Body Copy - Michael Craven [1]
Still down on the ground, he looked over at his ancient English bulldog, Lyle, sleeping in the corner. Back in the Michael Craven
old days, Lyle would come over and lick his face when he did push-ups, but not any more. Nowadays, Lyle would just look at him then go right back to sleep. He wouldn’t even consider trotting over.
“Where’s the love?” Tremaine would say.
But Tremaine knew Lyle was just old, a lot older than thirty-nine. At least on the dog scale.
Tremaine was in a good mood despite the sting in his head. He was giving himself a nice birthday present. Real nice. Two months in Australia surfing the best waves the continent had to offer. He needed it, too. He’d worked a lot of cases in a row, and he was tired and ready to get out of L.A. for a while.
Nice thing about being a private investigator, you could usually get out of town when you needed to. When business was slow or when he wanted to clear his head, Tremaine would hop in his car and drive down or up the coast—sometimes just for the day—and surf the California spots he’d been surfing all his life. But not this time. This time he was headed across the globe to ride waves he hadn’t seen since he quit surfing professionally.
How long had it been, man, fifteen years?
Tremaine, up on his feet now, looked down at his big surfboard bag. All packed. Clothes and equipment for two months, and three different surfboards. All he had to do was drop Lyle at the neighbor’s and head to the airport.
But not yet. It was only 9:00 a.m. He had some time to kill before his flight. So he grabbed the New York Times—the Gray Lady—and a cup of coffee and walked outside. He then climbed the ladder on the side of his trailer, coffee in one hand, paper under his arm.
2
B O D Y C O P Y
Tremaine stood on the roof of his trailer looking due west. He had a clear view of the ocean, just one of the perks of living in the Old Colony Trailer Park in Malibu, California. Sure, you could also see a McDonald’s and a row of Dumpsters just off the Pacific Coast Highway, but boy, could you see that ocean. The Pacific. Big—giant—
and right there. Just down the hill and across the two-lane highway. The vast, blue-green mass was practically his backyard.
Tremaine had a couple chairs and a table set up on the roof, so he sat down and got to the paper. First up, the front page. Then sports, then the arts.
It was quiet. The wind rustled his paper a little, and a car or two zoomed by down on the PCH, but for the most part it was quiet. Nice and quiet. Just Tremaine, his paper, his coffee, and his slowly disappearing hangover. Then that quiet was broken.
A black Volvo station wagon pulled up next to his trailer and parked in the guest spot. A young woman got out of the car and looked up on the roof at Tremaine, who was looking at her.
“Excuse me, I hope this isn’t a bad time. I’m looking for Donald Tremaine. Are you Donald Tremaine?”
Tremaine looked at the stranger. A brunette, early to mid-thirties, a shadow across her face as she shielded her eyes from the sun. And, Tremaine couldn’t help but notice, attractive. Quite attractive. He was a P.I.; he noticed these things.
“Shit,” he said under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
Tremaine thinking, this is someone coming to me with 3
Michael Craven
a case. It sure as hell wasn’t a groupie from his old surf tour days. The random groupies had stopped showing up a while ago. Shame about that. No, this had to be a case. Tremaine normally didn’t turn down cases, almost never, but he was going on vacation no matter what. Yes, she was attractive, but that absolutely did not matter. That wouldn’t affect his decision. It wouldn’t.
Tremaine said, “Yes, I’m Donald Tremaine. How can I help you?”
“I wanted to talk to you about hiring you. Should I come up?” she said.
Tremaine liked that she wasn’t afraid to do business on the roof of a trailer. But it might be a little more professional to talk inside, even though he wasn’t taking the case.
He stood up and said, “I’ll come down.”
4
C H A P T E R 2
Standing in front of the