaps too late, how able a judge of seamanship Rosa might be. The cabin of the vessel had lace curtains at the windows. A wreath of plastic yellow daisies hung on the cabin door. An odor of harbor water prickled in her nostrils.

  La Señora looked for a means of boarding the ship. There was a foot wide gap of green water between the wharf and the vessel. Bits of refuse floated on it. Where the sun struck it, the dark and mysterious green turned to a sick olive color. “Hello the Half Shell,” La Señora called. She waited. Just as she was about to call out again, the door with the daisy wreath opened, and a very petite woman came on deck.

  The woman’s hair was intensely white, whiter than sheets in a detergent ad. It was carefully styled in gentle waves that framed the delicate features of an ebony face. The woman wore a tailored green suit with a pale rose blouse whose lapels overla
pped the green jacket’s lapels. Nylons and matching green pumps completed the outfit. The woman wore three strands of lustrous pink pearls around her neck that softened the bright sunlight into a palette of bright shadows.

  “Are you from the Dock Authority?” the woman asked. Her diction was precise almost to the point of affectation. Her accent wasn’t quite British, and certainly not West Coast. “I’ve told Ms.Dee I will move my vessel at the end of the month, when my lease to dock at this slip is completed.”

  “I am not from the Dock Authority,” La Señora hastened to assure her. “Are you Captain Anna Locke?”

  “Yes. Who inquires, if one may ask?”

  “One may. I am Salvación Mandor. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance, one Rosa Krushan.” La Señora put out her hand, until she realized she could not reach Captain Locke’s hand to shake it. She dropped her arm to her side.

  “I know Ms. Krushan. Why does she send you to me?”

  “I am in need of a vessel to transport certain cargo to San Danson Cove.” La Señora smiled as winningly as she could. “She assures me you are profoundly knowledgeable about coastal sailing.”

  “I know where San Danson Cove is. I do not know if my Half Shell can enter it. I must consult my charts and other resources.”

  “I know a ferry used to enter the cove in my grandfather’s day. I will pay a reasonable fee.”

  “I need a place to dock more than I need a fee. Is there a wharf at the Cove?”

  “There used to be.”

  “What manner of cargo