It was a house designed for soothing worn senses. The chairs were overstuffed and worn; the lights were soft and homely; the floors creaked in only the quietest and most reassuring ways. Even the timbers that made up the walls seemed to have been softened by time and care, turned into something battered and buttery that couldn’t so much as hurt a fly. After half an hour of exposure the cruelest scoundrel would feel their heart soften and melt like chocolate in a microwave, and the everyday cares and woes of the universe would shrivel up and vanish without a word. It was a place for rest and calm and love, and nobody had been so much as cross in it for decades.
Lauren was beginning to get a bit cross.
Honestly, what was the POINT of grandchildren? Children she could understand – you went to the effort to make the damned things, so you might as well keep working on them so it wasn’t a total waste of time – but grandchildren just sort of appeared, and half the work put into them wasn’t even something you were personally responsible for. And then they grow up immediately and you go to all the effort of making them their favourite crab cakes and the little shitheads don’t even bother to let you know they aren’t going to show up so now you have two plates of goddamned crab cakes and you can barely finish half a plate now because you’re old and tired and your stomach hates being fed so much you’ll hear about it half the night if you actually let yourself eat as much as you like for CHRIST’S sake.
“Piss,” she said aloud. And it almost made the day much worse, because she said it at the same time as there was a tiny little knock on the door, and nearly missed it.
There was nobody outside in the little salt-scoured excuse for a seaside garden, not even the usual tired snails. But there was a letter jammed half-under the humorous ‘GO AWAY’ mat that Laurel had given her for Christmas a few years ago.
Well, nothing better to do. Lauren dragged it back inside, opened it with a kitchen knife, and read it over the sink while eating a crab cake.
we have the kID. BrING the B O T T L E to the DEAD PIEr by evENing
It wasn’t signed.
Well. That made things better. As things stood she had been going to go from cross to worried in about an hour, but now she could focus on being fucking furious instead, which was much less stressful and more fun.
***
Evening was a nice long ways away, which meant Lauren had time to pack even if she was early, which she was going to be. Nobody wanted to be late to a hostage exchange, even if it was just family and you didn’t have to impress them. It was just embarrassing.
So she took her old rucksack and she put some crab cakes in it for the trip, and some more for Laurel, and some odds and ends and her big knick knack and of course two bottles from the big shelf in her cellar, wrapped carefully in .
Then she left. The wind was salty and fresh and the gulls were loud and crude and the sun was fighting the clouds and it all was so wonderful and bright that she found herself whistling, which was a terribly inappropriate thing to do on your way to a hostage exchange.
She didn’t stop though. She was in a santy anna sort of mood.
“Do you have grandkids?” she asked one of the larger gulls, which was sitting on a rock glowering at her. It warked at her hatefully. “I do. I have three and counting and this one’s the second one and she is a right pain in the asshole.”
It warked at her again.
“Cloaca, for you.”
Wark.
“Oh go away.”
She started up santy anna again. Someone was getting Molino del Rey’d today.
***
The Dead Pier was dead. It was in the name.
Once upon a time people had brought in nets and lobster traps and swore and cut themselves and fallen off it while drunk and yelled hellos and goodbyes and occasionally pissed off it. But then the shoals had gotten all overfished and the boats had gone farther afield and now it was empty except for the occasional necking teenage couple. Not many of those either, since there were many more romantic places to lose your virginity that also didn’t smell as badly of antique fish guts.
Lauren had worked the Dead Pier, back when it was Shipley’s Pier. And she’d never fallen off it. This would be like going home, except home was holding your family hostage and making demands of you, so almost exactly like going home except smelling badly of antique fish guts.
She breathed deep as she stepped onto it. Tasted like the old days. She could almost feel the terrible little sandwiches Charley had made her dissolving in her mouth on a cloud of stale wonderbread.
“Hey,” someone said from right in front of her, where they were inconsiderately blocking all the light.
“Fuck off,” Lauren said reasonably. “I’m reminiscing.”
The interchangeable man scowled. God she was embarrassed just looking at him. Even if you were nothing more than a two-bit hired thug that didn’t have the grace to not look the part, at least you could get an impressive tattoo or something. This asshole looked like he’d been printed off a production line and stocked in a Walmart under ‘goon.’ “Shut up or-”
Lauren was very very bored, so she took her hands out of her pockets and one of them was holding odds and the other was holding ends and she put them together and threw them gently underhand into the interchangeable man’s face, where they latched on and began taking out their frustration. Crabs warrant their name, even baby ones, and being kept in pockets doesn’t improve their mood any.
The interchangeable man screamed and clutched at his face so Lauren kicked him where he wasn’t covered and went on her way as the noises died down a bit into whimpers. Two more interchangeable men kept a wary distance from her at the end of the pier, and between them was Laurel, looking VERY annoyed (good girl) and in front of them was Gus.
“Hey, Gus.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t dump both of you off this pier.”
“You only have to pay two guys now.”
Gus thought about that. She could tell because his whole brow furrowed. The interchangeable men thought about it too. She could tell because they looked at each other, then at Gus, then at what their odds were. They didn’t appear to enjoy them.
“Take your hands where I can see them,” said Gus.
“They’re already doing that. Quit stalling to show off and let’s get this done. What do you want?”
“The bottle. Take off your coat. Hands in plain sight. Drop the bag. Move slowly. Put it on the pier. Stop DOING that!”
“But my hands are in plain sight.”
“Put your fingers back you old shithawk or your grandkid gets it.”
Lauren rolled her eyes (Laurel did too – good girl) and put her fingers back. Gus was the sort to do something stupid if she pushed a little too hard, which wasn’t good, but he was also the sort to do something stupid if she made him a little angry, which was good.
She put the bottle on the pier.
“That’s it?”
“That’s the bottle, yeah.”
Gus pointed at the left interchangeable man over his shoulder. “Check it.”
The interchangeable man did so, at considerably slow pace and with many changes in his expression. Lauren gave him a big smile that showed off all eight of her teeth as he picked up the bottle and held it up to the evening sunshine.
“It’s heavy!” he said in surprise.
“Not for what’s in there,” said Lauren.
“And it’s glowing!”
“Well, you’re holding it up to the light.”
“And it says ‘retirement’ on the cork.”
Gus relaxed. She could see it in the way his lips moved into a large smile and his jowls relaxed into a calm set of folds to make a boarhound jealous and his shoulders slumped into their stooped state and his toes unclenched in his gumboots and his guard was down, which was why Lauren chose that moment to step on the interchangeable man’s toe.
He yelped and flinched two feet in the air and down went the bottle onto the pier, where it presumably broke. Lauren didn’t really check, because by then she was ten feet away and latching herself to a mooring post with her belt, and just barely in time.
***
Some of the older sailors Lauren had met back in the day had made ships in bottles, putting tiny replicas of their whole lives in glass cases. She’d always thought that lacked ambition.
The ocean was VERY glad to be let out of its cage though, so the appeal to safety made sense. And fuck knows it had been two and a half jobs to cram it in there in the first place.
When the tide went out to sea Lauren took the time for a deep breath. She couldn’t take an angry sea to the gut like she used to, even with forewarning.
“BITCH.”
Gus, on the other hand, was all gut. Even the fist coming for her face had a spare tire or three wrapped around its knuckles.
“FUCKIN’ CHEAT.”
The other fist was a little faster. Right, Gus was a lefty. God she was forgetful in her old age.
“GONNA” and Lauren pulled her knick knack knife from her sleeve and she never found out what he was gonna.
God that was going to need a good cleaning later. He even smelled like stale sweat and beer on the inside. But first things first.
Lauren hobbled up to the edge of the pier and looked over the side. “Hello.”
“Hi granny.”
“You’re still a good swimmer.”
“Yep.”
“Counted on it. Want me to throw you a line or…?
“Nah, there’s a ladder.”
“Good. Get up here and let’s go home. You can have your crab cakes on the way.”
“Extra-greasy?”
“As always.”
“Good.”
And she was right. It WAS good.