“You mean it would be a scandal,” said Ben.

  “That too,” Hudson agreed. “Although I don’t know why. Lots of writers had affairs, with men and women both.”

  “Still,” Ben said, and although he didn’t add anything else, Hudson knew what he meant. There was a mystique that surrounded John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts. They were the quintessential buddy team, reckless and without fear. They were hard drinkers and harder workers, paragons of the romantic scholar adventurers. Suggesting that they might also have been bedmates would, for many of their admirers, be too much to imagine.

  “I just want to know,” Hudson said. “That’s all. I just want to know.”

  “You might never get that answer,” Ben told him.

  “But you don’t think it’s crazy?” asked Hudson hopefully.

  “No,” Ben said. “I don’t think it’s crazy.”

  “Did Steinbeck see him before he died?” asked Hudson.

  “He couldn’t get here in time,” said Ben. “He was living in New York then. You know that when he got back, his wife told him she wanted a divorce. He moved back here to Pacific Grove.”

  “To be near Ricketts,” Hudson suggested.

  “Maybe,” said Ben.

  “General opinion is that his writing was never the same after Ricketts died,” said Hudson. “Whatever inspiration he got from him, it left with Ricketts.”

  The sun, almost gone, was now nothing but a thin glow on the horizon. The streetlights had come on, their artificial shine harsh and cold. The bust, caught in a circle of light, looked at Hudson and Ben in bemused silence. Hudson knew that, halfway down Cannery Row, Steinbeck was doing the same.

  “Would you like to read some of the manuscript?” Hudson asked Ben. He couldn’t believe he was making the offer. No one except him and Paul had read it, at least no one since it had come into their possession. He hadn’t even let Marty see it. Hell, Marty didn’t even know what it was about. But he’d told Ben everything.

  “I would,” said Ben.

  They left, walking to Hudson’s temporary home. Inside, he turned on a light in the living room while Ben took a seat on the couch. Then, going into the other room, he returned with the manuscript. He started to hand it to Ben.

  “Why don’t you read me your favorite part,” Ben suggested.

  Hudson sat down. “Okay,” he said. “Let me think about what that is. They’re all good.” He leafed through the pages, looking for something that wouldn’t require a lot of explanation. Finally, he settled on one. Sitting back, he cleared his throat and started to read.

  Tom was flirting with the girl. He touched her arm as he talked to her, and she laughed and didn’t pull away. Charlie, watching them, found himself hating them both. He picked up his glass, wet with sweat in the hot air of the bar, and drank half of it.

  “We oughta be going,” he said, loud enough for Tom to hear him.

  “Who are you talkin’ to?” asked Tom, pretending to look around for the source of the voice.

  The girl laughed, too loudly, and looked at Charlie. “Who’s that?” she asked. “Your mother?” She laughed again, and Tom laughed with her.

  “Yeah,” he said, “that’s my old dear mother.” He pinched Charlie’s cheek. “Ain’t that right, Ma?”

  “We oughta be going,” Charlie said again. He didn’t look at Tom or the girl.

  “In a while,” said Tom. “I’m havin’ myself a nice chat with Myrna here.”

  “My name’s Rita,” said the girl. “Why do you keep calling me Myrna?”

  “Cause you look like Myrna Loy,” Tom told her. He kissed her mouth. “Just like a movie star,” he added as the girl blushed.

  Charlie took a cigarette from his pocket and struck a match on his thumbnail. He inhaled and let the smoke burn his lungs until he couldn’t stand it any longer. Then he let it go, watching it float away from him.

  “Hey,” the girl said, “You got another one a those?”

  Charlie looked at her. “No,” he said. “Just this one.”

  “Give it to Myrna here,” Tom told him.

  “No,” Charlie said.

  Tom turned to him. “What’s the matter with you tonight?” he asked. “You been mean ever since we got here.”

  Charlie didn’t answer him. He kept smoking, looking at his glass of beer and pretending he wasn’t there. Tom punched him in the arm. “Hey,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” the girl said. “Let him alone.”

  “I want to know how come he’s bein’ so mean,” said Tom angrily. “And he’s gonna tell me.”

  Charlie continued to ignore him. He thought about the dog. He’d named it Lucky. Mrs. Ring had let him keep it, and now the dog slept with him every night and waited for him at the window every afternoon. Charlie had given him a bath, and now his fur was soft and smelled like soap. At night, Charlie liked to put his face in the soft fur and go to sleep with his arm around the dog.

  Something hit him in the side of the head, and he forgot about the dog. Tom was looking at him. It was his hand that had knocked Charlie in the head. Charlie narrowed his eyes and tightened his hand around the glass of beer.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Tom demanded of him. “You gone dumb or somethin’?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “Just don’t want to give that whore my cigarette.”

  The girl, incensed, gave a little shriek of disbelief. “What did he call me?” she said, her voice high and tight.

  “You apologize,” Tom ordered Charlie. “You tell her yer sorry.”

  “I ain’t telling her nothin’.” Charlie said. “Goddamn whore.”

  The girl shrieked again. This time she ran at Charlie, battering him with her small fists. They fell on him no harder than rain, but her voice was filled with fury.

  “You son-of-a-bitch!” she yelled. “You goddamn son-of-a-bitch!”

  Charlie pushed her away. She fell on the floor, her legs splayed out and her hair coming undone from its pins. She began to cry.

  Tom looked down at the girl, then at Charlie. “Why you,” he said, and his fist sailed toward Charlie’s face. Charlie took it on the chin, his head rocking to the side. There was pain in his lip, and when he put his fingers to his mouth they came away red with blood.

  Tom hit him again before he could think what to do. This time the blow was to his stomach. The wind went out of him, and he knocked over the glass of beer. It splashed on the floor, wetting the girl’s legs and making her renew her yells. He wished somebody would make her shut up. She was giving him a headache.

  “Come on,” Tom was yelling at him. “Come on, you bastard.”

  Charlie turned to face him. This time when Tom came at him, he hit back. His clenched fist met Tom’s face, and Tom staggered back. Now there was blood on his face too. He howled in pain and ran at Charlie.

  Then they were on the floor, wrestling. Tom was on top of Charlie, trying to choke him. Then they were rolling, and Charlie smelled spilled beer and peanuts. He saw boots and high-heeled shoes, heard the clamor of voices.

  Tom’s face was close to his now. He smelled his breath, foul and hot. He held Tom in his arms, pressing him against his chest. Tom, trying to get free, was bucking his hips back and forth, but Charlie was stronger, and he held tight.

  “Let me go!” Tom yelled into Charlie’s face. “Let me go, you son-of-a-bitch!”

  But Charlie couldn’t. He kept holding onto Tom, holding him in his arms and feeling him struggle. He wanted to tell him that it was all right. He wanted to press his face into Tom’s hair and smell soap. He wanted to go to sleep like this and never wake up.

  Hudson stopped reading and looked at Ben. “That’s it?” Ben said. “What happens?”

  “That’s where the manuscript ends,” Hudson answered.

  “So he never tells Tom what he’s feeling?” Ben asked.

  “No,” Hudson said. “He never does.”

  Ben put his hands behind his head. “Which one do you think is Steinbeck?” he said.

  “I don’t think it’s that clear-cut,” said Hudson. “I think it’s more metaphoric. Two men, unable to express themselves. Women coming between them. There are parallels.”

  “It certainly sounds like Steinbeck,” Ben remarked. “The writing, I mean. Can you tell me where you got it?”

  Hudson felt the familiar prickliness of suspicion rise on his skin. Then, in an instant, it disappeared. “Paul found it,” he said.

  “Your lover,” Ben said. “The one who died.”

  Hudson nodded. “Paul was a huge Steinbeck fan,” he said. “In fact, he’s the one who got me so interested in him. I took one of Paul’s classes.”

  “He was your professor?” Ben asked, looking surprised.

  “Yes,” said Hudson. “A number of years ago, he bought a couple of boxes of Steinbeck memorabilia from a bookstore owner who was going out of business. There were all kinds of things in there. Mostly it was typescripts of short stories and magazine articles—nothing too exciting. But then there was this manuscript.” He held the pages up. “This was the real find.”

  “But he died before he could prove that it’s authentic,” said Ben. “Poor guy.”

  Hudson set the manuscript on the coffee table. “Not exactly,” he said nervously. “I didn’t tell you the whole truth about that.”

  Ben eyed him curiously. “Why?” he asked. “You didn’t have something to do with it, did you?” His voice was light, and Hudson knew he was making a joke to try to lighten the situation.

  “That depends who you ask,” Hudson replied. He looked at Ben. “Me or his wife.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “Could I go to work with you today?”

  Ben looked up from his pancakes. Caddie was poking at hers, not looking at him. Did I hear her correctly? he wondered. “Come to work with me?” he said.

  “Unless you don’t want me to,” Caddie said quickly. “I just thought it might be, I don’t know, interesting.”

  “Of course,” Ben said quickly, as if she might change her mind if he gave her too much time to think about it. “I’m not sure how interesting it will be for you, though.”

  “I don’t know,” Caddie said. “I’ve gotten a little more into marine biology since I started ...” She stopped in midsentence.

  “Since?” Ben prodded.

  “Since I started reading some of the books you have in your office,” said Caddie. “I finished the books I brought, so I looked at yours. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine,” Ben said. “Is there anything in particular you found interesting?”

  Caddie shrugged. “Nudibranchs, I guess,” she said.

  Ben brightened. “You know you’re named for one,” he said.

  “I know,” Caddie said.

  Ben set his fork down. “I suppose that’s not something a girl gets very excited about,” he said.

  “Not really,” agreed Caddie. “I guess there are worse things you could have named me after, though.”

  “Your mother wanted to call you Emma,” Ben told her.

  Caddie made a face. “Please,” she said. “Emma sounds like a librarian.”

  “That’s what I told her too,” said Ben.

  They finished breakfast and took Ben’s car to the lab. Inside, Ben showed Caddie to his office, where she dropped off her backpack. This feels like “Take Your Daughter to Work” day, she thought, a little uneasily. She’d noticed people watching her and her father as they came in, and it made her feel uncomfortable, as if she were a new specimen or something.

  As she was waiting for her father to tell her what they were going to do, a woman walked in. Small and dark complected, she glanced at Caddie and then looked away, apparently not interested.

  “Dr. Patcher,” Ben said without enthusiasm. “May I introduce you to my daughter, Caddie?”

  The woman looked at Caddie again. This time, Caddie saw genuine surprise on her face. She held out her hand, and the woman took it. “Nice to meet you,” Caddie said.

  Dr. Patcher, still apparently in shock, said, “You’re Ben’s daughter?”

  Caddie nodded. “Mmm-hmm,” she said.

  “Caddie came to see what we do around here,” said Ben. “I warned her that it might not be very exciting.”

  Dr. Patcher made a sound that could have meant anything. She kept stealing glances at Caddie as she said, “I just wanted to drop these intern reports off.”

  “Thank you,” said Ben, taking them from her. “I hope you’re finding them useful.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Patcher. She turned and left quickly.

  “She’s a little squirrely,” Caddie commented when she was gone.

  “She’s into salps,” her father said, as if that explained everything. Strangely enough, even though she hadn’t the faintest clue what a salp was, Caddie knew just what he meant, and she laughed.

  “Are we interrupting?”

  Caddie turned to see Angela standing in the doorway. She had a boy with her, a thin, nervous boy who looked at Caddie and gave her a quick smile before looking away. Caddie noticed that he had a bad case of acne and felt sorry for him.

  “No,” her father said. “I just brought Caddie to work today. I thought maybe we could find something only marginally uninteresting for her to do.”

  Angela looked at the boy beside her. “Maybe she could help Rhodes download and identify the images from our last dive,” she suggested. She looked at Caddie. “Do you know anything about digital cameras?”

  “A little,” Caddie said. “Enough to download photos.”

  “Great,” Angela said. “Rhodes can show you what to do, if you’re up for it.”

  “Why not?” said Caddie. She looked at Rhodes, who gave another queer smile and said, “It’s this way” as he turned around and left the office.

  Caddie followed him down a hall and into a small room containing several long tables on which sat four computers.

  “Are you familiar with Macs?” Rhodes asked her.

  “I have one at home,” said Caddie.

  Rhodes sat down at one of the tables. Beside the computer was a small pile of memory cards. He picked one up and inserted it into a slot on the Mac’s front panel. On the screen, dozens of tiny thumbnails bloomed, each one a miniature image of a larger file. Rhodes clicked on one, and it ballooned to fill most of the screen.

  “Triopha catalinae,” Rhodes announced.

  Caddie looked at the creature in the picture. Its sluglike white body was covered with bright orange growths that reminded her of the spots on Rhodes’s face.

  “Most people call it the clown nudibranch,” Rhodes said. “I guess because its tubercles look like pom-poms.”

  “It’s pretty,” Caddie said.

  “Isn’t it?” Rhodes agreed. Caddie saw him looking at the nudibranch with undisguised admiration. The nervousness he’d displayed earlier was gone.

  “So, what do we do with these?” Caddie asked him.

  “Oh,” Rhodes replied, sounding uneasy again. “We identify them and name the files.” He pointed to a stack of books on the table. “Those are the ID books. It’s pretty easy; you just find the nudie and name it. Although, some of them look alike, so you have to be careful.”

  “In other words, we get to look at nudie pictures,” Caddie joked. “How scandalous.”

  Rhodes didn’t laugh. Caddie, leafing through a book, looked at him. “Nudie photos,” she repeated. “As in nude photos?”

  This time Rhodes blushed. “Now I get it,” he said.

  Caddie picked up a flashcard and inserted it into her computer. The thumbnails appeared as the card downloaded, and she looked at all of the different nudibranchs captured within them. “I had no idea there were so many,” she said.

  “And these are just the ones in Monterey,” said Rhodes. “Pretty much every place has different ones.”

  “What’s this one?” Caddie asked, pointing to a picture she’d just opened.

  Rhodes looked over at her screen. “Cadlina luteomarginata,” he said. “I think. It might be Acanthodoris hudsoni. I get them confused sometimes. Check in the Behrens book over there.”

  Caddie looked at the nudibranch. Cadlina, she thought. I wonder if that’s the one I’m named after. She found the book Rhodes had told her to look in, a thin purple paperback called Pacific Coast Nudibranchs. It was filled with pictures of nudibranchs. Caddie turned the pages until she found one that looked like hers. Round and flat, it was white with yellow around the edge. Cadlina luteomarginata, she read. It definitely looked like the one in the picture. Just to be sure, she looked up the other one Rhodes had mentioned. It was similar, but it also had yellow on its—she read the description beside the photo—on its papillae.

  “Why do all of their parts sound like venereal diseases?” she said.

  Rhodes looked at her. “What?” he said.

  “Their parts,” said Caddie. “Papillae. Cerata. Clavus.” She read from the book. “Caryophyllidia. Come on. They sound like they need to go to a clinic.”

  “Wait ’til you get to the penile stylet,” said Rhodes. “It has a chitinous hook.”

  Caddie grimaced. “Ouch,” she said, and they both laughed.

  She went back to the picture of the nudibranch. It was pretty, in a weird sea creature kind of way. She looked it up in the book again. There were two other Cadlinas there as well. She would have to ask her father which one was her namesake. She hoped it was the one with black horns and yellow spots. It was the prettiest.

  She typed a name for the picture, then went on to the next one. Sometimes there was more than one picture of the same nudibranch, but for the most part every image was of something she’d never seen before. She found herself turning to the guidebook regularly, and from time to time she couldn’t ID one of the creatures at all and had to ask Rhodes for help.

  “How’d you end up here?” she asked him after they’d been working in silence for a while.

  “My parents gave me a choice between this and baseball camp,” he told her. “How about you?”

  “I’m on work release,” said Caddie. Then, remembering that Rhodes was apparently humor challenged, she added quickly, “I’m staying with my dad for the summer.”