CHAPTER 21

.21.

Birdie didn’t just sound like Grandma O’Neill. She cooked like her. Dinner was a thick, creamy clam chowder, heavy on the black pepper and served with crusty sourdough bread that tasted of yeast and sea salt. This kind of food didn’t ask for our opinion; it just moved in and started fixing the damage the day had done.

We ate in the living room, perched on faux-Spanish chairs that were more about “Old California” theatrics than comfort. The heavy oak table was positioned in front of the wide windows, giving us a front-row seat to the Pacific. Birdie had retreated to the kitchen with the quiet efficiency of a ghost who still had work to do, leaving Jimmy and me alone with the sound of our spoons against the pottery.

Jimmy was eating, which was a good sign. Still, he was doing it with a glass of whiskey on the side, and a thousand-yard stare that suggested he was tasting the ash of his father’s funeral rather than the cream of the chowder. What had happened since San Pedro was visible in the set of his shoulders. He looked like a man who had tried to outrun a storm only to find the storm was waiting for him in his own driveway.

“It’s a warm night,” I said, breaking the silence that was beginning to feel like a third guest at the table. “Let’s walk. Clear the lungs.”

Jimmy didn’t argue. He just finished his whiskey, wiped his mouth, and stood up.

The beach at Malibu was a silver-and-ink sketch under the first-quarter moon. The light was thin, just enough to catch the white foam of the breakers but not enough to reveal the true depth of the dark water. The air was soft, carrying the scent of salt and drying kelp. The rest of the Colony looked distant enough.

We walked along the damp sand, our shoes making rhythmic, crunching sounds that felt too loud in the quiet. I waited until we were a good distance from the house before I brought it up.

“Your uncle,” I started, keeping my eyes on the horizon. “He knew my name, Jimmy. Not just Horatio. He knew ‘Stingray.’ He knew about my dad, the shack, the university. He’s had someone watching us in Hawaii. A PI.”

I expected Jimmy to stop, to show a flash of that Hawaiian spirit he had grabbed on the island, or at least a spark of surprise. Instead, he just kept walking, his hands deep in the pockets of his mourning wool.

“Ron Montano,” Jimmy said, his voice flat and untroubled. “He’s a good guy, Ray. Don’t worry about Montano.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, the cold Pacific foam licking at my soles. “Montano? You knew? You knew there was a shadow on us for three months and you didn’t think to mention it?”

Jimmy turned back to look at me. The moonlight caught the pale blue of his eyes. He looked genuinely puzzled, as if I were complaining about the color of the sky. “I talked to him a few times in Waikiki. He was staying at the Moana. He was just doing his job, Ray. Father liked to keep a record of everything. I didn’t mention it, because it wasn’t… relevant.”

“Not relevant?” The word tasted like rot in my mouth. “A man was spying on me. On my family. He was reporting back to that stone fortress in the Hills, and you didn’t think I had a right to know?”

Jimmy shrugged, a casual movement of his shoulders that felt like a slap. “It was just a PI, Ray. Everyone has them. It’s just how things are done. I didn’t think it mattered to you.”

I stared at him, frustration rising in my throat. I wanted to tell him that for people who aren’t “Pastry Princes,” privacy isn’t a luxury; it’s a boundary we fight for. I wanted to point out that I had given him my Hā, my breath. In return, he’d let me be a character in a report sent to his father, and which was now the possession of the man who had just stolen his kingdom.

But I looked at the way he stood there – half-shadowed, orphaned, and currently being replaced by his own uncle – and the words died. Three months of surfing and eating saimin at a shack hadn’t changed the fundamental architecture of his soul. Twenty years of privilege and “the way things are done” were built into his bones like the stone of the Karlsen house. To him, being watched was as natural as being served coffee and food he didn’t know how to make.

“Right,” I said, my voice turning into a flat, hard-boiled rasp. “Just a PI.”

“Exactly,” Jimmy said, seeming relieved that I’d seen sense. He turned back toward the dark expanse of the ocean. “Let’s head back. I’m tired, Ray. Tired of everything.”

We walked back to the Stella Maris in a silence that felt different than before. It wasn’t the silence of friends; it was the silence of two men realizing they were speaking different languages. I looked at the back of his blonde head and felt the dark water rising again.

I’d saved him from the Pacific, but as we approached the house, I realized that Jimmy didn’t even know he was still drowning. He thought the shadow in Waikiki was just part of the scenery. I knew better. In my world, a shadow only exists because something is blocking the light.