Up the wet root-rimmed trail to the real peak, feeling his quads. Onto the broad top. Sit for hours. Watch the sunset. Watch the dark seep out of the earth. Watch the dark leak into the sky.
* * *
Back down the hill, through the avocado trees. He was too restless to go inside the house. He got on his bike and started to ride. The cool air of the night, the foothill roads.
Thoughtlessly he coasted down into the roundabout where Foothill met Newport, circling into it to head up Newport to Crawford Canyon Road; and there was Alfredo, biking through in the other direction. Alfredo looked up, saw Kevin, looked down again. But as they zipped by each other Kevin caught a glimpse of the expression on his face, and it was a mix, so much in it, but the dominant emotion was—triumph. Triumph, pure and simple, suppressed and then he was past.
And at that moment Kevin hated Alfredo Blair more than he had hated anything in his life.
He was astounded at the virulence of the feeling, its power to dominate his thoughts. He rode and rode but he couldn’t think of anything else. If only he and Alfredo could get into another fight on the softball diamond, what he would do to him. It was an incredible stimulant, hatred—a poisonous amphetamine, sending him into long wrenching fantasies of justice, retribution, revenge. Revenge! Fierce fights, both verbal and physical, all complicated (even in fantasy) by Ramona’s presence, which meant that Kevin could never be the aggressor. Unless he were to catch him out one night, alone—like tonight—crash bikes, leap on him, strangle him, leave him dead—so much for his look of triumph!
Then again it wasn’t hard to imagine scenarios where he was defending himself, or Ramona, or the town, fighting to save them all from Alfredo’s malignant, arrogant drive to power. Punching him in the face hard—the idea made him hunch over, in little paroxysms of hatred. Oh to do it, to do it, to do it! It really was astonishing.
* * *
At last, much later, he returned home. His legs were tired. He walked through the garden to the house—
And there in the grove, movement. That shape! Instantly Kevin thought of the patch of kerosene east of Tom’s place—arsonist, voyeur, intruder in the night (maybe Alfredo, there to gloat, there to be killed)—“Hey!” he said sharply, and was off running, jumping over the tomatoes and into the grove, movement out there, black on black. Between the rows of misshapen avocado trees, fallen avos like ancient grenades black on the tilled dirt, movement, movement, nothing. A sound and he was off again, trying to pant silently as he followed the weak clicks of dry avo twigs breaking.
He turned and saw it again, fifteen trees down, dark shape, still and large. A tiny sound, giggle-chuckle, and his anger shifted, an electric quiver of fear ran up his spine; what was it? He ran for it and it slipped left, downhill. He turned at the tree, looked down an empty row.
No movement, no sound.
An empty still grove, black in the black. Kevin standing in it trembling, sweating, darting glances left and right.
* * *
One day he climbed the hill and there in the copse of trees were Tom and Nadezhda, sitting under the tallest sycamore.
They waved him over. “How’s it going?” Tom said.
“Okay. And you?”
“Fine. Nadezhda’s ship has gotten its cargo aboard, and they’re under way soon. I think I’m going to go along.”
“That’s good, Tom.” He smiled at them, feeling low. “I was hoping you’d do that.”
“I’ll just keep him one voyage,” Nadezhda said.
Kevin waved a hand, sat before them.
They talked about the hill for a while. “You know I’ve been getting calls from my friends,” Tom said. “About the information from Avending we sent them, and some other stuff. I think I know now why Alfredo has done all this.”
“Really!” Kevin exclaimed. “And?”
“Well—it’s a long story.” Tom picked up a handful of leaves, began dropping them on the ground. “Heartech makes cardiac aids, right? Cardiac aids, artificial blood, all that kind of thing. Alfredo and Ed Macey started the company eight years ago, when they were finishing grad school at UCI. It was a way of marketing an improved heart valve they had invented. To start, they got a loan from the American Association for Medical Technology, which is one of the information associations that sprang up to fill the gap left in the thirties when the venture capital laws changed. In the years since, unfortunately, the AAMT has become the refuge for a lot of the greediest elements in American medicine. Bits of the old AMA, people from the profit hospitals, they all found their way into this AAMT, and started building their power base again.” Tom laughed shortly. “There are people in this country, as soon as you set limits of any kind, their only goal in life becomes to break them. Being a hundred isn’t enough—for a lot of them, the thrill is to have more power than they should. More than allowed! They love that.
“But Alfredo isn’t like that, as far as I can judge. He wanted to build medical devices, that’s all. You remember how he used to talk about it when they were beginning. And they got their start, fine. But like a lot of small companies beginning, it got rough. It wasn’t clear at first that their valve was an improvement over the other models on the market, and they were struggling. It got to the point where it looked like they would go under—and that’s where the AAMT stepped in again.
“They offered Alfredo and Ed another loan. This one would be illegal under the new laws, but they said they believed in Heartech’s product, they wanted to help. The AAMT would start a black account for Heartech, and then they’d have a place ever afterward where they could go for help, deposit funds they didn’t want to report—a whole program, a whole black bank. And Alfredo and Ed—they could have tried to find some other way out, I guess, but they didn’t. They went for it.”
Kevin whistled. “How did your friends find out about this?”
“First by looking into the AAMT’s Hong Kong bank, which covers a lot of this action. And my friends have a mole in the AAMT who hears a lot, and from her the stories get to my friends.
“So.” Tom spread his hands. “That was the start of it. Heartech got through its hard year, began to prosper. Some excellent evaluations of the new valve came in, and it became the standard for certain conditions, and then they expanded into other products. You know that part of the story. But all along, they were getting more deeply involved with the black side of the AAMT, using funds, and after they hit the size limits for a company of their kind, banking funds as well. They’re iceberging, it’s called. Most of their overprofit is going to taxes, but they’re hiding a part of their operation in the AAMT in order to be able to do even more.”
“But why?” Nadezhda asked. “Why do that?”
Tom shrugged. “It’s the same impulse that got Alfredo started, if you ask me. He believes in this equipment, he knows it saves lives, he wants to do even more of it. Save more lives, make more money—the two are all mixed up in his business, and if you try to limit the latter in any way, it looks to him like you’re limiting the former.”
Kevin said, “But he could have started up an association of his own, and farmed some of the profit out to smaller companies, right? The procedures are there!”
“Yeah, yeah, he could have. But he didn’t. They took the easy way, and the upshot of it is, they’re in the AAMT’s pocket.”
“A Faustian bargain,” Nadezhda observed.
“That’s right.” Tom picked up more leaves. “And he should have known better, he really should have. He must have felt desperate, back there that first time. Or else he’s one of those smart people who is also fundamentally a little stupid. Or he’s simply drawn to the power.”
“But are you saying that the AAMT is responsible for this development idea?” Kevin asked.
Tom nodded. “They’ve been using the little companies they’ve got in their pocket as fronts, and funding developments like this all over the country. In one small town outside Albany, New York, they were getting resistance, and so they
bought its whole city council—contributed illegally to the campaigns of several New Fed candidates for the council, and when they won, it was shoved right through. So they got that one built. They’ve done it all over the country. Once the developments are in place, the AAMT can use them. They’ve got a lot of control over them, and they can use them to build medical centers, or labs that generate profits that can be slipped into the AAMT and used to generate more, and so on. They no doubt would tell you they’re doing it for the good of the nation’s health care services. And maybe there’s some truth to that, but there’s a lot of raw power drive in it too. Putting the complexes in prominent, attractive places—that’s part of it too, and that’s mostly the drive for power, if you ask me. Pretty places.”
“So was this one their idea?”
“That’s what my friends have been told. In fact they were told that Alfredo tried to resist it, at first.”
“You’re kidding!”
Tom shook his head. “Alfredo told them it was a bad idea, and he didn’t want Heartech involved. But he’s in their pocket, see? They’ve got the goods on him, they can twist him like a dishrag.
“Still, he squirmed around trying to fight it. He said, listen, the hill’s protected, it’s zoned open land, and besides the town doesn’t have any water to spare. Tell you what—I’ll try the zoning and water issues and see what happens. If they don’t go, we can’t build anyway. Because he was pretty sure they wouldn’t go. That’s why he started all this backwards, you see? And indeed the water thing didn’t go. But he’s simply in no position to make a deal. They’ve got him, and they said, Hey—propose it directly, and see how that goes. And so that’s what he’s doing now.”
“How did your friends find that out?” Kevin said, amazed.
“Their mole in AAMT has seen this one up close, apparently. She knows for sure, I’m told.”
“Well—” Confused, Kevin didn’t know which of several things on his mind he wanted to say. “Well, hey—then we’ve got him, don’t we. I mean, when this story gets out…”
Tom frowned. “It’s a question of proving it. We’ll need something other than just the story, because the mole isn’t coming out for this particular case. So we’ll need some kind of documentation to back the charge, or they’ll deny it, and it’ll look like a smear campaign.”
“Will there be any documentation?”
“Not much. They don’t write these kinds of arrangements down, they don’t put them in computers. The black economy is a verbal game, by and large. But my friends are looking—following traces of the money, mostly. They seem confident they’ll come up with something on the Hong Kong end of things. But they haven’t yet.”
The three of them sat for a while.
“Wow,” Kevin said. “I just had no idea.”
“Me neither.”
Nadezhda said, “It makes sense, though. There wasn’t much motive to go for this hill in particular.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Tom said. “I think maybe Alfredo likes the idea, now. Height equals power, after all, and he’s fond enough of power. But it’s true—now we’ve got more of the story, we can see he’s … hoist on his own petard, to an extent.”
“I had no idea.”
“People’s motives are mixed, Kevin.”
“I guess.” He sighed.
After a while he said, “In a way I wish you weren’t leaving.”
“I’m not going to stop working on it. Most of what I’m doing is by phone, and I’ll keep doing that from the ship.”
“Part of it’s your presence,” Kevin said.
Tom regarded him steadily. “If that’s so, it’s going to change. That part’s up to you, now.”
Kevin nodded.
“You’ll do fine.”
Kevin nodded again, feeling doubtful.
* * *
Time passed in silence.
Nadezhda asked him what was happening with Ramona.
Awkwardly, hesitantly, Kevin found himself telling the story. The whole story. The childhood stuff, the softball game, the ultraflight, the night in the hills, the birthday party, the following morning. The little that had happened since.
It felt good to tell it, in a way. Because it was his story, his and his alone, nobody else’s. And in telling it he gained a sort of control over it, a control he had never had when it happened. That was the value of telling one’s story, a value exactly the reverse of the value of the experience itself. What was valuable in the experience was that he had been out of control, living moment to moment with no plan, at the mercy of other people. What was valuable in the telling of the story was that he was in control, shaping the experience, deciding what it meant, putting other people in their proper place. The two values were complementary, they added up to something more than each alone could, something that … completed things.
So he told them his story, and they listened.
When he was done he sat crouched on the balls of his feet, feeling pensive.
Tom looked at him with his unblinking birdlike look. “Well, it ain’t the worst thing that could happen.”
“I know.” But this is bad enough for me! he thought.
He recalled Tom’s long years of silence, his retreat to the hills after Grandma died. Years and years. Sure, worse things could happen. But at least Tom had had his great love, had gotten to live it to its natural end, to live it out! Kevin’s throat was tight.
“There is not much worse,” Nadezhda said to Tom, rebuking him. Then to Kevin: “Time will make a difference. When enough time is passing—”
“I won’t forget!” Kevin said.
“No. You never forget. But you change. You change even if you try not to.”
Tom laughed, tugged at the white hair over one ear. “It’s true. Time changes us in more ways than we can ever imagine. What happens in time … you become somebody else, do you understand?” His voice shook. “You don’t forget, but how you feel about what you remember … that changes.”
He stood up suddenly, walked to Kevin and slapped him on the shoulder. “But it could be worse! You could forget! And that would be worse.”
He stood by Kevin’s side. Nadezhda sat on the ground beyond them. For a long time the three of them rested there, silent, watching sunlight tumble down through clouds.
* * *
That night while they were making dinner Kevin said, “One thing that really bothers me is the way everyone in town seems to know about it. I hate people talking about me like that, about my private affairs.”
“Hell, you can’t ever escape that,” Tom said. “People are talking about me and Nadezhda too, no doubt.”
Donna and Cindy and Yoshi came into the kitchen. “The bad thing,” Kevin said, “is that now when I fight Alfredo over the hill it looks like it’s just because of Ramona.”
“No it doesn’t. Everyone knows you’re against that development, and the Greens are too. This thing is only likely to get you sympathy votes. And you can use all the votes you can get.”
As they ate Kevin brooded over Tom’s departure. Mexico, Central America, across the Pacific to Manila, Hong Kong, Tokyo. Working the winds and currents as so many ships had before. Well, it sounded great. Good for Tom. But with Jill in Asia, his parents in space …
Hank would still be there. Gabby. The team. Yoshi, Cindy, Donna, the kids, the rest of the household. Doris would still be there. Doris.
* * *
Two days later Kevin was the only one who went down to Newport with Tom and Nadezhda to see them off. Everyone else was too busy, and said their good-byes that morning at the house, or over the phone. “Seem’s like half the town is overseas,” Jerry Geiger complained. “Don’t stay away long.”
They took a car to Balboa, and Kevin helped them get their baggage aboard. The ship seemed huge. Overhead the dense network of rigging looked like a cat’s cradle in the sky. Gulls flashed across the sun in screeching clouds, mistaking them for a fishing trip. The pavilion behind the dock was crowded.
Eventually Ganesh was ready. Kevin hugged Nadezhda and Tom, and they said things, but in the confusion of shouts and horns he didn’t really hear. Then he was on the dock with the other well-wishers, waving. Above him Tom and Nadezhda waved back. Ganesh swung away from the dock, then three topsails unfurled simultaneously, on the foremast, the second mast, and the mizzenmast. Slowly, as if drifting, the ship moved downchannel.
Feeling dissatisfied with this departure, Kevin jogged down the peninsula to the harbor entrance. He walked over the boulders of the Wedge’s jetty, looking back to see if the ship had appeared.
Then it was there, among the palms at the channel turn. The wind was from the north, so they could sail out on a single reach. With only the topsails set its movement was slow and majestic. Kevin had time to get to the end of the jetty and sit on the flat rocks. He couldn’t help recalling the last time he had been out there, with Ramona, watching the ships race in. Don’t think of it. Don’t think.
The topsails were set nearly fore-and-aft, emphasizing the elegant transfer of force that propelled the ship across the wind. Always beautiful to see a square-rigged ship set so. People on both jetties stood watching it pass.
Then it was even with him, and Kevin could make out figures on the deck. Suddenly he spotted Tom and Nadezhda, standing by the bowsprit. He stood and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Tom! TOM!” He wasn’t sure they would be able to hear him; the ocean’s ground bass ate all other sound. But Nadezhda spotted him and pointed. All three of them waved.
Ganesh swung to the south, the yards shifting in time with the movement, so that the topsails were square to what was now a following wind. And then all the sails on the ship unfurled at once, mainsails, topgallants, skysails, moonsails, stunsails, royals, jibs. It was as if some strange creature had just spread immense wings. Immediately it leaped forward in the water, crashing across the incoming swells and shooting broad fans of spray out to starboard. Kevin waved. The ship drew away from him and grew smaller, the centerpoint of a wide V of startling white wake. Maybe that was Tom and Nadezhda in the stern, waving. Maybe not. He waved back until he couldn’t see the figures any more.