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Oceanside. Susan watched him go,
while Daffy waited a little way away, an exaggeratedly sceptical expression
already prepared on her face.
    ‘What a bull artist,’ said Daffy.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Susan,
without even noticing the special face that Daffy had put on for her.
    ‘You don’t mean to say that you fell
for all that stuff about death and things? My God, Suze, he wants your body,
that’s all.’
    ‘Don’t be so ridiculous. He doesn’t
even know me.’
    ‘Oh, no? Well, he knows your name,
and he knows that your parents died in a car-crash, and he knows that you were
down on the beach this morning, and he knows that you live with your
grandparents, and he knows what time you’re supposed to be home, and he also
seems to know that your personal favourite restaurant is Bully’s North. Now, if
he’s telling the truth, he only got your name from the cops about an hour ago.
How did he find all that out in just
one hour?’
    Susan looked towards the ocean,
glittering between the buildings on the opposite side of the road like smashed
diamonds. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
    ‘Well, don’t you care! I think it’s scary.’
    ‘No,’ said Susan, and in her own
mind she was quite sure of this. ‘It’s not scary. But something’s going to
happen. Something’s going to change. I can feel it.’
    ‘Brother!’ said Daffy, shaking her
head. ‘The lightning bolt of true love has struck you straight in the brain.’
    ‘No,’ Susan emphatically. ‘It’s more
important than love.’

CHAPTER
THREE
    G il swerved his Mustang into the
parking-lot across the street from his father’s Mini-Market, gunned the engine,
and then switched it off. He sat where he was for a moment or two, thinking,
and then he hopped out of the driver’s seat, and crossed over Highway 101,
jingling his car-keys in his hand.
    The Mini-Market was a single-fronted
store, wedged between the Mandarin Coast Chinese restaurant and Freddy’s
Instant Print Service. It was the kind of store that sold absolutely everything
from ice-cream to cans of Chef Boy-ar-dee Spaghetti Bolognese to shoe-laces to
golfing hats to Jewish get-well cards. It had a wonderful aroma to it; an aroma
of feta cheese and Hungarian salami and penny candy and Superman comics. Gil’s
father was a qualified engineer, and could have brought in four times as much
money designing braking systems for hospital trolleys and hydraulic controls
for locomotives, but he had dreamed about owning a store like the Mini-Market
ever since he was a kid, and he wouldn’t have lived out his life any other way.
    Gil’s mother used to say that he
must have had a deprived childhood, to want to run a general store, but she
knew how happy he was, and that made her happy, too.
    She stocked the shelves and kept the
store clean and even made quiches for the deli counter. Along the strip, Gil’s
father and mother were known as the ‘M&Ms’ – Mr and Mrs Miller.
    Gil’s father was standing behind the
checkout, packing a week’s groceries for old Mrs Van Buren who lived on the
other side of the Santa Fe Railroad tracks. He was tall and big boned, like
Gil, with wiry grey hair and one of those husky-looking outdoor faces like
Lloyd Bridges. He wore a striped blue storekeeper’s apron with his name sewn on
to the pocket, Phil.
    ‘Hi, Dad,’ said Gil.
    ‘How’re you doing?’ his father asked
him. ‘You’re back early.’
    ‘I didn’t feel like swimming, that’s
all.’
    ‘They closed off the beach, somebody
told me,’ said Phil Miller. ‘Did you want the barbecue-flavoured beans, Mrs Van
Buren, or the vegetarian?’
    ‘Yeah, I think somebody drowned or
something,’ Gil remarked.
    ‘There were ambulances and police
cars coming in from all directions,’ said Phil, reaching down for another paper
sack, and opening it out.
    ‘I heard that it was a girl,’ put in
Mrs Van Buren. ‘Some girl, drowned on the beach.
    Nude, that’s what I heard.’
    ‘Taking dope, if you