Slide (13 page)

There were twelve dead.

Nine others might live.

Altogether ninety cars had suffered some damage, mostly to front and rear ends.

The time was nine straight up.

It would be hours before all lanes both ways were clear and flowing. The patrolmen had the situation under control, Dodd decided. No need for him to be there any longer. Nor was there any need for him to feel guilty for wanting to get away from that place of death. After all, he thought, he was going back to another.

He got into his car.

The radio was calling him.

14

Ten minutes before nine.

The people who lived up on Sheep Hill had a perfect view of the rescue. Like front-row seats in the loges. The activity on the Coast Highway was just below, and the supermarket was lighted like a distant stage. It was all the talk in every household. Children watched it out their bedroom windows; housekeepers kept an eye on it on television while preparing dinner.

“What's happening now?”

“The man just said they'll be getting the people out momentarily.”

“Momentarily?” Seldom-used word, television word.

“That's what the man said.”

The Lufkin household was typical in many ways. Vern and Nadine Lufkin and their two boys, twelve and fifteen. The Lufkin house was situated on two and a quarter acres halfway up the slope. It was more or less French regency style, had that sort of roof and lines, thirteen rooms including servants' quarters but not counting the utility room.

The house was done by a professional decorator. A western attempt to achieve eastern taste — expensive copies of French, English and Italian period pieces, violated but not entirely spoiled by dashes of lucite and garish modern things. These accessories and ornaments were purchased and put in place by the owners when the more subtle, pervasive European effect had become boring.

Vern Lufkin was at times called “The Candy Man.” By everyone except wife Nadine, who had originally dubbed him that. The reason for “The Candy Man” was Lufkin Candy, thirty-three shops throughout the southland, twenty-two company-owned, the others solidly franchised. The business had been started and left by Vern's late father on a much smaller scale. Recently Vern had gone national, made distribution deals with several major eastern department stores such as Bloomingdale's. No matter that the country was in the pinch of a recession, even the unemployed could not deny its sweet tooth. The Lufkin candy business had never been better.

Tonight the Lufkins had the Barnetts over, their nearest and newest neighbors, Alan and Marcy. For the past four months, since the Barnetts had purchased the place next over on the hill, the two couples had seen a lot of each other. They had become chummy enough to just drop over either way practically anytime. In the row of cypresses that bordered their adjoining properties, there was a space that allowed easy passage.

Alan Barnett was thirty-five. On first impression he seemed quite good looking, but the more one saw of him the less attractive he became. He was reticent, not in a shy or ordinary self-conscious way, but as though he were observing the world from some superior perch and didn't really want to be bothered with it. He was one of three sons of a highly ranked social family. He did nothing for money, just had it. He owned an art gallery in Laguna Beach that was run at a loss for him, and at the Newport Beach Yacht Club he kept a boat that slept ten.

Marcy was twenty-two, a lovely, tall girl who retired from fashion modeling as soon as she struck it rich.

Vern and Nadine Lufkin were the same age: forty-six. Actually, Nadine was four months older. Vern was prematurely gray. He secretly darkened his hair.

Tonight the four were in the Lufkins' den. The plan was to go out to dinner. Reservations had been made at a place called The Bird and Bun.

Alan was sitting in the far corner. He was drinking wine, a vintage white as usual.

Nadine was on the suede-covered couch. She had taken too long a sauna at eight, so she was feeling limp.

Marcy was on a huge Missoni knit-covered cushion on the floor, nicely posed.

Vern had a glass of Glendullan malt whisky in one hand and the television remote-control switch in the other.

Nadine told him: “See what's on seven.”

Vern clicked from two to seven.

“Same thing,” Nadine complained impatiently. “The hell with it, let's go to dinner.”

“Don't you want to see them bring them out?”

“Not if it's going to take all goddamn night.”

“Hungry?” Vern asked Marcy.

“Yes, but I want to see this.” She indicated the television with her chin.

“What about you, Alan?” Nadine asked.

Alan shrugged.

Vern tossed the remote-control switch to Nadine. From a cabinet he got a pair of powerful binoculars and went to the sliding glass door. He focused on the supermarket. “Puts you right there,” he said.

“So does channel seven,” Nadine remarked.

Vern offered Marcy a look through the binoculars, and when she got up, had them in hand, Vern suggested they go out by the pool for perhaps a better view.

Marcy didn't say it was raining — Nadine did.

Vern got an umbrella from the foyer closet, said he was going to turn off the pool lights to eliminate glare. He and Marcy went out.

When they were on the extreme end of the pool deck around the side of the cabana, for a moment, a concession to appearances, they did use the binoculars on the supermarket.

He was standing directly behind her.

She took a small step back to be able to press her buttocks against him.

He got hard, quickly.

He reached around with his free hand, raised her skirt and found her exactly when she helped by taking a slightly more open stance.

No woman he had ever known, at least no woman he'd known in the past twenty-five years, had responded to him so spontaneously. Which was the reason for his own easier capability.

For her he was the first older man. It amazed her that she had such passion. Now, for example, with only a little more play with his fingers like that, his authoritative, forbidden fingers, she would come.

She did.

And again after a moment, just as intensely.

He felt vital, strong except for his legs, which were suggesting he should be prone or at least sitting.

Through the compelling distraction of what they were about, Vern and Marcy heard a fragment of a scream.

Nadine's scream.

It was the last thing they heard before the tremendous, rolling roar as the mud poured over them.

The forward searchlight on Pumper Truck Number Three was manned by Fireman Collins, an old-timer. The rain was beating hard on his helmet, so his reaction wasn't to something he heard. He sensed it, out of intuition swung the searchlight around to beam it up Sheep Hill. He did it at the last second and there was only time to shout one word.

“Slide!”

15

When Captain Dodd reached the slide area a county firetruck had just arrived and taken position a safe distance away.

Dodd drove around the firetruck. He didn't stop until he was at the edge of the slide, the front wheels of the patrol car up to the hub caps in the mud.

The five-thousand-watt searchlights on the firetruck swept slowly up and down the slide, raking the slope from top to bottom for a sign of life, of anything.

Dodd got out and for a long while followed the searching of the light, not really hopeful. He felt changed, as though something invisible but substantial had come between himself and existence. The rain did not seem the same. Neither did the car beside him, the night, the place. His senses were altered. He could see and hear just as well as before but now it was as though he were seeing and hearing from a different dimension. His sense of smell was more acute. The odor of the mud was dank, offensive.

He brought his hand to his face, both hands to his cheeks, and his hands and cheeks seemed slightly anesthetized. When he swallowed there was a bitterness to his saliva.

Moving, but with a reduced sensation of movement, he got back into the car.

He sat there all night.

Frequently his mind offered him the thought of all the lives the slide had taken.

He refused it — until dawn.

Then he got out again, cramped, stiff. He found a path down to the beach. From there, for the first time, he could see the scope of what had happened.

The slide was from the crest of Sheep Hill, thirteen hundred feet, all the way down to the ocean. The entire side of the hill, at least a thousand feet wide, had shed a deep layer of itself, gathered its tremendous wet mass to crush and bury everyone, everything on its way.

Everyone, everything, everyone.

With the surf lapping at his ankles, Dodd slowly scanned the muddy steep. He noticed it was still running down and shifting here and there.

Against his usually realistic disposition, Dodd gazed at where the highway was covered under and he imagined Lieutenant Porter popping up out of the mud there, Porter waving and shouting, floundering but savable. And Madsen, too, and Chief Croy, the television people. All of them.

Coming back from the fantasy, he came all the way back. The sense of being outside himself left. He was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, soaked.

And angry. Clear through.

16

It was like being buried in a gigantic box.

Alive.

The atmosphere was heavy, cool as underground, and the thought that
this
was likely to be his coffin made Brydon feel, among other things, miniature.

With him atop Island Eight were Gloria Rand, the time fighter, and the young blonde girl, Lois Stevens.

All twelve islands were still intact and in place because their framework had been built as part of the supermarket's foundation. Seventy feet long, eight feet wide, the islands now served as individual wooden platforms.

Spider Leaks and Emory Swanson — box boy and wealthy insurance executive together on Island Seven.

Elliot Janick, the movie producer, was up on Six.

His star and emotional dependent, Marsha Hilbert, was atop Island Five. Also there on Five was Dan Mandel, the nonfood food salesman.

Island Four: Marion Mercer and Peter Javakian.

Judith Ward had gotten separated from Marion, as had Amy Javakian from Peter. Judith and Amy occupied Island Two.

The market manager, Phil Kemp, was alone on Island Five.

At the other end of the market on Island Twelve, as far as possible from everyone, was the young man wearing an army poncho over a shoulder holster that contained a .45 Colt service automatic. Warren Stevens, brother of Lois, big game hunter.

The slide had occurred nine minutes ago.

The rescue party and those trapped in the market had had warning. A slick, licking sound along with a sound like a roll of far-off thunder, just before all the lights from the highway went out.

In complete darkness the mountain of mud came sliding down at them. They didn't realize what it was until it was upon them, thousands and thousands of tons.

The medical teams and the firemen were mashed against the steel gate. The mud gushed through the grillwork of the gate like cold lava, instantly covering those who were already injured. Others inside were not swift enough. As they retreated, the mud caught them by the feet, the knees, pulled them down and covered them.

Only those fourteen were left alive: They alone had managed to get to the top surface of the islands. They climbed by instinct, as most creatures would have, going for the highest possible points.

Brydon expected the island would be at best a momentary refuge, offering no more than a brief delay of death. The mud invaded everywhere. When it reached a depth of four feet, however, it leveled off, settled like brown batter.

Brydon aimed his flashlight at the gate thirty feet away. He tried to reason why the mud had not continued to fill the place. For one thing the gate had become jam-packed with debris — shrubs, trees, whole sections of houses, various kinds of building materials, even furniture. There, for example, the beam of his flashlight found something hard white that might be a refrigerator or a bathtub.

At another place twelve feet up on the gate his beam hit upon the face of a young woman. Framed by one of the spaces of the grillwork. She was staring in death. Her mouth was open as though she would cry out.

Elsewhere, more grisly evidence. A man's arm stuck through the gate, arm limp but hand made into a fist.

Gloria Rand was repulsed by the sight of it. Brydon had forgotten she was beside him. To spare her he clicked off the flashlight.

“Better save the battery,” he said, knowing that expressed hope. There were two flashlights, because Peter Javakian had also held on to his and now had it placed so it reflected off the acoustical panels of the ceiling, providing dim but adequate light.

Another reason why the mud had stopped rising, Brydon thought, might be the position of the market. Originally it had squarely faced the highway and hill. After the bluff broke away the market was turned about twenty degrees. So the slide had not hit it flush. The mud had come at an angle, a tremendous glancing force that might have rotated the structure so it was now facing the opposite direction.

Did anyone recall such a turning sensation when the slide hit? Brydon asked.

Amy Javakian thought she had. So did Marsha Hilbert. They weren't sure, though.

Brydon tried to remember what he'd felt. He had been way off balance and thrown about, but his memory of it was vague. His will to survive had been foremost at that moment, adrenergic, overpowering all other reality.

Anyway, if the market was turned around that would explain the mud level. The main flow of the mud would be down the slope rather than in through the gate, where it was now only seeping in. But could a structure this size be spun about like a plaything? Perhaps, when the ground beneath was so mushy and undermined.

Brydon tried not to buy the theory. He didn't like it. It went against the grain of something he would prefer to die retaining — a faith in architecture, if not its everlastingness at least its endurance. He felt all the more insignificant.