He remembered then, too, his promise to see about getting Hudson a look inside Ed Ricketts’s lab. He would give Al Blackmore a call in the morning, see what he could do. He’d given Al some abalone last year, so he owed him a favor. If anyone could get them behind that plywood fence, it was Al. He knew everyone in Monterey.

Glancing at his calendar, Ben saw that he had a dive scheduled for the next morning. Suddenly he regretted the empty wine bottle. While the more potentially troublesome aspects of having alcohol in his system would more than have worn off by the time he got into the water, he was going to have a whale of a headache. He tried not to think about it as he got up and went to the bathroom in search of aspirin. If he got to bed now, he hoped, it wouldn’t be so bad.

He took the aspirin and brushed his teeth. On his way to the bedroom, he saw the light in the stairway and remembered that he hadn’t cleaned up. It can wait, he told himself as he flipped the switch on the wall, plunging the downstairs into darkness.

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 16

“I bet you’ve never had a squid burrito,” Brian said as he backed his car into a spot and turned the engine off.

“And I bet I never will,” said Caddie, making a face.

“Come on,” Brian teased. “Where’s your sense of adventure? If I’d known you were one of those girly-girls, I never would have asked you out.”

Caddie fixed him with a fierce look. “Who are you calling a girly-girl, buddy?” she said.

Brian grinned. “Prove it, then,” he said. “Try the squid burrito.”

The idea of such a thing sickened Caddie. She imagined a tortilla filled with slimy tentacles. But she wasn’t about to give Brian the satisfaction of thinking she was some kind of prissy ditz. “You’re on,” she said as she opened the car door.

Taqueria Del Mar didn’t look like anything special. A faded mural of a fishing boat covered one wall, and the fluorescent lights cast a harsh glare over the beat-up tables and old linoleum floor. As they walked in, Caddie wondered why any guy who wanted to impress her would bring her to such a place, and her opinion of Brian dropped a few notches.

“Hola, amiga,” Brian said to the woman standing behind the counter. When she saw him, her tired face took on a renewed glow, and she smiled warmly. “Hola, amigo,” she said cheerfully.

Brian leaned against the counter. “Dos burritos de calamar,” he said. “Y dos horchatas,” he added.

The woman nodded and went to prepare the food. Caddie sat on one of the tall stools that lined the counter. “Look at you, speaking Spanish,” she said.