With every new observation, Cammy was further energized. Ideas, questions, and suppositions that gave rise to additional questions spun through her mind. The flint of one idea sparked against the flint of another and another and another.

Indicating the animal that perched on the edge of the sofa and stared intently at her, Cammy said, “She’s so totally mysterious, I’m going to call her Puzzle.”

Because the genitalia were well-concealed in fur and folds, Grady asked, “How do you know it’s a female?”

“I’m guessing. But she’s slightly smaller than the other one. And her tail isn’t quite as plumey.”

“Male peacocks are always showier than female, huh?” “It holds for a number of species, though not all. Male golden retrievers tend to have plumier tails than females.”

Puzzle slid off the sofa, onto all fours, cocked her head, and continued to study Cammy.

Immediately, the other animal turned to the cushion on which Puzzle had been sitting and tipped it on end to look underneath.

Grady said, “So you think the one searching for loose change is a male?”

“I’m pretty sure. But the names work either way. I’m going to call him Riddle.”

“Puzzle and Riddle. I guess that’s better than Ebb and Flo.”

“You should be forbidden by law from naming animals.”

“I still think Howard would’ve been a good name for Merlin.”

“You were going to call him Sassy, for God’s sake.”

“That was only to scare you into letting me call him Howard.”

Pointing at the female, Cammy said, “Puzzle. That’s you. But every puzzle has a solution.”

Seeming to confirm the judgment that these animals were not wild, that they were familiar with people, Puzzle scampered to the footstool, climbed into Cammy’s lap, and curled up for a cuddle, as if she were not a fifty-pound package but instead a lap dog.

Laughing, Cammy stroked Puzzle’s coat—and exclaimed at the density and singular softness of the fur. “Grady, feel this.”

He put a hand on Puzzle. “So soft, like mink.”

“Softer than mink,” Cammy said. “Softer than sable. Softer than anything.”

Under Cammy’s ministering hands, Puzzle purred with pleasure.

“Look at you,” Grady said. “You’re glowing.”

“I’m not glowing,” Cammy objected.

“I’ve never seen you glowing like this.”

“I’m not a lamp.”

“Your face is like the face of a saint in a painting.”

“I’m no saint.”

“Well, you’re glowing, anyway.”

Twenty-nine

The incident occurred in the afternoon, and Tom Bigger thought about nothing else all day and into the night before deciding what he must do.

He was vomiting into a trash barrel when it happened.

Without a shriek or shrill, a flock of seagulls swooped out of nowhere, wings beating the air low over his head. The mere act of ducking, turning, and looking up into the sun was enough to trigger vertigo.

A trash barrel stood a step away. If it hadn’t been there, in his confusion he might have thrown up on his shoes. He had done that before.

The barrel served a small rest area off the coastal highway. Two concrete benches offered vantage points from which to enjoy the sun-spangled sea and a curve of coastline.

Occasionally, on days when he looked as presentable as he got, Tom climbed up from the beach to panhandle the motorists who stopped to commune with nature. If he tried to beg when he was too rough-looking, the marks didn’t get out of their cars.

The name Bigger fit him better in his youth. At forty-eight, more than fifty pounds lighter than in his glory days, he was gaunt, although at six foot five, he still towered over most people. Large-boned, with wrists as thick as axe handles, with sledgehammer hands, he could knock down anyone, but the condition of his face ensured that no one ever challenged him.

Three times over the years, when the self-hatred became too poisonous to contain, he pounded his massive fists into his own face until the pain burned as fiercely as he deserved. Each time, someone found him, and he was hospitalized.

He accepted basic care but refused reconstructive surgery other than some dental work. He wanted to look like what he was: broken, the nonfunctional wreckage of a man. He wanted people to see the real him and to witness their pity, their disgust.

Humiliation kept his acrimony focused on himself. He feared only that one day his bitterness would turn to hostility against others and that he would act upon his enmity. He dreaded what violence he might perpetrate, what a horror he might become.

When he panhandled, he held a sign that identified him as a veteran, the survivor of a bomb blast in one Middle East conflict or another, but he was a veteran only of the war within himself.

On this day, shaved, hair freshly washed in the sea, wearing rumpled khakis and a parrot-pattern Hawaiian shirt, Tom appeared sufficiently presentable to take in thirty dollars and change in three hours.

He was alone in the rest area when the seagulls dived at him, the vertigo overcame him, and he vomited into the barrel.

Stomach purged, he took a pint of tequila from a pants pocket to wash the foul taste from his mouth. As he put the bottle to his lips, the incident occurred.

When Tom Bigger at last could move, he walked north from the rest area, until the sheer bluff became a steep sandstone slope. He descended in a shambling rush to the shore. On the beach, he realized that he had neither taken a swallow of the tequila nor held on to the bottle.

For some months, he had been sheltering in a ten-foot-deep cave at the base of the bluff, directly below the scenic viewpoint. With his bedroll and his few belongings, he kept a supply of tequila and a tin filled with joints of sinsemilla.

In recent years, he drank more than he smoked. Now, he wanted both, until he achieved oblivion.

For the first time in memory, however, he denied himself what he craved. Instead, he waded fully clothed into the sea and sat where the low surf broke gently against his chest.

On this stretch of state-owned coastline, in respect of certain endangered species, the beach was permanently closed to swimmers, surfers, campers, and fishermen. Bankrupt California didn’t have the funds to enforce much more than the tax laws, however, and Tom didn’t worry about being hassled by any kind of shore patrol.

The outer limits of the town lay almost a mile to the south, once a community filled with promise but now just another place where people waited for the end of one thing and the beginning of something worse. He walked into town most days, but no one from there ever came this far north on foot.

Over the years, he’d lived in many places: tents, culverts, junkyard cars, a half-collapsed barn, abandoned buildings. His hope had been that the cave in the sandstone bluff might be his last home.