Naomi Hirahara - Santa Cruz Noir

My first husband, my only husband, Elron, taught me how to fish for crabs. He grew up in Brooklyn and haunted the piers of Jamaica Bay. The only Jew-boy there, he said, and he learned from old Italians. Later, he would learn from the young heiresses he taught at Vassar another way to catch crabs, but I fucking digress.

The guy was really hauling on the line now, end over end, slack rope looping behind him. When you pull the trap up, a small hoop drops down, trapping the crabs, but you have to haul fast before the crabs scramble to the rim and drop back in the water.

As the trap came up into the moonlight, I could see that it was swarming with crabs, seven or eight in there, more than I ever caught in one pull. The guy yanked the hoop net over the rail and let it slap down on the deck. He moved fast, plucking them out of the netting and tossing them into his bucket. A few got out and scuttled toward the water. I ran and grabbed one, put my sneaker on the other, and then picked him up too. I dropped them in the bucket and glanced up to see the man peering at me.

He was decent-looking guy, wavy black hair, olive complexion, but there was something wrong in the eyes. There was nothing there — like looking into that rooster’s eyes.

“Sukenick,” he said.

“Yeah, Morielli?”

“Allegedly.”

“I have to ask,” I said. “What the hell are you using for bait?” There must’ve been thirty crabs in the bucket.

“Tonight? Liver.” He pulled a flashlight from his jacket and shined it on the hoop net. I was looking at liver, but not calf’s liver. What I saw, wired to the netting, looked like a slice of bad Spam hit with a blowtorch. The unmistakable cirrhotic liver of a drinking man.

He switched the light off. “I hear you’re looking for Leonard Wong.” I didn’t want to know how he knew that. “Well, you found him.”

Morielli tossed the hoop net over the side. I flinched at the splash.

“Yeah, Leonard’s paying his debt off in installments. Well, he’s just paying the vig. These crab dinners have been a big feature at my poker nights. And there’s kind of a neat side effect since I started serving the crab. A whole bunch of slow payers have sped up.”

I started to back away.

“When you talk to Kelly tomorrow, tell her I’ll be in touch. You could really help this whole process along for me.”

I threw up my hands, “Come on, man. That’s not on her.”

He seemed to swell, like his hackles had raised up. He said, very quietly, “People die. Debts don’t die.”

I walked away. About the time I cleared the ship, he called after me, “You tell Kelly, checks are just fine, and $499 a week sounds about right. We’ll be in touch.”

I picked up my pace. I figured I’d check into a no-tell motel for a few days. I would stop at home first, time for one phone call, to Corralitos. Mike Sandoval wanted to know the deal, and if I knew my man, he’d be ready and he would move fast.

The red flag was flapping. Now I understood why Kelly and Leobardo had ignored each other. Kelly knew who killed her father. She knew the scumbag would come after her inheritance, and she knew the only man, Don Miguel, who could stop him.

Kelly had played me, but she’d played it right. I would absolutely confirm to Mike Sandoval what he wanted to be true.

Joe Morielli might have time for a few more crab parties. But I expected Joe would be attending a lot more chicken dinners in his future.

Corralitos

Living by the ocean had always been my plan — a third-act strategy. What a cool way to get old and wrinkled: go for long swims, walk in the sand, eat tacos every day, drink beer. When Dave freaked out on me again, I figured there was no time like the present. I ditched the mountains for lower ground. Under the cover of night, like you see in the movies.

Sure, I washed up on the beach a little earlier than I thought I would — only halfway old and halfway wrinkled — but what a relief to be on to my next chapter.

Now I’d be pedaling toward the white light at the end of the tunnel on one of those sparkly beach cruisers with the fat seats: sunburned and pleasantly buzzed. It was going to be a good few years.

The rent wasn’t cheap, even back then — especially if you wanted to live solo, like I did. But you know what worked? Driving south on Highway 1 and parking underneath a eucalyptus grove.

You get off the freeway on Riverside Drive, right where you see that abandoned Queen Anne. Go past the strawberry fields, the artichokes and brussels sprouts, and that’s where my spot was. You’re not going the wrong way, even when you start seeing signs for the condo development. Keep curving around. You can practically smell your way there, there’s so much eucalyptus. Chances are, the lot will be empty. It’s in between two private beaches, so it seems like you don’t belong there, but there’s no trick. Pull up, hike over the little path, and thar she blows: a mile of beach almost all to yourself.

In one day, my life went from flat zero to watching pelicans dive-bomb for their breakfast. Walking along the beach for hours. After what I’d been through, being all alone in my sleeping bag in the back of the square-back was a pleasure: a promising turnaround.

Marta knew all about beaches because her family had been in Watsonville before all those condos were a gleam in the developer’s eye.

The morning I met her, she showed up in her station wagon with a whole brood. I peeked out of the checked curtains I had sewn for some privacy, and there were all these kids, piling out, clown-car style. I knew they couldn’t be hers because there were at least ten of them. Little ones. They were bouncing around like pinballs! This was before they passed the seat belt laws, so it’s not like she was doing anything wrong. It was just how you did it back then. She wanted to take ten kids to the beach, so she squeezed them all together in the Olds.

It was cold out, and early, so the kids had their colorful little jackets and hats on, and they were yelling and goofing off. A couple were crying. Marta was the only one wrangling them and they all started heading up over the dunes. I wanted to see how this was going to pan out, so I followed. One little guy, he started lagging behind, and pretty soon he was running off the path.

There used to be real tall grass in the dunes; it was like a maze in there. You could easily lose a kid that way.

They were small. None of them over five. So I chased after the little guy and scooped him up and got him back on track. I brought him over to the group and Marta smiled at me, but she didn’t seem worried at all. She hadn’t even noticed he was missing. She had the kids all plopped in the sand and playing with their toys and I sat down. She spoke plenty of English and I spoke Spanish pretty well from my abuela , so we chitchatted the way you do: a mishmash. I didn’t tell her my whole situation, but I got the feeling she knew. She could tell I’d been places and seen some things. She told me my eyes reminded her of a turtle, which might not sound like the nicest thing to say, but I could tell she meant something good by it. She said it in Spanish, tortuga . I think she was telling me I was smart, or serious, or something.

I stayed and played with the kids all morning. We dug holes and got sand in everything and she offered me some food from her big paper grocery sack. She had these corn tortillas, wrapped in a cloth and still warm, that she’d roll around hunks of white cheese. A big jug of pineapple juice with Dixie cups. I never wanted kids of my own, but I loved the way these guys were climbing all over me from the get-go. It made me feel purposeful, like I was an animal assisting other animals.