Chapter 132

They split a last warm forty of beer and watched two people fucking in this park under a picnic table.
Rawle could see the girl’s tits being fondled.
They walked slowly to the beach and then walked along it, west, until they reached a chain link fence, marking the end of the public section and the beginning of people’s beach-front homes.
A white metal sign bolted to the fence said ‘Public beach closed at midnight. Patrolled. Loitering $200 fine.’
“We can’t sleep on the beach I guess.”
“Not the public beach, anyway.”
Kurtis waded into the water, around the outcropped edge of the chain-link fence and crossed over into a private beach instead, and laid himself down in someone’s backyard, using his small blue knapsack for a pillow.

Rawle waded around the fence too and they layed on the sand, side by side.
Kurtis talked about how he was having trouble getting rides, hitchhiking, with such a small little knapsack and a bald head and no beard. “People don’t think I’m a hippy, so I don’t getno rides, man. I used to have hair just like you, and I got all kinds of rides. Now nothing.”
Rawle had long hair by now and a beard, and ripped clothes. He had no trouble hitchhiking. It was clear to everyone on the roads of B.C. that he was roadtripping, Jack Kerouac-style around the province, like so many others.
But seeing Kurtis standing on a highway in the middle of nowhere, shaved head, no facial hair, tanned body, tourist shop clothing, anyone would naturally assume he was a psycho. And they’d be right.
Kurtis was grinding his teeth.
“Why’d you shave your head?”
“I needed a new look.”
“Why’d you leave the Maritimes?” Rawle had to be careful not to probe too deeply. “For work?”
Kurtis laughed. “I guess you could say that. I was selling crack in Halifax, before I came here.”
“Selling crack? Really?” Rawle tried to sound impressed.
“Yeah. They had me making mad money. We had a pumphouse. And before that I went to Trinidad, man! I was working on a fishing boat with a bunch of these crazy fucking guys. We picked up like, bales of Mexican weed and machine guns, and ran it all up the other side to B.C., through the Panama Canal and shit.”
“Holy shit. That’s wicked, man. So you got dropped off out here?” Rawle was trying to think of things someone who didn’t know anything about Kurtis might say.
“No. That was a while ago. I was in back Halifax. Sort of working for the Gypsies, then they selected me for this initiation. Well, it was a cop who selected me, but the cop works for the Gypsies. That’s why I’m out here. I’m on an initiation test.”
Rawle looked over at him, with genuine curiosity. “There’s a test?”
Kurtis smiled. “Of course. The prospect test. It takes a year initiation from hangaround to prospect, into the Gypsies. I gotta do it if I wanna work for them, for real.”
Rawle sat up on his elbow and rolled a smoke, fascinated. “What do you mean initiation? What do you have to do?”
Kurtis was talking matter-of-factly. “Well, you probably know, I mean… Basically, I got to travel all over with no money and no possessions and survive on my skills. Then you got to do a bunch of jobs for full-patch members and stuff like that.”
“What kind of jobs? Do you have to kill anybody?”
Kurtis laughed. “C’mon man. If you didn’t know what I was talking about you wouldn’t ask me.” He wouldn’t elabourate.
Rawle tried again. “C’mon. Have you ever killed anybody?”
Kurtis looked angry at the question. He laid his head down in the sand. “You don’t ask somebody about that. Anyone who’s done that, you don’t ask them to talk about it.”
Rawle didn’t say anything. His heart was pounded in his chest, making a sickening thud.
“You do what you have to do,” Kurtis added, speaking in a low voice. “Everything I did was self-defense.”

Rawle pretended to fall asleep after that. He thought about the arrogance of what Kurtis had said, and struggled to keep a belching fire buried in his chest. He had heartburn, he was so angry.
He couldn’t believe he was this close to Jack and Tee’s killer and doing nothing about it. Lying on the beach. Powerless.
He thought about waiting until Kurtis was asleep, and then bashing his skull in with a rock. He thought about exactly how he would do it, for close to an hour.