LITMIR.BIZ

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      The ocean lay so far to the west that it was no more real to us than the Sea of Tranquility, that vast dark plain on the face of the moon.

      Occasionally, when excavating for a new subdivision of tract homes on the outskirts of town, developers had struck rich veins of seashells in their deeper diggings. Once upon an ancient age, waves lapped these shores.

      If you put one of those shells to your ear, you will not hear the surf breaking but only a dry mournful wind, as if the shell has forgotten its origins.

      At the foot of the exterior steps that led down from my small apartment, in the early sun, Penny Kallisto waited like a shell on a shore. She wore red sneakers, white shorts, and a sleeveless white blouse.

      Ordinarily, Penny had none of that preadolescent despair to which some kids prove so susceptible these days. She was an ebullient twelve-year-old, outgoing and quick to laugh.

      This morning, however, she looked solemn. Her blue eyes darkened as does the sea under the passage of a cloud.

      I glanced toward the house, fifty feet away, where my landlady, Rosalia Sanchez, would be expecting me at any minute to confirm that she had not disappeared during the night. The sight of herself in a mirror was never sufficient to put her fear to rest.

      Without a word, Penny turned away from the stairs. She walked toward the front of the property.

      Like a pair of looms, using sunshine and their own silhouettes, two enormous California live oaks wove veils of gold and midnight-purple, which they flung across the driveway.

      Penny appeared to shimmer and to darkle as she passed through this intricate lace of light and shade. A black mantilla of shadow dimmed the luster of her blond hair, its elaborate pattern changing as she moved.

      Afraid of losing her, I hurried down the last of the steps and followed the girl. Mrs. Sanchez would have to wait, and worry.

      Penny led me past the house, off the driveway, to a birdbath on the front lawn. Around the base of the pedestal that supported the basin, Rosalia Sanchez had arranged a collection of dozens of the seashells, all shapes and sizes, that had been scooped from the hills of Pico Mundo.

      Penny stooped, selected a specimen about the size of an orange, stood once more, and held it out to me.

      The architecture resembled that of a conch. The rough exterior was brown and white, the polished interior shone pearly pink.

      Cupping her right hand as though she still held the shell, Penny brought it to her ear. She cocked her head to listen, thus indicating what she wanted me to do.

      When I put the shell to my ear, I did not hear the sea. Neither did I hear the melancholy desert wind that I mentioned previously.

      Instead, from the shell came the rough breathing of a beast. The urgent rhythm of a cruel need, the grunt of mad desire.

      Here in the summer desert, winter found my blood.

      When she saw from my expression that I had heard what she wished me to hear, Penny crossed the lawn to the public sidewalk. She stood at the curb, gazing toward the west end of Marigold Lane.

      I dropped the shell, went to her side, and waited with her.

      Evil was coming. I wondered whose face it would be wearing.

      Old Indian laurels line this street. Their great gnarled surface roots have in places cracked and buckled the concrete walkway.

      Not a whisper of air moved through the trees. The morning lay as uncannily still as dawn on Judgment Day one breath before the sky would crack open.

      Like Mrs. Sanchez’s place, most houses in this neighborhood are Victorian in style, with varying degrees of gingerbread. When Pico Mundo was founded, in 1900, many residents were immigrants from the East Coast, and they preferred architectures better suited to that distant colder, damper shore.

      Perhaps they thought they could bring to this valley only those things they loved, leaving behind all ugliness.

      We are not, however, a species that can choose the baggage with which it must travel. In spite of our best intentions, we always find that we have brought along a suitcase or two of darkness, and misery.

      For half a minute, the only movement was that of a hawk gliding high above, glimpsed between laurel branches.

      The hawk and I were hunters this morning.

      Penny Kallisto must have sensed my fear. She took my right hand in her left.

      I was grateful for this kindness. Her grip proved firm, and her hand did not feel cold. I drew courage from her strong spirit.

      Because the car was idling in gear, rolling at just a few miles per hour, I didn’t hear anything until it turned the corner. When I recognized the vehicle, I knew a sadness equal to my fear.

      This 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 had been restored with loving care. The two-door, midnight-blue convertible appeared to glide toward us with all tires a fraction of an inch off the pavement, shimmering like a mirage in the morning heat.

      Harlo Landerson and I had been in the same high-school class. During his junior and senior years, Harlo rebuilt this car from the axles up, until it looked as cherry as it had in the autumn of ’67, when it had first stood on a showroom floor.

      Self-effacing, somewhat shy, Harlo had not labored on the car with the hope either that it would be a babe magnet or that those who had thought of him as tepid would suddenly think he was cool enough to freeze the mercury in a thermometer. He’d had no social ambitions. He had suffered no illusions about his chances of ever rising above the lower ranks of the high-school caste system.

      With a 335-horsepower V-8 engine, the Firebird could sprint from zero to sixty miles per hour in under eight seconds. Yet Harlo wasn’t a street racer; he took no special pride in having wheels of fury.

      He devoted much time, labor, and money to the Firebird because the beauty of its design and function enchanted him. This was a labor of the heart, a passion almost spiritual in its purity and intensity.

      I sometimes thought the Pontiac figured so large in Harlo’s life because he had no one to whom he could give the love that he lavished on the car. His mom died when he was six. His dad was a mean drunk.

      A car can’t return the love you give it. But if you’re lonely enough, maybe the sparkle of the chrome, the luster of the paint, and the purr of the engine can be mistaken for affection.

      Harlo and I hadn’t been buddies, just friendly. I liked the guy. He was quiet, but quiet was better than the boast and bluster with which many kids jockeyed for social position in high school.

      With Penny Kallisto still at my side, I raised my left hand and waved at Harlo.

      Since high school, he’d worked hard. Nine to five, he unloaded trucks at Super Food and moved stock from storeroom to shelves.

      Before that, beginning at 4:00 A.M., he dropped hundreds of newspapers at homes on the east side of Pico Mundo. Once each week, he also delivered to every house a plastic bag full of advertising flyers and discount-coupon books.

      This morning, he distributed only newspapers, tossing them with a snap of the wrist, as though they were boomerangs. Each folded and bagged copy of the Tuesday edition of the Maravilla County Times spun through the air and landed with a soft thwop on a driveway or a front walk, precisely where the subscriber preferred to have it.

      Harlo was working the far side of the street. When he reached the house opposite me, he braked the coasting Pontiac to a stop.

      Penny and I crossed to the car, and Harlo said, “Good mornin’, Odd. How’re you this fine day?”

      “Bleak,” I replied. “Sad. Confused.”

      He frowned with concern. “What’s wrong? Anything I can do?”

      “Something you’ve already done,” I said.

      Letting

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