We’d been up around an hour and a half. Back in my hotel room, Poochie had woken with a start and a cry that shook me from a deep sleep and a dream that was a hell of a lot better than sharing a room with a battered beachcomber. But he had settled down quick. He seemed to know that I’d rescued him, and accepted me as his new friend Mike, unquestioningly. I called Velda and she brought around his washed and still a little damp clothes. He grinned at her goofily and just as unquestioningly accepted her as his new friend Velda.
Poochie wolfed down scrambled eggs and bacon and hash browns at a cafe across the street next to the Sidon Palace, the movie house. Velda and I had the same fare and were damn near as hungry as our guest. I was amazed by his recuperative powers-his face was splotched yellow and purple and his eyes and lips remained puffy, but his manner was happy-go-lucky.
There had been no conversation at breakfast about last night. For Poochie, right now was all there was. He was sitting in a booth with his new pals Mike and Velda, gobbling down good grub, and what had been or would be was irrelevant. Not the worst outlook in the world.
I said we wanted to take him back to his shack, and he said swell, but he needed to pick up some hamburger at the grocery store. We did that, Velda spotting him a buck when Poochie’s pockets turned out to be empty. No surprise.
We drove a mile or so till he motioned us to pull over, like a kid who needed a john, and soon we were hiking it in the sand.
In a simple pleated navy skirt and light blue blouse with a sweater slung round her shoulders, my dark-haired secretary looked sexier than any bikini babe this beach had ever seen. Me, I looked like a city slicker in my rumpled suit, even without a tie and with my hat off. But after last night, I needed to go out heeled, and I needed the suitcoat to conceal the. 45 in its shoulder sling.
The morning was bright and cool, the ocean breeze refreshing on your face, sun reflecting off shimmering sand, gulls swooping and squawking, the tide lapping, blue ocean glittering, the air salty and fresh, the beach scattered with driftwood and shells, clam, oyster, periwinkle. Good pickings for a beachcomber like Poochie.
Just outside the shack, Velda and I sat down on two old crates while Poochie ducked inside. In an eye blink the little guy came back out carrying a couple of cats. Scraggly, wild things, they were, but they swarmed all over him in the friendliest way, licking his face and rubbing themselves against his neck. He spread out the pound of hamburger on its butcher paper for them and they dug in together.
When I looked up at Poochie, he was facing the ocean, breathing the salt air, a battered little guy who owned the world. “Ain’t it good here, Mike?”
“Swell.”
And it was, as far as it went. But what he called home was a barrel to hold fish heads, three crude fishing poles set against the side of the shack, an ancient wheelbarrow to gather shells, two cats for company, and a broken-down shanty to keep the rain off his head.
“Come on inside,” he said brightly. “I got lots of things I want to show you.”
We followed him in, ducking our heads as we went. He put a match to an oil lamp and the pale orange light threw flickering shadows on the wall. A homemade table sat in the middle, around which were four more crates for chairs. Why he bothered with four, I don’t know. I doubt if he ever had company. A single bunk was built against the far wall, covered with somebody’s cast-off quilt. Behind the table a stove of iron pipes was overlaid on some bricks with a firewood bin next to it. For utensils there were two pots, some reclaimed and polished cans, several old knives and forks, and a wooden salad spoon.
What interested me most was the half-carved shell on the makeshift table. Beside it was a well-worn shoemaker’s leather knife. I picked up the shell and ran my hands over the picture carved there. It was beautiful-a manger scene with an angel in the background. The dog-eared Christmas card it was copied from lay under the knife.
He was grinning. Where his teeth weren’t yellow, they were black. “Like it, Mike?”
“You said it,” I grinned at him. “Where did you learn to do this?”
“In school.” He said it proudly.
“No kidding?” I couldn’t believe he’d stayed in school long enough to develop this kind of skill. The detail work was fantastic.
“Yup. That’s where I went when I was little. I remember it real good. I can hardly remember anything else about being a kid except the school. They were good to me there and a priest showed me how to carve wood. I did bad in all my studies, Mike, but not carving. That priest said I had a real talent. Then he got me a shell one day and I carved that. I got plenty of ’em. Look!”
He pointed to the walls and I whistled under my breath. They were arrayed on a two-by-four running around three walls, beautiful examples of what a simple mind could do if it concentrated.
He pointed to some beat-up cabinets below the crude shelving; they probably had been scavenged from the galley of some old boat. “I got lots more. Down here is my private collection.”
Velda whispered to me: “Idiot savant.”
Why did everybody keep saying that! I knew this guy was an idiot.
But like Doc Moody said, an idiot with a touch of genius. Each shell was a masterpiece of craftsmanship. Some were carved into animals, others were seascapes, all worked into the rounded exterior of a shell. The pale light of the lantern hardly brought out the exquisite pink and cream tones. I knew people in the city who would pay top dollar for these.
I asked, “Ever sell any, Poochie?”
“Sure, I sell ’em. The stuff I keep on that one shelf, those are for sale.” He pointed. “That’s how I get all my money.”
His little shack wasn’t exactly a showroom. “How much do you get, Poochie? And who buys them?”
“Oh, a nice man from the city comes by and gives me a whole dollar a piece for ’em. That’s pretty darn good, ain’t it, Mike?”
“That’s good, all right, but don’t you sell any more until I see the guy that buys them.”
“Why… sure, Mike. He’ll be here in a few days.”
“Great. Let me act as your agent. All great artists need agents.”
“You think I’m a great artist, Mike?”
“I sure do. How often does he come around, this guy?”
“Always around this time every month he comes.”
I would kick the crap out of the bastard for taking advantage of Poochie like that. A buck a piece and he was probably raking in a hundred per, anyway.
“I’ll negotiate a new price.”
Velda was walking around the little room, looking at the individual shells on the shelf, breathless at the sheer beauty of them.
I got up and put a hand on her shoulder. “I want to take a walk up the beach. Care to come?”
She shook her head, the dark tresses bouncing. “No. You go ahead. I’ve had my fill of walking on sand for a while. I’ll just stick around here and enjoy the view.”
Soon we were back on the beach where she had kicked off her sandals and was lifting her skirt to wade in the tide, her gaze on the expanse of blue that a world away joined the other expanse of blue above. The wind was making lovely dark streaming tendrils of her long raven hair, as if she were underwater. Who needed mermaids?
I started off with Poochie at my heels.
When we were out of earshot of Velda, I said, “Show me where that lady lives-the one with the yellow hair.”
As we rounded a dune, he pointed between a number of trees that stood in a row, like a tall fence designed to keep one half of the beach away from the other.
“Right up there, Mike. That’s where she lives. You’re not gonna go up there, are you?” He seemed fearful.