Then Frank turns back to Crossbow Guy. “Just give him his fish. There’s a lot more in the ocean.”

Crossbow Guy isn’t having it. He glares down at Frank, and one look at his eyes tells Frank that the guy is a tweeker. Great, Frank thinks, a head full of crystal meth will make him alot easier to deal with.

“These fucking gooks are takingall the fish,” Crossbow Guy says, reloading the crossbow.

Now Vietnamese Guy may not speak a lot of English, but from the look in his eye, he knows the wordgook. Probably heard it a lot, Frank thinks, embarrassed.

“Hey, East County,” Frank says. “We don’t talk that way here.”

Crossbow Guy starts to argue and then he stops.

Just stops.

He might be a moron, but he isn’t blind, and he sees something in Frank’s eyes that just makes him shut his mouth.

Frank looks square into Crossbow Guy’s methed-up eyes and says, “I don’t want to see you on my pier again. Find a different place to fish.”

Crossbow Guy’s in no mood to argue anymore. He takes his fish and starts the long walk back down the pier.

Frank goes back to the bait shack to change into his wet suit.

3

“Hey, if it isn’t the dispenser of justice!”

Dave Hansen grins at Frank from his board out in the lineup. Frank paddles up and pulls alongside. “You heard about that already?”

“Small town, Ocean Beach,” Dave says. He stares pointedly at Frank’s longboard, an old nine-foot-three-inch Baltierra. “Is that a surfboard or an ocean liner? You got stewards on that thing? I’d like to sign up for the second sitting, please.”

“Big waves, big board,” Frank says.

“They’ll be even bigger tomorrow when we talk about them,” Dave says.