by Don Winslow
It’s a drill, a routine.
The men in the fields look up as the girls come out of the tree line. Some of the workers stop their work and stare; others lower their heads quickly and go back to work, as if they’ve seen something shameful.
Then Boone spots her.
Thinks he does anyway. It’s hard to tell, but it sure looks like Luce. She wears a thin blue vinyl jacket with a hood she hasn’t bothered to pull up. Her long black hair glistens in the mist. Her jeans are torn at the knees and she wears old rubber beach sandals. She moves like a zombie, shuffling steadily ahead.
Then she turns.
All the girls do—as if on a conveyor belt, they turn away from the strawberry fields and toward the bed of reeds.
Boone gets out of the car, stays as low as he can, and runs toward the trees.
I know I promised you, Tammy, he thinks. But there are some promises you can’t keep, some promises you shouldn’t.
He picks up his pace.
133
Old men don’t sleep much.
Sakagawa is already awake and now sits at the small wooden table in his kitchen and impatiently waits for first light. There is much work to be done, and the endless battle against the birds and insects to be fought. It is a daily battle, but if Sakagawa were to be honest with himself, he would admit that he actually enjoys it, that it is one thing that keeps him going.
So he sits, sips his tea, and watches the light flow onto his fields like a slow flood of water. From his vantage point, he can just make out some of the workers, the Mexicans who come just as the Nikkei had come so many years ago, to work the land that the white man didn’t think he wanted, coated as it was with salt spray and blasted by the sea winds. But the Nikkei were used to salt and wind from the home islands; they knew how to farm “worthless” land along the sea. And from the salted soil, the old man thinks now, we grew strawberries … and doctors and lawyers and businessmen. And judges and politicians.
Maybe these workers will do the same.
He bends over slowly to pull on his rubber boots, which keep his old feet dry in the damp early-morning fields. When he straightens up again, his grandson is standing there.
“Grandfather, it’s Johnny. John Kodani.”
“Of course. I know you.”
Johnny bows deeply. His grandfather returns the gesture with a short, stiff bow, as much as his ninety-year-old body can muster. Then Johnny pulls out one of the old wooden chairs that have been in this kitchen for as long as he can remember and sits down across from the old man.
“Would you like tea?” Sakagawa asks.
Johnny wouldn’t, but to refuse would be brutally rude, and with what he has to tell the old man, he wants to exercise every gentle kindness. “That would be nice.”
The old man nods. “It’s a cold morning.”
“It is.”
The old man takes a second cup and pours the strong green tea into it, then slides it to Johnny. “You’re a lawyer.”
“A policeman, Grandfather.”
“Yes, I remember.” Perhaps, he thinks, it is good that the Nikkei are now police.
“This is very good tea,” Johnny says.
“It’s garbage,” the old man says, even though he has it specially imported from Japan every month. “What brings you? I am always happy to see you, but …”
I haven’t been here for months, Johnny thinks. I’ve been “too busy” to stop by for a drink of tea, or to bring his great-grandchildren for him to see. Now I come by at five in the morning with news that will break his heart.
“Grandfather …” Johnny begins. Then he chokes on his own words.
“Has someone died?” the old man asks. “Your family, are they well?”
“They’re fine, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “Grandfather, down by the old creek, where we used to play when we were kids … Have you been down there lately?”
The old man shakes his head.
“It’s very far to walk,” he says. “A bunch of old reeds. I tell the men to clean up the garbage people toss from the road.” He shakes his head again. It is hard to understand the disrespect of some people. “Why do you ask?”
“I think people … your men … your foreman are doing something down there.”
“Doing what?”
Johnny tells him. The old man has a hard time even understanding what his grandson is saying, and then he says, “That’s impossible. Human beings do not do such things.”
“I’m afraid they do, Grandfather.”
“Here?” the old man says. “On my farm?”
Johnny nods. He looks down at the floor, unable to face his grandfather. When he looks up again, the old man’s face is streaked with tears. They run down the creases in his face like small streams in narrow gullies.
“Did you come to stop them?” the old man asks.
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“I will go with you.” He starts to get up.
“No, Grandfather,” Johnny says. “It’s better you stay here.”
“Those are my fields!” the old man yells. “I am responsible!”
“You’re not, Grandfather,” Johnny says, fighting back tears himself. “You’re not responsible, and …”
“I’m too old?”
“It’s my job, Grandfather.”
The old man composes his face and looks Johnny in the eye. “Do your job.”
Johnny gets up and bows.
Then he walks out of the kitchen and down into the fields.
134
The air smells like strawberries.
The acrid smell rushes through Boone’s nose as he breathes heavily, sprinting toward the trees, hoping not to be seen. He makes it into the tree line, then turns west toward the reeds. He can run more upright now, in the cover of the trees, and he makes it quickly to where the tree line ends and the reeds begin.
The reeds are taller than he is. They loom over him, vaguely threatening, the tops blowing in the breeze as if waving him back. He pushes his way in and is soon lost in thick foliage. He can hear voices in front of him, though—men’s voices, speaking in Spanish.
The last time you did this, he thinks, you got beaten half to death. He takes the pistol from his waistband and keeps it ready in his right hand. Pushing back reeds with his left, he plows ahead until he makes it to the creek.
He jumps in and wades toward the caves.
135
Sunny can’t paddle into this surf.
The beach break is totally closed out. There isn’t space enough between waves or sets to paddle out there, and the waves are too big to paddle over.
She comes out of the water and moves about two hundred yards south, between breaks, and paddles out onto the shoulder, then starts back north on the far side of the break. She’s not alone in this maneuver—all the Jet Ski crews are out there making the same approach, buzzing around like giant, noisy water bugs. She paddles strong, smooth, and hard, her wide shoulders an advantage for a change.
The Jet Ski crews linger farther out, giving them room for the highspeed run-up into the wave.
The biggest wave Sunny’s ever seen looms up behind her, with another after that. She paddles herself into perfect position for the next wave. It rolls toward her, a blue wall of water, its whitecaps snapping like cavalry guidons in the stiff offshore wind.
A beautiful wave.
Her wave.
She lies down on her board, takes a deep breath, and starts to paddle.
136
The shame is unbearable.
The Sakagawa family name is disgraced.
To think this was happening on my land, the old man thinks, in my fields, under my nose, and I am such a fool as not to have seen it.
It is intolerable.
There is only one way, the old man decides, to redeem the family’s honor. He looks around the kitchen to find a suitable knife, then doubts that he has the physical strength to do what is necessary with a knife.
So he takes up the old shot
gun, the one he uses against the birds.
It is not ideal, but it will have to do.
137
Boone crawls up the edge of the creek bed and looks over at the little clearing where he had his confrontation with the mojados.
Now Pablo’s on guard, an ax handle in his fist, ushering about twenty field-workers into a ragged line in the clearing in front of the caves. One of the men who herded the girls walks up the line, collecting money. The workers pull dirty, wrinkled bills from their pockets, and don’t look at the man as they give him the money. There are a couple of white guys in line. They don’t look like farmworkers, just guys who like to do little girls.
The girls go into the little caves that have been chopped into the reeds. A couple of the girls sit down and just stare into nothingness; a couple of the others arrange their “beds.” Boone crawls to the far edge of the clearing and sees Luce take off her thin blue jacket, carefully spread it out on the ground, then sit down, one leg crossed over the other—a young female Buddha—and wait.
For waves of men to fall on top of her and break inside her and then recede. And then the next wave comes in, and the next, every morning, inevitable as the tide. A perpetual cycle of rape, for as long as her short life lasts.
There’s a world out there you know nothing about.
Tammy steps into the clearing.
She comes from the other side, from the road by the motel, the way Boone tried to come before Pablo laid him out.
Luce sees Tammy, springs up, and runs into her arms. Tammy holds her tightly. Then she slides down, squats in front of the girl, and looks her in the eye. “I’ve come to take you away,” Tammy says. “Forever, this time.”
Good, Boone thinks. Go, take the kid with you.
Give each other some kind of life.
Then Dan Silver comes into the clearing.
138
Dan says, “So we have a deal?”
“I just want Luce,” Tammy says. “You’ll never hear from me again.”
“Sounds good,” Dan says. He wears his trademark outfit—black shirt, black jeans, black cowboy boots. “Take her and go.”
Tammy puts her arm around Luce’s shoulder and leads her from the clearing, through the path trodden in the reeds, toward the road.
Boone loses sight of them as they go into the reeds.
What he does see is Dan wait a second, then walk into the reeds behind them.
139
Sunny takes off.
She paddles hard, two more strokes that take her onto the lip of the wave; then she shifts to her knees, then smoothly into her squat as she—
Goes over the edge.
She’s strong in the wave, beautifully balanced; she’s picked the exact line, then—
A Jet Ski zooms in and swings Tim Mackie into the wave.
If Mackie sees Sunny, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He cuts right into her line.
Sunny has to pull up. She drops to her stomach on the board, but she’s off-line and it’s too late to paddle back over the crest of the wave. She tries to duck her nose up and under, but the wave won’t let her and it takes her backward.
Over the falls.
Her board squirts into the air as she falls headfirst.
140
Boone crashes through the reeds.
Toward the sound of footsteps.
He can’t really see them, just vague forms through the reeds. Then he gets a glimpse of Dan, who pulls his gun from the waistband of his jeans and looks around to pinpoint the sound of the footsteps coming at him.
“Run!” Boone yells.
Tammy pushes Luce in front of her, turns, and sees Dan. Then, with a dancer’s grace, she whirls, her long leg snaps up, and she places a kick into the back of Dan’s head.
It sends him reeling, but he stays on his feet.
“Run, Luce!” Tammy yells. “Run and don’t stop running!”
But Luce doesn’t run.
She won’t leave Tammy, not again.
Dan recovers the grip on his pistol and aims it at Tammy, who puts herself between him and the girl.
Boone’s almost there.
Tammy’s too close for Boone to risk a shot, especially on the run in the confused tangle of the reeds, so he just dives at Dan, who turns the gun away from Tammy and on Boone and fires just as Tammy kicks his hand.
Boone plows into him waist-high and drives him backward. Dan can’t get his hand turned to press the pistol into Boone, so he clubs him with the butt, slamming it into the back of Boone’s head and neck, again and again.
Boone feels a searing, burning pain.
The world turns red and he feels like he’s somersaulting.
A bad, bloody wipeout.
141
Remember when you were a kid in the swimming pool and you’d see how long you could hold your breath underwater?
This isn’t that.
Getting caught in the impact zone is different from holding your breath in a swimming pool. For one thing, you can’t come up; you’re being rolled over the bottom—bounced, somersaulted, slammed, and twisted. The ocean is filling your nasal cavities and sinuses with freezing salt water. And it isn’t a matter of how long you can hold your breath; it’s a matter of whether you can hold your breath long enough for the wave to let you up, because if you can’t—
You drown.
And that’s just the beginning of your problems, because waves don’t come to the party alone; they usually bring a crew. Waves tend to come in sets, usually three, but sometimes four, and a really fecund mother of a set might bring a litter of six.
So even if you make it through the first wave, you might have time to take a gasp of air before the next wave hits you, and the next, and so on and so forth until you drown.
The rule of thumb is that if you don’t manage to extricate yourself from the impact zone by the third wave, your friends will be doing a paddle-out for you in the next week or so. They’ll be out there in a circle on their boards, saying nice things about you, maybe singing a song or two, definitely tossing a flower lei out onto the wave, and it’s very cool, but you won’t be there to enjoy any of it because you’ll be dead.
Sunny’s in the Washing Machine, and it rolls her, tumbles her, somersaults her until she doesn’t know up from down. Which is another one of the dangers of the impact zone: You lose track of which way is up and which way is down. So when the wave finally lets you up, you budget that last bit of air for the plunge to the sweet surface, only to hit rock or sand instead. Then, unless you’re a really experienced waterman, you just give up and breathe in the water. Or there’s already another wave on top of you.
Either way, you’re pretty much screwed.
Keep your head, Sunny tells herself as she plummets. Keep your head and you live. You’ve trained for this moment all your life. You’re a waterman.
All those mornings, those early evenings, training with Boone and Dave and High Tide and Johnny. Walking underwater, clutching big rocks. Diving down to lobster pots and holding on to the line until you felt your lungs were going to burst, then holding on a little longer. While those assholes grinned at you—waiting for the girlie to give up.
Except you didn’t give up.
She feels a jerk upward and realizes that her board has popped to the surface.
“Headstoned,” in surf jargon.
Dave will be out there already, watching for the board to pop up. He’s on his way now. She forces herself to do a crunch, not to release the leash but so that if she does hit bottom, she’ll take the blow on her shoulders and not on her head, snapping her neck.
She hits all right, hard, but on her shoulders. The wave somersaults her three or four times—she loses count—but then it lets go of her and she pushes up, punches to the surface, and takes a deep breath of beautiful air.
142
Boone gets his arms around Dan’s arms and pins them to his side. Dan still has his gun in his hand, but he can’t raise it to shoot.
Dan
slams three hard knee strikes into Boone’s ribs, driving the breath from Boone’s body. Boone gasps but doesn’t let go. To let go is to die, and he’s not ready for that yet. He can feel his own blood, hot and sticky, running down his face.
He pivots on one hip, turning Dan around toward the river. Then he starts walking, holding tightly to Dan, pushing him toward the water. Dan tries to dig and fight, but Boone has the momentum. Dan rears his neck back, then slams it forward, head-butting Boone on the bridge of the nose.
Boone’s nose breaks and blood gushes out.
But he holds on and pushes Dan toward the bank of the river. He plants his feet, pivots again, and crashes into the muddy water on top of Dan. Boone releases his grip, finds Dan’s chest, and pushes him down. He can feel Dan’s back hit the muddy bottom. Then Boone holds on and pushes. It’s a matter now of who can hold his breath the longest, and he figures that’s a contest he can win.
But he’s losing blood fast, and with the blood, his strength.
He feels Dan wrap a leg around him and he tries to fight it, but Dan doesn’t panic under the water and gets his leg locked around Boone’s. Then Dan turns his own hips and spins. Boone’s too weak to counter it, and Dan flips him under. Then Dan sits up, on top of Boone, grabs him around the throat, and pushes down hard.
Boone arches his back and tries to buck Dan off him, but he can’t do it. He feels weak, and tired, and then very sleepy. His lungs scream at him to open his mouth and gasp. Take a nice deep breath of anything, even if it’s water.
His brain tells him to give up. Go to sleep, end the pain.
In his mind, he’s in the ocean.
A giant wave, a mountain, curls over his head.
Suspends in time for a second.
Hangs there, as if deciding.
Then it breaks on him.
Ka-boom.
143
Johnny Banzai charges into the clearing.
