“Is that it?” Her voice rose. “You think you have to be rich to make me happy?” She reached for his hand.
He drew back. “It’s not rich I’m talking about, it’s something else, it’s...” As he struggled for the right words, the door swung open behind her and the wino from the streets entered, his hand shakily outstretched, waving something in the dim light.
Guerin stood. “Can I help you...?” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of the pistol that the man held, at the wild glint in his bloodshot eyes.
“Hit the register, old man. You had a great day. Now it’s my turn.”
Adele did not hesitate. “You march right out of here...” She rose, swinging at him with her purse. The man ducked, then backhanded her into the beach chair.
Guerin made a dive for the pistol. The man stumbled back, clubbing Guerin to his knees, and the gun went off with a tremendous roar.
A mounted hawk above the counter exploded in a flurry of feathers and stuffing. The man trained his pistol on Guerin. “I won’t ask again.”
“For God’s sake, give him the money.” Adele wiped at her bloody lip and scrambled for the cash box that lay near the deck chair.
The man’s eyes glittered as he snatched the box from her frightened hand. He riffled through the thin stack of bills, then turned upon Guerin with menace. “I saw what walked out of here today. Where’s the rest of the cash?”
Guerin shook his head helplessly. “It’s all I asked for,” he said.
The man didn’t bother to argue. He swung his aim to Adele. “It’s your last chance, Pops. I’ll blow her away in a heartbeat.”
Adele whimpered. Guerin scanned the shop, searching for a weapon, a miracle, a policeman... and froze when he beheld it.
Not ten feet away, at the mouth of an aisle, sat the chest he had tried to drag forward earlier. He could swear he heard the faint sounds of pounding surf, and if he were not mistaken, the heavy box swayed slightly with the rhythm of the waves.
As Guerin pulled his gaze away, he found the man smiling slyly at him. “So open it up, old man.”
Guerin shook his head in protest. “You don’t understand. There’s no money there.”
He broke off as the man snatched Adele roughly by the hair, holding the pistol to her face.
Guerin, growing dizzy, found himself at the top of an endless staircase, winded, beaten, facing a doorway that opened upon an empty room. All the former well wishers stood below on a vast landing, breathless, waiting for his move. Inside the room, a figure stirred in a darkened corner — a woman, he saw, as she came toward him, her hand outstretched, her face a mask of anguish. “Adele?” he said...
...and stepped forward to the chest. The top swung easily open at his touch, and Guerin stared down in disbelief at stacks and stacks of cash that neatly stuffed the box.
The man gave him a murderous smile and pushed Adele roughly aside. “You old son of a bitch,” he said, amazed. He plunged his hand toward a stack of bills, keeping his pistol trained on Guerin. “You found a fortune.” He riffled through a thick packet of cash and shrugged. “Too bad for you.”
And indeed, Guerin thought, it was too bad, but then what good thing had he ever had that hadn’t been taken away?
The man trained the pistol on Adele, who stirred groggily on the floor.
“Just take the box,” Guerin cried. “It has everything you want.”
The man sneered. “Nice of you to offer,” he said, and cocked his pistol.
As the cylinders of the gun fell into place, Guerin beheld the instantaneous, sorry history of his hopeful life: withered fields of once-grand snow peas, zoysia sod farms that had started out strong but found the wilt, sullen cages full of molting chinchilla with no interest whatever in sex, a panorama of exotic failure, of promise gone wrong, capped by this last swell joke, a shop full of magic that would lead him to his death. And not, incidentally, lacking company for the trip.
He stole a glance at devastated Adele, felt his heart give, and, with nothing of his own to lose, took fate into his own hands. He ducked under the swiveling aim of the thief and drove him backward into the chest. The man’s legs folded up as his knees caught the edge of the box, and he pitched over backward into the maw full of cash.
A great cloud of dust billowed up from the chest, driving Guerin away. The thief coughed wildly inside the pall and wilder still as the dust grew thicker, obliterating him finally from sight.
“What? Hey... HEY!” The disembodied screams lingered for a moment, and then there was a thud as the pistol fell to the floor and skittered to Guerin’s feet, followed by another thump, which was the lid of the chest slamming down.
As quickly as it had sprung up, the cloud of dust drifted off, and Guerin and Adele were left to stare wonderingly at each other in a silent, vacant shop.
A muffled whining sound came from the chest and Guerin edged cautiously toward it, the pistol wavering in his hand. Adele clutched his arm as he tried the lid. He gave her a look, then flipped the top all the way up. Inside, where a fortune had momentarily gathered and where there should have been a man, was now a skinny mongrel in an otherwise empty box. The thing cowered at their gaze, its tail curled through its legs in terror.
Still groggy, Adele stared down in surprise. “Why, the poor thing. How did he get in there? Do you suppose he scared that man away?”
Guerin stared into the depths of the shop. There were the far-off strains of Polynesian music sounding in his ears, but Adele seemed to hear none of it. “Something like that,” he said. He ignored her perplexed stare to bend and pet the dog. The mutt whimpered and licked wildly at his hand.
“Do you think he’s gone?” Adele peered anxiously into the dim recesses.
Guerin stared at the terrified animal. “Yes,” he said finally, lifting the dog from the chest. “I’m sure of it.
She took his arm. “You saved my life,” she began, and Guerin had started an embarrassed shuffling when there was a sudden crash of surf roaring at them out of the depths of the shop and Adele screeched, clutching him in terror.
Guerin’s mouth fell open as a wave of golden sunlight burst upon them, washing out of the aisle, and the glitter of light reflected from the water began to dance across their faces.
They stood transfixed as the shimmering landscape lay itself open before them, paradise where once aisles of stacked junk had lain.
Adele’s lip trembled. “He shot us after all. This is how you die.”
Guerin shook his head. “I don’t think so...” He stepped forward, feeling his foot sink into sand. He held his face up to the sun and felt the warmth soak his ancient cheeks. Though the brightness blinded him, he could sense that the beach stretched endlessly, and he could hear the rustle of the tall palms just above his head. He whistled, and the dog bounded in after him.
He smiled and turned back. “It’s been here all this time, Adele.”
He felt the old promise stirring within him, in the tang of the air that filled his lungs. And yet there was this one last, important thing, without which intuition and persistence and even dreams did not matter, without which he could not go forward. He held out his hand, which glowed with the beach’s gleam.
“Come, Adele, don’t be afraid,” he said, warmed by the tropic sun. “Don’t be afraid of your dreams.”
She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the dark shop and the dark street that stretched beyond. She turned back. She met Guerin’s hopeful eyes. Finally, she took his hand and stepped forward.
Outside the shop, Jack Squires stood, listening with satisfaction to the faint sounds of crashing surf and the shrieks and whoops and yaps of creatures frolicking somewhere on a happy beach.