Free When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

and then perhaps go out for lunch, but it was clear she was primed for an outing.
    “Hi, Melody.”
    She averted her gaze and sucked her thumb.
    “You look very pretty this morning.”
    She smiled shyly.
    “I thought we’d take a drive, go to a park. How does that sound?”
    “Okay.” The shaky voice.
    “Great.” I peeked my head in the apartment. Bonita Quinn waspushing around a vacuum cleaner as if it were a wagonload of sins. She wore a blue bandana on her head and a cigarette dangled from her lips. The television was tuned in to a gospel show, but snow obscured the picture and the choir was drowned out by the sound of the vacuum.
    I touched her shoulder. She jumped.
    “I’m taking her now, okay?” I yelled over the din.
    “Sure.” When she spoke the cigarette bobbled like a trout lure in a rushing brook.
    She resumed her chore, stooping over the roaring machine and plowing it forward.
    I rejoined Melody.
    “Let’s go.”
    She walked alongside me. Midway to the parking lot a small hand slipped into mine.
    Through a series of hilltop turns and lucky detours, I connected to Ocean Avenue. I drove south, toward Santa Monica, until we reached the park at the top of the cliff overlooking Pacific Coast Highway. It was eight-thirty in the morning. The sky was clear, pebbled only with a handful of clouds that might have been as distant as Hawaii. I found a parking space on the street, directly in front of the Camera Obscura and the Senior Citizens’ Recreation Center.
    Even that early in the morning the place was bustling. Old people packed the benches and the shuffleboard court. Some of them jabbered nonstop to each other, or themselves. Other stared out at the boulevard in mute trance. Leggy girls in skimpy tops and satin shorts that covered a tenth of their gluteal regions skated by, transforming the walkways between the palms into fleshy freeways. Some of them wore stereo headsets—speeding spacewomen, with glazed, beatific expressions on their California-perfect faces.
    Japanese tourists snapped pictures, nudged each other, pointed and laughed. Shabby bums loitered against the guardrail that separated the crumbling bluff from sheer space. They smoked behind cupped hands and regarded the world with distrust and fear. A surprising number of them were young men. They all looked as if they’d crawled out of some deep, dark, unproductive mine.
    There were students reading, couples sprawled on the grass, small boys darting between the trees and a few furtive encounters that looked suspiciously like dope deals.
    Melody and I walked along the outer rim of the park, hand in hand, talking little. I offered to buy her a hot pretzel from a street vendor, but she said she wasn’t hungry. I remembered that loss of appetite wasanother side effect of Ritalin. Or maybe she’d just had a big breakfast.
    We came to the walkway that led to the pier.
    “Have you ever been on a merry-go-round?” I asked her.
    “Once. We went on a school trip to Magic Mountain. The fast rides scared me but I liked the merry-go-round.”
    “C’mon.” I pointed out toward the pier. “There’s one here. We’ll take a ride.”
    In contrast to the park, the pier was nearly deserted. There were a few men fishing here and there, mostly older blacks and Asians, but their expressions were pessimistic, their buckets empty. Dried fish scales were embedded in the aged wooden planks of the walkway, giving it a sequined effect in the morning sun. There were cracks in several of the weathered boards, and as we walked I caught glimpses of the water below slapping against the pilings and retreating with a hissed warning. In the shadow of the pier’s underbelly the water looked greenish black. There was a strong smell of creosote and salt in the air, a ripe, raw fragrance of loneliness and wasted hours.
    The pool hall where I used to hide while playing hookey had been closed down. In its place was an arcade full of electric video games. A solitary Mexican