Ashley Bell (Ashley Bell #1)(6)
Although spring heat hadn’t yet reliably settled over the Southern California coast, Murphy Blair went to work that morning wearing sandals, boardshorts, a black T-shirt, and a blue-and-black plaid Pendleton shirt worn open, with the sleeves rolled up. His shock of sandy-brown hair was shot through with blond streaks, legitimate sun bleaching, not bottle-born, because even on low-Fahrenheit days, he found the sun for a few hours. He was walking proof that, with sufficient obsession and contempt for melanoma, a summer tan could be maintained year-round.
His shop, Pet the Cat, was on Balboa Peninsula, the land mass that sheltered Newport Harbor from the ocean, in the vicinity of the first of two piers. The name of the store referred to the motion that surfers made when they were crouched on their boards, stroking the air or water as if to smooth their way through a section.
The display windows were full of surfboards and bitchin’ shirts like Mowgli tees, Wellen tees, Billabong, Aloha, Reyn Spooner. Murph sold everything from Otis eyewear with mineral-glass lenses to Surf Siders shoes, from wetsuits to Stance socks featuring patterns based on the art of surfing champion John John Florence.
At fifty, Murph lived his work, worked to play, played to live. When he arrived at Pet the Cat, the door was unlocked, the lights were on, and Pogo was standing behind the counter, intently reading the instruction pamphlet for Search, the GPS surf watch by Rip Curl.
Glancing up at his boss, Pogo said, “I’m gonna get one of these here for damn sure.”
Three years earlier, he escaped high school with a perfect two-point grade average and foiled his parents’ attempt to force him onto a college track. He lived frugally with two other surf rats, Mike and Nate, in a studio apartment above a thrift shop in nearby Costa Mesa, and drove a primer-gray thirty-year-old Honda that looked as though it was good for nothing more than being a target car in a monster-truck demolition derby.
Sometimes an underachieving wanker took refuge in the surfing culture and remained largely or entirely womanless until he died with his last Social Security check uncashed. For two reasons, Pogo didn’t have that problem. First, he was a wave king, fearless and graceful on the board, eager to master even the huge monoliths that had come with Hurricane Marie, admired for his style and heart. He might have been a champion if he’d possessed enough ambition to participate in competitions. Second, he was so gorgeous that when he passed, women tracked him as if their heads were attached to their necks with ball-bearing swivel hinges.
“You gonna give me the usual discount on this?” Pogo asked, indicating the GPS surf watch.
Murph said, “Sure, all right.”
“Twelve weekly payments, zero interest?”
“What am I—a charity? It’s not that expensive.”
“Eight weeks?”
Murph sighed. “Okay, why not.” He pointed at the flat blank screen of the large TV on the wall behind the counter, which should have been running vintage Billabong surf videos to lend atmosphere to the shop. “Tell me that’s not on the fritz.”
“It’s not. I just sort of forgot about it. Sorry, bro.”
“Bro, huh? Do you love me like a brother, Pogo?”
“Totally, bro. My real brother, Clyde, he’s a brainiac stockbroker, might as well be from Mars.”
“His name’s Brandon. What’s with this Clyde?”
Pogo winked. “You’ll figure it out.”
Murph took a deep breath. “You want the shop to prosper?”
As he fired up the Billabong videos, Pogo said, “Sure, yeah, I want you to rule the scene, bro.”
“Then you’d help my business a lot if you went to work at some other surf shop.”
Pogo grinned. “I’d be crushed if I thought you meant that. But, see, I get your dry wit. You should do stand-up.”
“Yeah, I’m a riot.”
“No, really. Bonnie thinks you’re hilarious, too.”
“Bonnie, your nose-to-grindstone sister who works her butt off to keep that restaurant afloat? Oh. I see. Bonnie and Clyde. Anyway, she’s another brainiac. You mean you and her share a sense of humor?”
Pogo sighed. “Hey, when I say ‘brainiac,’ I don’t use the term pejoratively. I have lots in common with my twin siblings.”
“?‘Pejoratively,’ huh? Sometimes you give yourself away, Pogo.” Murph’s cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID. Nancy. He said, “What’s up, sugar?”
A chill climbed his spine and found his heart as his wife said, “I’m scared, baby. I’m afraid Bibi’s had a stroke.”
On a Tuesday morning, the ER wasn’t as busy as it would be on the 7:00-P.M.-to-3:00-A.M. shift. The night would bring those injured by drunk drivers, victims of muggers, battered wives, and all manner of aggressive or hallucinating druggies sliding along the razor’s edge of an overdose. When Bibi arrived with her mother, only five people were in the waiting room, none of them bleeding profusely.
At the moment, the triage nurse was actually an emergency-care technician named Manuel Rivera, a short, stocky man in hospital blues. He checked her pulse and took her blood pressure as he listened to her recite her symptoms.
Bibi slurred a few words, but for the most part her speech was clear. She felt better and safer, being in a hospital, until Manuel’s sweet face, almost a Buddha face, darkened with worry and he guided her to a wheelchair. With apparent urgency, he rolled her through a pair of automatic doors into the ER ahead of the other people who were waiting for treatment.