Don Winslow: California Fire And Life

"So you guys are going out to the country, huh?" Jack says. "Going to ride horses?"

A couple of tearful nods. Brave smiles.

"Well," Jack says, "take care of your Aunt Letty for me, okay?"

He gives Letty a peck on the cheek and a quick hug and gets into the truck. Starts it up and kicks it into gear before he has a chance to look back.

Fires up a Dick Dale amp; His Del-Tones tape.

Drives past the new sign set at the entrance to the Strands.

PAMELA VALE MEMORIAL PARK.

He points the truck south.

Dani pulls the car over on the dirt turnout above Dana Strand.

Nicky asks, "What-"

Dani shoots him through the groin. The bullet pierces Nicky's spinal cord. But he's conscious as Dani gets out, takes a can of gas from the trunk and pours it all around the car.

Dani opens the back door.

He's crying as he rolls up Nicky's pant leg, takes a knife and makes an incision above the Two Crosses tattoo behind Nicky's knee. He slices the knife down and rips off the skin.

Nicky can't feel it.

Tears stream down Dani's face as he says, "If ever I transgress against Vorovskoy Zakon, may I burn in hell."

He closes the door, steps away and tosses the match.

Then sticks his gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger.

Man's sitting in a car and the car's on fire. He doesn't get out.

Flames lick at his legs and he doesn't get out. Just down the hill the Pacific pounds on the rocks. California fire and life.

Jack Wade sits on an old Hobie longboard, riding swells that refuse to become waves.

He watches a plume of smoke rise up from the beach.

The smoke means to him that Hernando has fired up the grill and that the coals will be hot enough in a little while and that he'll have to come and help Hernando cook dinner for the tourists.

If there are any at the fishing camp.

Usually there aren't, and then Jack helps Hernando work on the little lodge that he's putting up. Nothing fancy, a little cinder-block-and-rebar job with a beamed roof, but Jack knows how to build it and Hernando is happy for the help.

The rest of the time, Jack surfs or fishes or drives into town to buy supplies for the camp. When the tourists are in, he'll cook them breakfasts of huevos rancheros or pancakes or any other damn thing they want, and he makes lunches of fruit and chicken and cold, cold beer. In the evening he grills the fish they've caught, or the fish he's caught, and after he's done cleaning up he grabs a beer and sits and listens to Hernando sing the old canciones.

Or if Hernando doesn't feel like singing, Jack just lies in the bed of Hernando's old pickup and listens to the Dodgers game on the radio. The weather reports talk about big rainstorms coming up in the north.

Sometimes Jack sits back and looks at some crayon drawings that come for "Uncle Jack" in Hernando's mail. At first they were of trees and houses on fire. Now they mostly show horses, or kids on horses, and the kids are usually smiling and the lady with them always has black hair.

Jack thinks a lot about Letty.

He thinks a lot about himself and Letty with the kids.

He rarely thinks about California fire and life.