The Trade. Shirley Palmer

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      He picked up the photograph by his bed, an eight-by-ten of Ginn and himself, Barney at their feet, taken last summer, and put it into the bag. The only other things of value were a framed picture of his mother and an album of old photographs of them together when he was a kid. His memory of her had dimmed over the years, only the pictures kept it alive. He took a second to wrap them in a T-shirt before putting them in the bag, threw in a handful of underwear, socks, some jeans on top. He took some of his books from the shelves in the living room, his laptop. He already had Barney ready to run. That was it. Except for the house itself, there was nothing else here he cared about.

      He tied a bandanna around his nose and mouth, then grabbed all the towels in the linen cupboard, dropped the bag by the kitchen door where he could get it easily if they had to get down to the water. He slammed the door closed behind him to keep Barney confined in the house, ran along the side of the house toward the little shed of a detached garage facing the road. He could hear the rumble of fire trucks, power horns and sirens on the Coast Highway above Malibu Road. Help was on the way at last and the fire crews would make a stand wherever they could as long as they had water pressure. At least he and Barney could always get down to the ocean, so they wouldn’t be trapped. If it came to it, he’d let the house, his mother’s house, burn.

      Without electricity the garage door was immovable. He climbed behind the wheel of the Range Rover parked inside, shoved the gear into Reverse, hit the gas and rammed the heavy vehicle at the overhead door. The old structure shook but the warped wood splintered at the first attempt and he was through. He got out, grabbed three of Bobby Eckhart’s surfboards, shoved them into the back, added a couple of his own. The ladder he kept for repairs had fallen off the wall with the impact. He picked it up, threw it onto the patio, then backed the Range Rover up to the street, away from the structure. Only a block away, a couple of houses were burning.

      He unwound the hose on the patio, turned the spigot, let out a grunt of relief when water spurted, then shoved the nozzle into an empty trash barrel and filled it, dumped in the towels. He soaked his bandanna and retied it over his nose and mouth, dragged the hose with him up the ladder to the roof.

      If the water pressure stayed strong, if the wind didn’t turn, if he could beat out sparks with the towels before they got a hold under the wooden shakes—a hell of a lot of ifs—he had a chance of saving the house. His mother’s house.

      Matt looked at his watch, saw that it was after midnight. The arc of the night sky from east to west was still red with fire, but something was different. The wind had changed direction and was blowing onshore. He wouldn’t call it moisture exactly, but for the first time in hours he felt as if he could take a full breath without cooking his lungs.

      He went out to the street again. Everything in the front of the house was gone, the fence, the bushes, a couple of trees, and the bougainvillea that his mother had planted for privacy thirty years ago. At least the house had survived, scorched but still there. Many landside houses above his, and several along his stretch of beach, were smoking ruins. Fire crews hadn’t even made it down here until now, when it was all over and the firestorm had moved on.

      A sheriff’s patrol car cruised by and Matt stepped into the road to wave it down. The black and white slowed. The deputy sheriff looked him over.

      “Who are you? This area is evacuated, authorized personnel only.”

      Matt had been hoping for Bob Eckhart. He didn’t recognize the man speaking to him.

      Matt said, “I live here. You got a minute? I’ve got something here you should see.”

      “You got identification?”

      “Sure.” Matt reached for the wallet he’d transferred from his wet jeans, flipped it open to his driver’s license.

      The deputy reached for it. “What happened to your arm?”

      Matt held it up, surprised to see a gash and streaks of dried blood. “I don’t know, I guess I must’ve cut it when I broke a window at the Cove to get some water.”

      “I see.” The deputy handed back the license. “Well, I’ll have to get back to you, just as soon as I’ve checked out the end of the road. Things are still pretty hectic.” Fire equipment moved along the road, wetting down hotspots, checking roofs. The black and white started to roll.

      Matt paced with the car. “No, wait a minute. Listen, you’ve got to come inside. Sounds crazy I know, but I’ve got a dead baby here.”

      The car stopped. The deputy stared at him for a long moment, then pulled off the road. He retrieved a flashlight, played it over Matt’s face, along the still-smoking stumps of the bougainvillea, across the newly exposed house and patio. Barney, muzzle pressed against the bedroom window no longer shielded from the street by shrubbery, barked a warning. The deputy picked up his radio transmitter. “This is 103. I’ve got a report of a 927D at…” He looked at Matt. “What’s the address here?”

      Matt told him, the deputy repeated the address, then signed off. He stepped out of the car.

      “How come you didn’t evacuate with everyone else?” His voice was guardedly neutral.

      “I wasn’t here when the order came. I came home later by way of the beach.”

      “What’s your name again, sir?”

      “Matthew Lowell. Yours?”

      “Deputy Timms.” Ramrod posture, early thirties, dark hair short back and sides, but surprisingly long on top for a deputy sheriff. He followed Matt across the patio, along the deck by the side of the house into the candlelit kitchen.

      Matt opened the door of the refrigerator. Except for a small bundle wrapped in a bright-blue polo shirt, the shelves were empty.

      “What is this, some kind of joke?” Timms turned a darkening face toward Matt.

      “No.” Matt gestured to the sink piled with jars and containers, orange juice, mayonnaise, olives, a carton of eggs. “In this heat, I couldn’t think of what else to do. And I thought if the house burned, she would be safer, maybe. I don’t know. I found her on the beach last night when I was coming home.”

      “Jesus.” Timms reached into the refrigerator.

      Matt turned away. Even in the flickering candlelight, he couldn’t bear to look again at the little face.

      “There’s a lot of blood on this shirt,” Timms said.

      “Must be mine. From when I cut my arm.”

      “You say you found this baby, you weren’t there when it was born?”

      “No, I wasn’t there when she was born. I found her, I told you. I took my shirt off and wrapped her in it because there wasn’t anything else to use. I didn’t realize there was blood on it. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway, that’s all I had, my shirt.”

      “I see. It’s a girl,” Timms said. “Where did you say you found it?”

      “Her. I found her on the beach.”

      Timms gave him another long, hard stare. “How long have you lived at this address, Mr. Lowell?”

      “Most of my life, on and off. It belonged to my parents. We СКАЧАТЬ