Desperation Reef

“Casey, I saw video of you as a seventeen-year-old, in your first big-wave competition at Mavericks.”

“I didn’t exactly tear it up.”

“But you survived.”

“You don’t get a lot of points for survival,” says Casey, reaching down to pet Mae, who has laid down on his feet. Casey feels her warmth on his skin. “You have to bring more than survival to the ride. You need a special thing to win.”

“Yes!” says Jimmy Wu. “You need style, and cool, and the attitude that you own the wave and it does not own you. If your legs are shaking, or your eyes are wide, you don’t win points!”

Casey remembers his first big waves, not so much the fear itself, but his fear of fear, of choking. He didn’t choke but his legs trembled on the bottom turns and when he looked at the footage the next day he was surprised and embarrassed by his expressions: wide-eyed dread, grim determination, nerve-jangled relief as he flew like a trapeze artist over the tops of the waves, kicking out, then falling down into the marginal safety of a furious ocean between waves.

“And I am also aware of your wonderful Barrel restaurant, Mrs. Stonebreaker,” says the lawyer. “But I get ahead. Mr. Wu, you should count the money.”

“Bette?”

“Danilo!” Bette calls out.

Smoker comes in, takes the backpack from Casey, and sets it on the far end of the table. Zips it open, then retreats to lean against the kitchen bulkhead, one foot up against the peeling white steel, pistol in place behind his waistband.

Bette goes to the pack, unbands and counts each thousand-dollar pack with careful patience, setting the completed stacks aside and apart.

She looks up at Casey after each one. “...nine hundred eighty, eight thousand.”

A few minutes later she announces, “Money’s all here. I didn’t think Stonebreaker would cheat us. He is much too good and innocent.”

Casey breaks eye contact with her for lack of an apt response. He can’t tell if she’s being complimentary or contemptuous. Doesn’t really care. Notes that her father gives Bette a hostile stare.

He stands, looks at the lawyer, then at the briefcase in which the gun waits, then to the table with his and his mom’s $25,000 in it. Lawyers, guns, and money, he thinks. He was singing that song in the shower just a few days ago, scrubbing down with a stiff brush and strong soap, trying to get the smell of bluefin tuna fish off his hands.

Through one of the portholes, Casey sees the green Luhrs and the white Bayliner that corralled him a few days ago now approaching just two hundred feet off the trawler’s starboard flank.

“I’m gonna, like, take my dog and go,” he says. “I’ll be honest. I think you people suck. You broke nature’s law by slaughtering those sharks for their fins. For your dang soups. But you take Mae and threaten to let her drown? Then steal twenty-five thousand of ours for ransom? Even greedy, small-minded people like you should be ashamed of that. But you’re not. You don’t know anything. You are toys in the devil’s hands.”

“You’re not a moron,” says Bette. “You don’t really think we’d hurt your dog, do you?”

“You said you would.”

“You are naïve. That’s ridiculous. To you, we’re just evil Chinese who brought the plague to the world. And communism.”

“You’re pirates who threatened to kill my dog. Come on, Mae. Mom — we’re leaving now.”

“Sit down, Casey,” says Bette. “My father has a very interesting offer for you.”

Danilo steps away from the bulkhead, crossing his hands before him, spreading his feet.

Casey sits and Jen follows suit. Mae stands, tail wagging, looking toward the galley exit.

“An offer for what?” asks Jen.

Jimmy Wu purses his lips and glances at Benitez. Then back at Jen. “Okay, now you listen. Simple offer. We supply restaurants but we want a restaurant where there is much money. We want to buy the Barrel in Laguna. It is, very actually, the best restaurant location in Laguna Beach, and Laguna Beach is the best coastal city in California. This is very true and factual. My partners back home are very wealthy businessmen and hungry to invest in a very championship location. Mr. Benitez expert in dining and hospitality. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He has written the contract for you to sell to us. We keep the name the Barrel. You still manage the Barrel. Casey is still the bartender and assistant manager. You both get a big salary from me — more than what we estimate you declared to IRS last year. Very generous.”

Benitez takes a file from his briefcase and opens it, thumbing the metal clasp at the top.

“Ninety-six thousand dollars annually for Jen Stonebreaker. Sixty-eight for Casey, with raises determined by the Wu family. Hourly staff and contractors will get what they’re getting now, and whatever increases they have been promised in writing.”

“How much for my restaurant?” asks Jen.