There’s plenty of dogs: another chocolate Labrador down by the river, which from this distance looks almost like Mae, sending a futile bolt of hope through him; a big German shepherd practically dragging a young woman along the river path; two flouncy Lhasa apsos crisscrossing in front of their heavyset human; a Parsons terrier with his leash trailing, shrieking and tearing after a gull that hops twice, then climbs the onshore breeze on bright white wings.
Mae’s just flat-out gone.
Gol’-dang.
God, help me find her.
Back at his truck Casey calls the Oceanside Animal Shelter, which directs him to a link on the county website, which has no female brown Labs. He finally gets a body at the shelter, but no dogs have been admitted today. He sends pictures of Mae to the shelter, the Oceanside Police, San Diego Sheriffs, his buddy Craig at California Fish and Wildlife, Lieutenant Tim at the Coast Guard, and posts another round to his tens of thousands of friends, surfers, followers, critics, and visitors to his platforms. In return Casey’s getting lots of false sightings that don’t help a bit, and lots of speculation that maybe Mae’s disappearance from Oceanside Harbor has something to do with the shark finners Casey has shamed.
Detective Bob Temple of San Diego Sheriffs recognizes Casey and calls back that he loves how Casey surfs those big ones. Admits that he started surfing San Onofre when he was eight, with his dad and mom and sister. Still surfing, he says, although at fifty-two he’s kind of slowing down.
He listens to Casey’s missing-dog story, tells Casey that Bette Wu and her crew are fish pirates, raiding coastal San Diego and Orange County fisheries with a fleet of older vessels and a couple of sleek red Cigarettes. They ignore limits and size and seasonal restrictions. Sell to restaurants from Imperial Beach all the way to San Francisco. They’ve been caught with dope and guns. Their mother ship is Empress II.
“I know,” Casey says impatiently, “but where can I find Bette Wu and Empress II?”
A beat then, while Bob Temple decides whether or not to give up Sheriff Department information to a Laguna surfer who’s a virtual stranger.
“Slip 41-B, Pier 32 Marina, National City.”
9
Casey glasses Empress II at her slip at the National City Marina. Through the Leicas, he sees a man half reclining on a chaise lounge, smoking. Casey thinks he was one of the gunners aboard the Luhrs that day, but he’s not sure. Empress II’s tables and nets have been stowed, but she’s still just a peeling blue-and-red commercial trawler berthed way out at the end of a crowded landing, as if trying to hide within the gleaming motor yachts and elegant sailboats. Her boarding ramp is down.
Casey wonders how Bette Wu and her multinational, occasionally felonious crew can afford this big vessel, its slip fee here in National City, and the green Luhrs, the white Bayliner, and the swanky Dragon his mom told him about, all by supplying fish and shark fins to Southern California restaurants.
Just not feelin’ it, he thinks. Maybe they’re in some other business, too?
He stops at the ramp gate and the smoking man stands up. He’s short, with ropy arms and a scrawny torso. Filipino, Casey guesses.
“I came to get my dog,” says Casey.
“No dog.”
“Everybody at the harbor saw Bette stealing her.”
“No Bette. Not here.”
“Where, then?”
Smoker flips his cigarette butt into the bay and shakes his head.
“Fine, then,” says Casey. “Permission to come aboard requested. So I can look for Mae.”
“No. No dog here. No Bette here. Out selling to restaurants. All legal and good money so you go now.”
Casey throws the latch and knees open the ramp gate and Smoker meets him halfway up, crouching into a boxer’s stance, fists up. Casey — six feet, two inches tall, two hundred and twenty pounds of youthful muscle, plus years of immense waves pounding him around like a pool toy, years of gym workouts, and some truly evil Hapkido training with Brock — springs in and pushes Smoker hard, but not too hard, over the railing and into the bay.
“Sorry, sir. I’ll be just a minute!”
Which is less than it takes him to check belowdecks for Mae, or Bette, or whoever else might be aboard this fish-reeking, cigarette-smoke-steeped trawler. He scribbles his number onto a Tsingtao coaster.
“Mae! Mae!”
But no Mae, and back on deck Casey sees Smoker, fully drenched and lurching up the ramp toward the boarding gate.
“Tell Bette she owes me a chocolate Lab named Mae.”
“You should take down video. Going viral. Bad for business.”
“Soon as I get my dog back. And I want enough money for a good phone. You tell her that.”
He presses the coaster into the man’s cold wet hand. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. But I do expect her call.”
He’s at the Barrel an hour later, still midafternoon, transferring his hundred-plus-pound tuna fish from his cooler to the walk-in refrigerator in the restaurant kitchen.
In the Barrel’s third-story office/apartment, Casey showers quickly, balancing his phone on the aluminum shower top, just out of spray distance. When he’s done he posts another round of Mae pictures on all his socials, pleads for sightings, be-on-the-lookout fors, any clues no matter how tenuous as to where she might be. His Mae posts are going viral on more than one platform but the false sightings are everywhere and useless.
He sends out another CaseyGram with pictures of Mae and pleas for help.
Someone has seen something! he writes.
But what if Bette Wu doesn’t call?
His Woodland Street home is a small 1950s cottage surrounded by walls of purple bougainvillea, and yellow, red, and white hibiscus. Some of the blossoms are already folding in for the night.
He takes his laptop to the bistro table in his backyard, profuse with bird-of-paradise, potted plumeria, succulents, and a fragrant center-yard tangerine tree now heavy with fruit.
An hour later he’s removed his posts, blogs, and videos from every platform he uses. Goes through his accounts once more, to make sure. But he wonders what real good this is going to do for Bette Wu and her fellow pirates, considering how many thousands of them have already viewed, forwarded, liked, forwarded again, around the Internet, around the world. Hasn’t the damage been done?
While he’s at it he checks his brother Brock’s Breath of Life Rescue Mission feed, reads another vitriolic exchange between Brock and Kasper Aamon, the founder of Right Fight.
Brother Brock Stonebreaker, it was great to see you up in Mendocino.
My pleasure, Aamon-you looked more intelligent than you do on Fox.
You look like the same slimy dude who bores his congregation at the Breath of Life Rescue Mission for hours on end. I know that because some of my Right Fighters live practically right next door to you. They tell me it’s a squalid pit, your alleged church. A slum. A black hole, a barrio.
Why don’t you come by, slip a couple grand into the collection plate sometime?
So you can give it away to the pathetic, pregnant, drug-addicted minorities you love so much?
Sure! Be happy to.
You’re a sick donkey, Brother Brock. A waste of white skin. Just look at you, with your plantation hair and your ink and your fat wahine wife.
Careful now, Kasper — your stupidity is showing through, again.
I think we should meet face-to-face again, Brock. Maybe clear the air a little.
I’d rather step on a rattlesnake. Don’t waste my time. I could be helping someone who needs it.