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15 Who Are We If We Are Not Us?

Having been prosecuted by the sea more often than she could count, clamshelled and creamed and stacked on the rocks, Makani Miomio Hisoka-O’Brien was accustomed to aches and pains. Those bruises and abrasions with which Rainer Sparks had left her were not worth complaining about, and they certainly were not sufficient to rob her of courage.

After washing down two Tylenol with beer, sitting at the kitchen table, holding an ice-pack on her left wrist, which had suffered a mild sprain, she said, “Anyway, there’s nowhere to run.”

Although four years younger than Makani, Pogo had been biffed and dumped and quashed and rinse-cycled as often as any surfer his age. As he sat across the table from Makani, holding an ice pack to the back of his neck, he said, “What’s the freak expect — that we’ll slide away to Kansas, forget there’s such a thing as an ocean, hide out in a tornado cellar?”

“That’s not me,” she said.

“It’s not me, either.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with Kansas.”

“Wild Bill Hickock was from Kansas.”

“That alone justifies it,” she said.

“Sparks is a big bastard, though.”

“And invisible.”

“There’s got to be a way around that.”

“What way?”

Bob the Labrador, who had been sitting beside Makani, his chin in her lap, raised his head and sniffed the plate on the table that had been set aside for him. It contained chunks of roast beef that were his reward for being the first to realize that Rainer Sparks was in the house.

After Makani gave him one cube of meat and then another, he made a thin sound of entreaty, and she said, “You shouldn’t gobble them all at once, sweetie. Learn to savor, Bobby. Life’s all about savoring.”

The dog lowered his big black head and rested his chin on her thigh once more.

“I’m not changing my name and getting false ID and moving to Mexico,” Makani said.

After a long pull at his beer, Pogo said, “There is some killer surf in Baja. Down to Todos Santos and Scorpion Bay, even all the way to Mazatlán.”

“You changing your name, then?”

“Hell, no. Nothing would be as easy to remember as Pogo.”

“I like Pogo.”

“I like Makani.”

“I don’t mean just the name.”

“I don’t mean just the name, either.”

They smiled at each other.

Bob raised his head.

“Screw it,” Makani said. “Gobble away if you want.” And she put the plate of beef on the floor.

“It’s who Bobby is,” Pogo said. “Bobby’s a gobbler.”

“Who are we if we are not us?” she said.

“Then we’d be nobody.”

“Well, I’m not nobody, and you’re not nobody, and Bobby is somebody, too.”

A pause for beer.

Pogo reminded her, “Sparks is one big bastard.”

“And invisible,” she said.

“There’s got to be a way around that.”

“You think of it yet?”

“I have a kind of idea.”

They had preparations to make, shopping to do, second thoughts to consider, and a lot of mutual encouragement to perform. Being of high spirits most of the time, Bob didn’t need encouragement, but he went with them to the hardware store, which he enjoyed, not least of all because the owner always brought his Labrador, Gracie, to work.

By noon, they were ready. Or as ready as they could be.

Over a lunch of sandwiches, eaten on the patio, Makani said, “It’s good not to be alone.”

Pogo nodded. “I never have been.”

“Well, I have been for almost ten years.”

“Where do you see this going?”

“You mean if he doesn’t kill us?”

“Exactly.”

“He will probably kill us.”

“Probably.”

“But if he doesn’t, I don’t see us plunging into things.”

Pogo nodded. “Nothing worthwhile happens overnight.”

“You really feel that way?”

“I’ve got to get used to being read all the time.”

“And I’ve got to figure how I cope with you knowing that you’re being read.”

“Maybe I’ll learn how to hide my darker thoughts.”

“What darker thoughts? I’ve known you two years, and I’ve never seen one.”

“Right now, I’m planning to kill a man.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “That’s not as dark as what I’d like to do to him.”

Under the table, where he was lying in the shade and summer heat, Bob grumbled his agreement.

Pogo wanted to nap for a few hours, to be sure his head was clear when sunset came.

Although they didn’t expect Sparks to show up sooner than he had promised, Makani insisted on sitting in a chair in the second guest room, the pistol in her lap, while Pogo slept in the nearby bed. She kept Bob at her side, hoping he understood that he was their early-warning system.

In all her conversations with Pogo, she had tried to match his light tone, which was natural to him because it was a reflection of his confident and buoyant spirit. In truth, however, she expected to die this evening, and she hoped only that Pogo would survive and that she would not have been the cause of his death.