D is for Deadbeat (Kinsey Millhone 4)

In the meantime, I thought I'd better head down to the beach and look for my scruffy drifter friend. I'd seen him that morning near the public restrooms when I did my run. I tore the sheet off the legal pad and folded it, shoving it in my pocket as I grabbed up my handbag, locked the office, and headed down the back stairs to my car.

It was now nearly quarter to five, getting chillier by the minute, but at least it was dry temporarily. I cruised along Cabana, peering from my car window. There weren't many people at the beach. A couple of power walkers. A guy with a dog. The boulevard seemed deserted. I doubled back, heading toward my place, passing the wharf on the left and the string of motels across the street. Just beyond the boat launch and kiddie pool, I pulled up at a stoplight, scanning the park on the opposite corner. I could see the band shell where bums sometimes took refuge, but I didn't see any squatters. Where were all the transients?

I circled back, passing the train station. It occurred to me that this was probably the bums' dinner hour. I cut over another block and a half and sure enough, there they were-fifty or so on a quick count, lined up outside the Redemption Mission. The fellow I was looking for was near the end of the line, along with his pal. There was no sign of their shopping carts, which I thought of as a matched set of movable metal luggage, the derelict's Louis Vuitton. I slowed, looking for a place to park.

The neighborhood is characterized by light industry, factory outlets, welding shops, and quonset huts where auto body repair work is done. I found a parking spot in front of a place that made custom surfboards. I pulled in, watching in my rearview mirror until the group outside the mission had shuffled in. I locked the car then and crossed the street.

The Redemption Mission looks like it's made out of papier-mache, a two-story oblong of fakey-looking field-stone, with ivy clinging to one end. The roofline is as crenellated as a castle's, the "moat" a wide band of asphalt paving. City fire codes apparently necessitated the addition of fire escapes that angle down the building now on all sides, looking somehow more perilous than the possibility of fire. The property is considered prime real estate and I wondered who would house the poor if the bed space were bought out from under them. For most of the year, the climate in this part of California is mild enough to allow the drifters to sleep outdoors, which they seem to prefer. Seasonally, however, there are weeks of rain… even occasionally someone with a butcher knife intent on slitting their throats. The mission offers safe sleeping for the night, three hot meals a day, and a place to roll cigarettes out of the wind.

I picked up cooking odors as I approached-bulk hamburger with chili seasoning. As usual, I couldn't remember eating lunch and here it was nearly dinnertime again. The sign outside indicated prayer services at 7:00 every night and Hot Showers amp; Shaves on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. I stepped inside. The walls were painted glossy beige on top and shoe brown below. Hand-lettered signs pointed me to the dining room and chapel on the left. I followed the low murmur of conversation and the clatter of silverware. On the right, through a doorway, I spotted the dining room-long metal folding tables covered with paper, metal folding chairs filled with men. Nobody paid any attention to me. I could see serving plates stacked high with soft white bread, bowls of applesauce sprinkled with cinnamon, salads of iceberg lettuce that glistened with bottled dressing. The table seated twenty, already bent to their evening meal of chili served over elbow macaroni. Another fifteen or twenty men sat obediently in the "chapel" to my left, which consisted of a lectern, an old upright piano, orange molded plastic chairs, and an imposing cross on the wall.

The scruffy drifter I was looking for sat in the back row with his friend. Slogans everywhere assured me that Jesus cared, and that certainly seemed true here. What impressed me most was the fact that Redemption Mission (according to the wall signs) was supported by private donations, with little or no connection to the government.

"May I help you?"

The man who'd approached me was in his sixties, heavyset, clean-shaven, wearing a red short-sleeved cotton shirt and baggy pants. He had one normal arm and one that ended at the elbow in a twist of flesh like the curled top of a Mr. Softee ice cream cone. I wanted to introduce myself, shaking hands, but the stump was on the right and I didn't have the nerve. I took out a, business card instead, handing it to him.

"I wonder if I might have a word with one of your clients?"

His beefy brow furrowed. "What's this about?" "Well, I think he retrieved some articles I'm looking for from a trash can at the beach. I want to find out if he still has them in his cart. It will only take a minute." "You see him in here?"