Desperation Reef

This is the sixth afternoon in a row they’ve been here. Bette wears Casey’s heavy Navajo-print robe and fleece slippers, as she has all week. That first day back from Mavericks, she slept for twenty-plus hours in the guest room, aided by a space heater and her pain pills. Casey sat bedside, guzzling coffee, waking her up every few hours to Bette’s woozy annoyance.

Of these six days, Detective Pittman has been here four long mornings, with his questions and voice recorder and video camera. He’s methodical and patient, asking the same questions again and again, checking dates and times, exact locations, exact words spoken, expressions, tones of voice, background, background, and more background.

Casey waits on them like good customers in his bar, checking on their coffees and drinks, making them snacks, eavesdropping. In between Bette’s recorded conversations with her father, Mr. Fang, and other principals in King Jim Seafood, Casey overhears “unindicted coconspirator,” “plea bargain,” “immunity from prosecution,” “testimony,” and “court time.” He also hears Bette tell the detective that she’s thinking of “getting as far away from him as I can get when this is over.”

“He’ll be in prison when this is over,” said the detective.

Now in the dimming light Casey considers the stitches in Bette Wu’s eyebrow. And the plum-purple bruises around her eyes, fading to orange. The bruises on her cheeks are lighter, too. The two small stitches keeping the edges of her lips aligned as they heal — taken by Casey’s surfing doctor friend in Half Moon Bay — should be ready to remove in two days.

They sit side by side to view the sunset. Bette drinks wine through a straw; Casey a virgin version of the Barrel Scorpion, heavy on his seedless tangerine juice, which he uses instead of orange juice. Her phone is on the table and she keeps looking at it.

He refills her glass.

“I like to drink wine more than I used to,” she says.

“It’s good for you, Pop.”

“I love that scene.”

They’ve watched a lot of movies this past week.

“I’ll cut back the wine when my face doesn’t hurt.”

“Hang in there.”

“I have a question for you, Casey. I believe that Brock and Mahina and the Go Dogs set our boats on fire. I’m almost certain that you did not. Am I right?”

Casey feels that big ugly surge of confusion/anxiety/stupidity rack his brain as he contemplates his answer. Lie or not? Simple but so... complex.

“I didn’t set the fires because I didn’t think it was right.”

Casey studies her eyes, the black pupils set in garnet orange and bruise purple, like the pendant around his neck. It hurts him just to look at them. How do you let them do this to your own girl?

“And I’ve got a question for you,” he says. “How did you frame Monterey 9 for the Barrel?”

She studies him blankly, finally nods. Takes another drink.

“Early morning, after we set the fire, we broke into an Imperial Fresh Seafood Sprinter in their Monterey Park lot. Loaded in some canisters of gasoline, and the cell signal timers, the wires, batteries, everything. And a detailed plot drawing of the Barrel, small x’s where the bombs had been planted. Fang placed the anonymous tip to LA police, who patrol Monterey, named two of the Imperial Fresh Seafood pirates we’ve been fighting with for decades. We’d put the bomb stuff in their garages. The frame might not have been strong enough to fool a good defense, but it was enough for the cops to make the arrests and get them off our backs.”

“What about the Sierra Sports Sprinter?”

“Our van. Our people. Forged plates. A Sierra Sports emblem one of our people found in a thrift store.”

Casey tries to follow the consequences. Tries to think like Brock would think.

“So, if you hadn’t told Detective Pittman about all that, the two framed suspects might have been convicted. And the people who torched the Barrel would be free.”

“Yes.”

In his mind’s eye, he sees the flames lashing the walls of the Barrel, melting the surfboards, eating the paintings and the furnishings and the hardwood floor.

And the Empress II boiling over with flames. And Bushmaster and Stallion and the panga...

Which is when Casey admits to himself who set Jimmy Wu’s boats on fire.

“Who are the real Barrel fire setters?” he asks.

“Fang and Danilo.”

Casey tries to reconcile their faces with the security camera video. Can’t make firm connections, and wonders how a jury could. Again, it’s Bette who can identify them. Convict them.

“You’ve sacrificed a lot for us. Turned in your father. His business. Your coworkers.”

Your face, he thinks.

She shakes her head and looks up at him, a quizzical smile on that battered face.

“And I did it for me, too, Casey.”

His heart swelling for her, he takes off his surfboard pendant with the orange Mandarin Spessartite garnet embedded on the deck. It’s the orange of his father’s famous big-wave gun, and the orange of his mother’s hair.