The Shadow Hunter

knew the reason but let him tell her as they approached the noise of a crowd.
    “There are canals here,” he said. “Only a few are left, but there used to be a whole network of them, like in Venice, Italy. The place was designed as a tourist attraction back around 1900 by a guy named Kinney. He was a visionary, they say.”
    She looked at the barred windows, the trash in the street, the gang markings everywhere. “Looks like his vision came up against a brick wall called reality.”
    “I’m afraid so. Santa Monica is nicer, but this is a good place to come when you want to hang out, see the people. It’s like a street fair or a carnival.”
    “All the time?”
    “Pretty much.” He tried for levity. “LA, you know, is the city that never sleeps.”
    That’s New York
, Abby wanted to say, but didn’t.
    Hickle escorted her to the beachfront promenade, crowded with every variety of human exotica—jugglers, peddlers, tramps, street musicians, tattooed bodybuilders. Loitering under a streetlight were a trio of bony, strung-out young women, probably hookers. On the nearby bike path kids on skateboards and Rollerblades yelled at the night. Down the walkway a band of Hare Krishnas banged tambourines. Hallucinatory murals covered the high brick walls of century-old buildings, serving as a backdrop to it all.
    “See what I mean?” Hickle asked, checking nervously for her reaction. “A carnival.”
    Abby smiled. “As they used to say in the sixties, it’s a scene.”
    They strolled along the concrete concourse that locals called a boardwalk. Stores passed by, made out of converted garage stalls, displaying racks of T-shirts and sunglasses and absurd curios. Above the general din a woman’s voice became audible. She was yelling angrily in Spanish.
    “You speak the language?” Hickle asked.
    “A little. She’s talking to her boyfriend, calling him a bastard, liar, cheat. Never wants to see him again. Wants him to get lost. She says: Go to hell.” Abby shrugged. “Guess that’s the end of one romance.”
    She was fairly certain Hickle would disagree. He didn’t surprise her. “No,” he said, “she’s leading him on.”
    “Funny way to do it.”
    “It’s a game women play. They say no when they mean yes. They tell you to go away when they want you to get closer. They yell and scream, and it’s all part of the courtship dance.”
    “That ain’t
my
style.”
    “Well, no, I didn’t mean you. I was talking in generalities. For most women it’s their nature to make the guy sweat. Deny him everything, let him beg. They get a kick out of it. Women are—” He cut himself off in midsentence.
    “Are what?” Abby prompted.
    “I don’t know. Never mind. Nothing.”
    But she knew what he’d been ready to say:
Women are bitches…are cockteasers…are whores
.
    The Sand Which Is There was a large, crowded, obviously trendy establishment, not at all what Abby had expected. There was a great deal of bamboo and wicker. Illuminated glass globes hung from the rafters, casting pools of lemon-colored light on lacquered tabletops. Ceiling fans spun torpidly, wooden blades beating the air in slow-motion whirls. A long teakwood bar lay on one side of the room, offering as much bottled water as alcohol. Facing the bar were the glass doors to a patio on the boardwalk.
    The restaurant, evidently, was a hangout for aspiring stars—actors, actresses, musicians, models. Few had succeeded but all possessed the bare requisites of stardom: the telegenic face, the photogenic body. The room was a sea of lithe limbs and wild, untrammeled hair. Abby wondered how Hickle had ever come here.
    A waitress escorted them to a corner table. Abby knew it would take Hickle a while to settle down. Their early interludes of conversation, while they ordered drinks and meals, were unproductive and short-lived. When the food came, Hickle consumed it ravenously, eating fast, saying little.
    He didn’t start to relax until he was working on his second beer. Abby could tell he was unaccustomed to alcohol. His speech acquired a slight slur, his breathing became more labored, and his eyes grew heavy-lidded and vague. He was a large, clumsy man, uncomfortable in his own body, and the double dose of Heineken only made him clumsier. Twice he overturned the saltshaker, and once he dropped his knife on the floor.
    “How’s your salad?” he asked finally, with his first authentic effort at initiating a dialogue.
    “It rocks. Kale and