Free Rubicon Beach by Steve Erickson

other houses; for a moment the water ignited from the sun as if someone had set a match to it and then went dark, a new fog drifting in and hanging on the fences like foliage. Creaking wooden bridges swung in the wind over the water between the houses. Three or four small boats were tied to shambling makeshift docks and someone was moving from dock to dock lighting the lanterns on the posts. After a while I could make out lights all over the lagoon, lanterns and gas lamps and a few fires.
    I came down from the veranda and walked back out where the boat had left me off. The woman who’d been lighting the dock lanterns was coming my way in one of the boats, a torch burning in her hand. She sailed past me and then beached about fifteen yards away, where I could now see another dock in front of another house. We were separated by a small slough. She lit the lantern and got back in the boat, and I waited for her to see me. I called to her and she looked at me across the water. Who’s that? she said in a voice that didn’t carry very well. I’m from the city, I called. She said nothing but the boat came in my direction. The boat had no motor or oars; I couldn’t figure how she got it going where she wanted. About five feet from me I could make her out: she was blond with a small face and slight body, and she wore loose casual clothes, jeans and a blowzy top. She could have been any age between twelve and twenty-five. What are you doing here? she said when the tip of the boat touched the shore. I started to pull the boat up but she said, Leave it. She sat in the boat with the fire of the torch burning by her face, looking at me. There’s nothing over here, she said. “I’m looking for someone in particular,” I said. “About your height. Black hair, she might be Latin. She may not speak English.”
    “Listen,” the girl said laughing, “I can manage the black hair and some words so nice you’d never know they meant nothing at all.” She said, “But I have the torch shift tonight and I don’t guess improvisation’s what you had in mind. Get in and we’ll see who we can find. Like I said, there’s nothing here anyway.” I got in the boat. I pushed off from shore and she watched me as we seemed to drift in exactly the direction she wanted to go. “You must be very undercover,” she said. “Whoever dropped you off out here didn’t want to be seen by nobody.”
    “I’m not a cop,” I said.
    She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to anyone here if you are. Actually I assumed the opposite.”
    “What?”
    “Forget it. Your business with cops is your business.” The mansions of the park were gliding past us now, becoming more and more colossal. I could see into the houses where the tide flooded the lobbies and lights shone on the water lapping against the inner marble stairs. The first steps were covered with sea debris and the original drapes on the upper landings were rotted by the saIt air, hanging in tatters and bleached in color. Every once in a while we could hear low laughter in the dark and sometimes arguing. In the distance on the southern shore of the main canal was a huge structure sitting alone on a knoll. “That’s the old hotel isn’t it?” I said.
    “Yes.”
    I watched for a while, then I said to her, “Do you know the person I’m talking about?”
    “There’s a woman named Lucia, up near the next river.”
    “You think it’s her?”
    “It might be her.”
    “Are we going that way?”
    “Eventually. I have another live or six lights.”
    I looked around me. “Can I ask you something?”
    She became impatient. “Not why am I doing this for a living.”
    “Two questions, actually.”
    We pulled into another dock and she leaned across the boat, bringing the torch within inches of me. With one sweeping motion she lit the lantern. “Well?” she said.
    “How do you direct the boat?”
    “I know the water,” she said.
    “Were you born in America?” I said.
    “No.” She waited.