"King's Lake is up the road, right? What is it, a resort?"

"A house of pleasure."

"A whorehouse that supports Buddhist monks?"

"How sweet," Calliope said.

"He's got it," Coyote said, pointing to the Master, who was holding up a rod of polished metal.

"A bent push rod," Steve said. The master carried the push rod into the shop. They all followed and watched as the old man tightened the rod into a vise. He picked up a hammer and stood over the vise, his free hand feeling the rod. Without warning the old man screamed and delivered a clanging blow to the push rod, then bowed and set the hammer on the bench.

"Fixed," Steve said, bowing.

"Is that how he lost his fingers?"

"To achieve enlightenment, one must give up the things of this world."

"Like piano lessons," Coyote said.

CHAPTER 28

Hope Is Bulletproof, Truth Just Hard to Hit

As Minty Fresh drove back to Las Vegas he thought about what Sam had said: "You have a mother, don't you?" And the question set Minty Fresh to thinking about a phone call from his mother that had changed his life.

"You're the only one left can do something, baby. The others are too far or too far gone. Please come home, baby, I need you." (Even when he had to duck to pass through her front door she still called him "baby.") That tone: he'd heard it in her voice before, when she was tugging at her husband to get him to stop strapping her youngest. But he hadn't gone back for her, had he? It was a call deep with duty and silent pride that brought him home. He went back for Nathan.

Nathan Fresh had never been home when any of his nine children were born. He was a sailor, and as far as he knew, when you came home from sea a new child would be waiting for you. The others grew an inch or two at a time, and the shoes that one was wearing when you left would be on the next one down when you got home. He loved his children, foreign creatures that they were, and trusted his wife to raise them — as long as they could line up, snap to, and pass inspection when he came home. And although he was gone most of the time, making the high seas safe for democracy, he was a presence in the house: photographs in crisp dress whites and blues stared down from the walls; commendations and medals; a letter once a week, read out loud at the supper table; and a thousand warnings of what Papa would do to a doomed misbehaver when he got home. To the Fresh children, Papa was only a little bit more real than Santa Claus, and only a bit more conspicuous.

On the ship, Chief Petty Officer Nathan Fresh was known only as the Chief: feared and respected, tough and fair, starched, razor creased, and polished, always in trim and intolerant of anyone who wasn't. The Chief: did you notice that he was black? only five foot five? barely 130 pounds? No, but did you see his eyes, like smiles, when he was showing the pictures of his kids — when he was telling tales of lobbing shells the size of refrigerators into the hills of Korea? Did you ever mention retirement to him? That's a frost, that's a chill.

Minty Fresh, the youngest of nine, the one born with golden eyes, knew the chill. "He's not mine," Papa said — said it only once. Minty stayed out of Papa's way when he could, wore dark glasses when he couldn't. At age ten he stood six feet tall and no amount of slouching would roll Papa's resentment off his back. His place in the family was a single line at the bottom of a letter — "Baby's fine too" — far enough from "Love, Momma" to deny the association. At night, by flashlight, he wrote his own letters: "My team is going to the state championships. I was voted all-conference. The press calls me M. F. Cool, because I wear tinted goggles when I play, and sunglasses during interviews. The colleges are calling already and sending recruiters to the games. You'd be proud. Momma swears you're wrong." In the bathroom he watched the letters go, in tiny pieces, around the bowl, down, and out to sea.

Minty Fresh left for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas the week after high school graduation, the same week that Nathan Fresh took his mandatory retirement from the navy and came home, to San Diego, for good. The coach at UNLV wanted Minty to lift weights all summer, beef up for the big boys. The coach gave Momma Fresh a new washer and dryer. Nathan Fresh put them out on the porch.

The day before the first game, when UNLV was going to unleash its secret weapon on the unsuspecting NCAA — a seven-foot center with a three-foot vertical leap who could bench-press four hundred pounds and shoot ninety percent from the free-throw line — M. F. Cool got the call. "I'm on my way, Momma," he said.

"My father needs me," he said to the coach.

"When we brought you up from nothing, gave you a full scholarship, put up with the goggles and the shades and the silly name? Gave your mother a washer and dryer? No. You won't miss the season opener. You're mine."

"How touching," Minty said. "No one has ever said that to me before." Perhaps, he thought later, stuffing the coach in that locker had been a mistake, but at the time a few hours in seclusion, among socks and jocks, seemed just what the coach needed to gain some perspective. He broke the key off in the padlock, tore the M. F. Cool label off the locker, and went home.

"He's been gone four days now," Momma said. "He drinks and gambles, hangs out at the pool hall 'til all hours. But he always came home before. Since he retired, he's changed. I don't know him."

"Neither do I."

"Bring him home, baby."

Minty took a cab to the waterfront and ducked in and out of a dozen bars and pool halls before he realized that Nathan would go anywhere but the waterfront. There were sailors there, reminders. After two days of searching he found Nathan, barely able to stand, shooting pool with a fat Mexican in a cantina outside of Tijuana.

"Chief, let's go. Momma's waiting."

"I ain't no chief. Go away. I got a game going."

Minty put his hand on his father's shoulder, cringing at the smell of tequila and vomit coming off him. "Papa, she's worried."

The fat Mexican moved around the table to where Minty stood and pushed him away with a cue stick. "My friend, this one goes nowhere until we get what he owes us." Two other Mexicans moved off their barstools. "Now you go." He poked Minty in the chest with the cue stick and Nathan Fresh wheeled on him and bellowed in finest chief petty officer form.

"Don't you touch my son, you fucking greaseball."

The Mexican's cue caught Nathan on the bridge of the nose and Nathan went down, limp. Minty palmed the Mexican's head and slammed his face into the pool table, then turned in time to catch each of the two coming off the bar with a fist in the throat. Another with a knife went airborne into a Corona mirror, which broke louder than his neck. Two more went down, one with a skull fractured by a billiard ball; one, his shoulder wrenched from its socket, went into shock. There were seven in all, broken or unconscious, before the cantina cleared and Minty, dripping blood from a cut on his arm, carried his father out.

Momma met them at the hospital and stood with Minty as Nathan came around. "What are you doing here, you yellow-eyed freak?" Minty walked out of the room. Momma followed.

"He don't mean it, baby. He really don't."

"I know, Momma."

"Where you going?"

"Back to Vegas."

"You call when he sobers up. He'll want to talk to you."

"Call me if you need me, Momma," he said. He kissed her on the forehead and walked out.

She called him every week, and he could tell by her whisper that Nathan was home, was fine. It made him fine too — not M. F. Cool, just M.F., the one who handled things. All that was missing was the feeling of being needed, essential, bound to duty.