My personal favorite place to study on campus was the music listening rooms in the basement of the McHenry Library. They were sound-proofed—well, nominally, anyway—had good stereo equipment, and plenty of space on which to spread your books out. The only downside was that the listening rooms were reserved for music students—or any student taking a music class—and so you often had to wait to get one, especially on weekends. It was no exception that day, and I grudgingly accepted a pair of headphones and joined the throng in a side room that had been set up for the overflow, just a bunch of tables with receivers on them, one per studier.
After an hour or so I was able to take over a room, and so with a contented sigh I set myself up in there. Sometimes I brought my own tapes, but more often I checked something out from the recording library. That day I went with Dizzy Gillespie; I was going through a phase where I was listening to a lot of jazz and blues players from the 50s and 60s. (One weekend it was Ray Charles; another, Nat King Cole. When you have access to a huge library of music, why not?)
I had been slogging away at my Chemistry homework for about another hour when there was a tap on the door. I startled a little—when I'm concentrating really hard on something I tend to hyper-focus and not notice small things, like people coming up behind me, or earthquakes, or such—and turned around to see Tosh standing at the door. At my wave, he came in, shut the door, and perched on a corner of the table near the cassette player. Reaching over, he actually turned the music up, rather than down, and then leaned over to me.
“Decided you needed me today after all?” I said.
“Heh.” It was funny that both Tosh and Sara shared an explosive laugh, though they differed by an octave and a half, of course; it's hard to imagine two people being any more different in pretty much every other way. ”Yeah. I was able to find the guys I needed to talk to quicker than I thought, so I'll be able to do some hunting around and I kind of need your help.”
“Sure; I don't have anything big planned for the rest of the day and I’m pretty sick of calculating electron valences anyway. Right away?”
“No, no; closer to dark. Maybe around 4:30. Can you meet me around then at the Baytree?” The Baytree Bookstore was where you went on campus to purchase your ridiculously over-priced textbooks.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Thanks, man.”
“No problem,” I said. ”Oh hey, as long as you're here, Tosh, I was wondering if I could borrow the Rabbit on Thursday?”
“Thursday?” Tosh stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully for a moment. ”Yeah, I think Thursday night will be fine.” He looked down at me and smiled. ”Sara?”
“Yeah, Sara.” I said, grinning with one side of my face, slightly embarassed.
“Cool. Well, if you don't come home, at least I'll know where you are.” He frowned for a minute. ”Actually, that's a good point.”
“What's a good point?”
“Can you give me Sara's phone number, just in case?”
“Tosh, c'mon, man!”
He sighed. ”I know, Zack. I'm sorry to even ask. Probably nothing will come up. But just in case, you know?”
It was my turn to sigh. Woman’s life at stake after all, and that “help others” thing is pretty deeply ingrained in jarheads. ”Yeah, okay. Just a sec.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out her number, copied it onto a corner of one of my notebooks, tore it off, and gave it to him. ”Here you go, man. Try not to use it unless absolutely necessary. If you know what I mean.”
“I do. I won't.”
I nodded ruefully. ”Probably you won't need it, though.”
He smiled. ”I wouldn't be so sure.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“Heh. Look, yeah, you’re skinny and kinda goofy-looking . . .”
“Hey!”
“But,” he went on, “You’re in great shape, funny, and fun to hang out with.”
I looked up at him, flattered. “Well thanks, man; I appreciate that.”
“You bet.” He got up from the table. ”Okay; I'll see you at 4:30, then?”
“No problem.”
“Great. Thanks, Zack; I really appreciate it.”
“You got it.” He left, shutting the door behind him. I reached over, turned Dizzy back down a bit, and pulled my chem homework back over. I didn't think I'd be able to get back into it, but it was due on Tuesday, so I gave it my best shot.
At around 4:15, I packed up my stuff, handed in my tapes to the recordings librarian guy, shouldered my pack, and headed to the Baytree. It wasn't too far from McHenry, and mostly downhill. I was still learning the back trails around campus, but I decided now was as good a time as any, and so took the back way to the bookstore instead of tramping up to the road. Less hills to climb that way.
Tosh was waiting for me on the desk of the Whole Earth restaurant. (For me, the Whole Earth was the epitome of a Santa Cruz restaurant. Tuna was guaranteed dolphin-free, every sandwich seemed to come with bean sprouts and hummus, the breads were all whole grain, and for all I knew they had their own herb garden, cisterns to collect rain water on the roof, and ran the ovens on solar power. It was like that restaurant in “Annie Hall” where Woody Allen orders “the alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast.”) He was carrying his backpack by one strap over his shoulder, but it looked significantly lighter than usual. He smiled as I walked up and shook my hand. Tosh always seemed so happy to see people, whether it was years later, or just a couple of hours. It was one of his more endearing qualities.
“Okay, so what are we doing? I didn't bring my gun or anything.”
“Frisbee golf,” he said.
“Frisbee golf.”
“Or disc golf, yeah. Have you ever played?”
“No. I mean, I've tossed Frisbees around before, sure. But Frisbee golf? What the hell is that?”
He smiled. ”You'll see. Come on.” Tosh led me down the stairs. We walked across the parking lot and mounted a small hill that stood between the road and the bookstore lot. Set back in a copse of trees was a small clearing that had a view over the parking lot and down the path that led to the upper quarry, where UCSC had a small, open-air theater where many of the colleges held their graduation ceremonies. Driven into the ground back among the trees in a small clearing was a steel pike with a piece of red cloth attached.
“This is the tee,” Tosh said, pointing at the red cloth. ”You make your pull from here, across the parking lot, and down the path to a fire hydrant.” He pointed down the path; I squinted, and could just make out a yellow post. He set his pack on the ground and took out a couple of Frisbees. They weren't like the big Frisbees I was familiar with from playing with other kids or tossing on the beach; they were small, with a smaller diameter than an LP, and heavy. He handed me one. I turned it over and saw “171g” written in small letters in ink on the inside. 171 grams, maybe? Felt heavy enough. Heck, it was barely bigger than a single, let alone an LP.
“Over the parking lot?”
“Over the parking lot, yeah, and down the path.” He pointed again.
“What if I hit a car?”
“That's why most people only play the back nine on the weekends; not as many cars.”
“The back nine?” I said.
Tosh looked at me and nodded. Another thing I liked about him was he was always willing to explain. He waved his hand back in the direction of the East Field and the East Fieldhouse. ”The front nine is back around the East Field,” he said. ”See, a few years ago, Santa Cruz hosted the world disc golf championship, and they laid out a full 18-hole course on campus.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Tosh said. ”Anyway, the university only maintains the front nine, since the back nine kind of wanders around in more public areas. But everyone knows where it is.” He frowned. “Well, everyone who likes to play disc golf.”
“And you play often?”
“No,” he said seriously. ”I'd rather surf and do martial arts, but sometimes I do. It's relaxing, and it's nice to walk around campus. I'm not very good, though.”
I'm sure I looked totally baffled. ”And this has something to do with the case we've been working on?”
He nodded. ”Definitely! For one thing, Sharona loved playing disc golf. Remember me looking up in the trees at the original crime scene?”
“Yeah. I wondered what the heck you were doing.”
“I was looking to see if there were any broken branches or other signs.”
“But she was taken at night.”
“We know that now, but we didn't then, and I like to get as much data as possible,” he said.
“The course goes all the way over to the west side of campus?” I said.
“No,” he said, “not the official course. But people who live on the west side set up their own informal course. I think one of their holes is to actually hit the flying IUD.”
I laughed. “Is that what you call the big red thing out by Porter College?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“That can’t possibly be its official name.”
“Definitely not,” he said. “I think it’s got some stupid name like ‘Untitled, Number 1’ or something. But most people call it the Flying IUD.”
“That’s definitely what it looks like.” He nodded.
“So we're playing Frisbee golf because Sharona did?” I was still utterly baffled.
“Disc golf,” Tosh said. ”Not exactly. You'll see. Really.”
I sighed. Some days it was more of an effort to go along with Tosh while being ignorant of reasons than other days. ”Okay, let's go, then. It's not going to be light enough for a whole lot longer.”
He smiled, just a bit. ”We're only going to play a few holes. I just didn't want to stand out.”
“Stand out?”
“You'll see,” he said.
“Okay. Go ahead and throw first, okay? Since I've never done this before.”
“Pull,” he said, correcting me again. I could see that, like regular golf, Frisbee golf—sorry, disc golf—had it's own nomenclature. He pushed his backpack further aside with one foot, stepped back about five paces from the metal post with the fabric strip (the tee?), and stared down the path. He held the disc in both hands, pointing it—I presume—in the direction he wanted to throw—sorry, pull. He stepped forward with his left foot, took a long stride with his right while twisting his torso back and to the left, and while taking a second step with his left uncoiled and snapped the disc out over the parking lot. I watched, stunned, as it soared out and up towards the path, but then it slowed, started slanting left, and then abruptly dropped into the trees to the left of the head of the path he had indicated.
“Shit,” he said.
“Wow,” I said. ”That's amazing.”
“No,” he said, “you should see guys who do this a lot; they would have put it dead center in the path and partway down path. I pretty much suck.”
“If that' 'suck', I don't even want to think about what word we’re going to have to use for me,” I said. I stared down the path, trying to fix the target in my mind. I knew I wouldn't be able to use my body to throw like Tosh did, at least at first; it was going to be mostly arm strength. But I thought I'd at least try. I tossed my pack over near Tosh’s, then stepped back to a starting place a little closer to the tee than Tosh had been; I was nearly a half-foot shorter than Tosh, after all. I started with my right foot, curled the disc around my body, and snapped it forward.
It went flying off to the right towards the road.
“Shit!”
“It's okay,” Tosh said. ”Go get it and try again; no one's waiting to use this hole anyway.”
I trotted over and got the disc. It's greater weight and smaller size made it a lot more like throwing a baseball or football or such, but it was a Frisbee. It was weird. This time, I stayed right near the tee and just took a small right step before pulling. (I could see why you called it a “pull”.) The disc went out and over the parking lot, not nearly as far as Tosh's, but straight for the path. Then, just like Tosh's, it tailed off the right, fell the ground with a clunk, and slid underneath a parked car off to the left.
“See? Pretty good for just your second try,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. We picked up our packs and started towards the discs. When I reached mine, I looked at Tosh questioningly.
“Just pull it out from under and stand a little to the side, like you were taking a drop in golf. It's not like we're competing in a tournament or anything.”
“Good point,” I said. “Okay.”
I ended up getting a 7 on that hole, and on the next—a shot down a hill, over a ridge between two pine trees, and then up to the top of the theater to hit a power transformer box that had a big “X” on it in red tape—I got a 5. I began to see the attraction. After the theater hole, Tosh led us down and around into the upper quarry, a place I hadn't yet gone in my campus wanderings. He led us out onto a long ridge that stuck out into the middle of the quarry; it was the kind of thing a dictator might like to stand on while addressing his adoring masses. At its far end, the ridge was a good 30 feet high, and only a few feet wide. It looked like the description of the ridge that cut through the middle of the city of Minas Tirith in “Lord of the Rings”, albeit much smaller.
About halfway down the ridge I saw a stake in the ground with a piece of red material.
“Here?” I said. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Tosh said. He pointed across the open space to the top of the plateau opposite. ”The post is over there, off to the right. Behind that tree.”
“What if you don't get it onto the plateau on your first shot? I mean ‘pull’?”
He gave me his impish grin. ”You have to throw uphill then,” he said.
“Swell.”
He shook his head. ”You're doing fine. It's not that far. You'll probably make it.”
“Great.”
He dropped his pack to the ground, stepped back, and pulled. His disc flew out over the empty space and landed just on the lip of the plateau.
“Nice,” I said.
“Thanks. Go ahead.”
“Yeah, right.” I stepped back, then fired a shot as straight as I could. I had been hooking to the right with almost every throw, so this time I tried to turn my wrist over to the right a bit to compensate. Naturally as a result, my shot went far to the right of where I aimed, and landed in the branches of the tree that Tosh had pointed out.
“Good shot!” he said.
“I'm in a tree, dude.”
“Yeah, but you're not in the quarry,” he said. ”That's the key thing.”
“If you say so.”
“Heh.” He picked up his pack. “Let's go.” Instead of heading back and around, Tosh walked right to the edge of the ridge and started climbing down. From where I stood I couldn't see a path, but as I approached I could see that there was a well-worn way down at the very front of the ridge. I followed Tosh more cautiously, trying to not drop my cane and pack as I worked my way down. The top of the ridge couldn’t have been more than 15 above the floor of the quarry, but still, not something you would want to fall down.
When we reached the other side after climbing up the opposite slope, Tosh picked up his disc and looked back. There were a pair of students free-climbing on the northern wall of the quarry, and that was it. Tosh casually tossed his disc at the post, not really even trying to make a careful throw. After I recovered my disc from the tree he held out his hand for it, and I turned it over. Then he grabbed his disc from the ground near the post, stuffed both of them in his backpack, and headed up the hill into the trees. “Come on,” he said. I followed him a bit more slowly, glancing behind me. No one was watching, so I shrugged and went up after him.
We climbed up a hill, using steps that were partly worked into the hillside and a one point stepping on a huge horizontal redwood that looked as if it had been placed there deliberately to help the climb. With a final scramble we reached the top. Directly in front of me was a clearing in the redwoods, with the now-familiar stake-and-cloth marker of the tee. A path led away through the woods to my left down the center of an overgrown ravine. Up above the path, I could see a footbridge.
To the right was a large stone structure. I couldn't tell what it was—it had openings in the bottom that looked like doors, but they were only a foot wide and three or so feet high, and couldn't possibly fit a person. It was made of fitted rocks, without concrete. It was about 12 feet high and 20 feet wide; I couldn't tell the depth of it from where we stood. I looked over at Tosh.
“Where are we?”
“The tee of the 15th hole,” Tosh said. At my sour expression, he pointed down the path and said, “Classroom Unit is right up ahead to the left, and Natural Sciences and so on up and to the right.” His attitude told me that, whatever it was he needed my help with, we were there.
“And what's this?” I said, jerking my thumb back at the building or ruin or whatever the hell it was.
“That's what I need help with.”
“You don't think Sharona is in there?” I didn’t see how she possibly could be.
“No,” he said. ”But I'm pretty sure something is. And looking into it is more than a one-man operation.”
I looked it over again; it looked like an overgrown ruin made up of stacked stones. ”Is there some way in that I can't see? I can't fit in there, that's for sure,” I said, pointing at one of the small door-like slits.
“Not exactly. Come on this way,” he said, and led me around towards the back of the structure, away from both the path and the way we had come up. The ground rose up on that side, and towards the back—the northwest corner, I guessed—there was a decent-sized tree growing just a few feet from one of the sides. I looked up at the tree, guessing Tosh's plan.
“We go in on top?”
“I go in on top,” he said. ”That's why I need help; once I'm down there, I might need help getting back off.” He grimaced a bit. ”And I may need help getting in, too.”
“How do you know there's a way in from the top?”
He smiled. ”I don't know, but it seems logical.”
“You're Mr. Spock now?”
Still smiling, he shook his head. ”No; some of the information I found out when I was doing my researches pointed to there being something of interest on this part of campus. And then I spent some time following around our friend Mr. Smith. I couldn't get close enough at the time,” he pointed around the clearing, “If I got too close, he would have seen me. But he definitely came somewhere in this general area.”
“Okay, yeah; that sounds logical.”
“So, how are you at tree-climbing?”
“Awesome,” I said. It was a brag, yeah, but I was never very heavy and always had pretty good upper-body strength for a guy my size, so things like chin-ups and tree climbing were right in my wheelhouse. Tosh looked at me with that surprised expression, his head cocking back on his neck. ”No, really. It was one of my favorite things growing up.”
“What's the best type of tree to climb?”
“Pine trees are good because they have levels. You get a lot of sap on you, though.”
He smiled; clearly I had passed the test. ”Okay; let's go.” He leaped up, caught a branch, and started climbing. I climbed up after him. We only had to gain 10-15 feet of altitude, so it wasn't like the crazy shit I sometimes did as a kid, but it had been a long while and of course I had some pretty bad injuries. Even so, it was kind of fun to be climbing again. So long as I didn’t think about the serious nature of our business, that is.
Tosh put his weight on a branch that stuck out over the top of the structure. He looked down at the ground, then across the gap to the roof of the structure. Looking back at me he said, “Okay, keep a lookout for anything. If someone comes, give me a cough or something as a signal.”
“Got it.”
Sitting down on the branch, he grabbed it, swung underneath, and worked his way over to the building. The branch started to bend a bit, but before it could get too alarming, he pumped his legs a few times, swinging his body towards the roof, and let go. I couldn't see what he landed on, but he let out an “ouch!”
“You okay, Tosh?”
“Yeah; just twisted my ankle a bit. It's not very level; just like a bunch of piled-up rocks.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Just hang there a minute and keep watching the trail,” he said. And then, walking carefully, he started making his way across the roof. Taking a firm grip on the trunk, I hunched down on a branch to watch him, occasionally glancing around to make sure that we were still alone. It was late in the day, but another disc golfer might come playing through, and I figured that Tosh really didn't want to be interrupted if he could avoid it. Obviously that’s why he had insisted on starting so late in the day—he needed a good alibi, but also didn’t want to get caught.
About two-thirds of the way across and towards the back of the structure, I saw him stop and bend over. I couldn't see what he was doing very well, but it looked like he was pulling or tugging on something. There was a clunking noise, as if from one rock hitting another, and then I saw him smile. He reached down and pulled something up; I couldn't see what it was in the fading, dappled light, but he was cradling it in two hands. I saw a brief flash of metal, maybe brass or steel, I couldn't say. After a few moments I saw him bend back over and work again at the surface of the roof. He straightened up and made his cautious way back towards me.
“You want a hand?” I said as he reached the edge of the roof. He looked over at me, and then down to the ground.
“No,” he said. ”It doesn't look like too bad a climb, actually.”
“Glad I could be of service,” I said to myself in a low voice, and started to make my way back down the tree. By the time I reached the ground, Tosh was already there, still smiling.
“No,” he said, in answer to my unasked question. ”I wanted to see if I could get down on my own. If our Mr. Smith has been using this spot to store his stuff in, he wouldn't be using anyone to help him, so I needed to try to copy whatever it is he must be doing.”
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense,” I said. ”What did you find?”
“Just what I was looking for,” he said.
“Which you're not going to share with me.”
He glanced around the clearing. ”Come on; let's head back to the Baytree, and I'll tell you on the way.” He headed off in the direction that he said Classroom Unit lay and I fell in beside him.
“Since we found the guy who was helping the kidnapper, I've been having some elves follow him around whenever he's on campus. Trying to see if he goes any place odd regularly.”
“Elves? You mean those weirdos who hang out in Elf Land all the time?”
“Well, that's what I call them,” he said, clearly a little embarrassed. We reached the Classroom Unit and Tosh hung a left. Looking around, I was finally able to orient myself.
“That's the admin offices down there, right?”
“Yes,” said Tosh. ”The next hole of the course is down that hill back there, and you hit a fire hydrant across the road.”
“Did I ask?”
“Sorry; I just thought you might want to play the full course sometime.”
“Yeah, sometime. No hurry; you're kind of keeping me busy enough, aside from my classes.”
“Not to mention Sara,” he said. He smiled a little. “I can help you out with your chem homework, if you like. Give you my notes.”
“I thought you only audited the class.”
“I still took a lot of good notes.”
I thought about it. “That might be really helpful. Thanks.” I took a breath, as we were getting close to the Baytree. “So your elves told you he comes back here a lot?”
He grimaced. ”Not a lot. That was kind of the tricky bit. He's only come this way a couple of times, and they didn't want to get close enough to see exactly what he was up to, or they'd be seen.” I nodded, having been able to see the approach in two directions from my perch in the tree myself. ”But it's not someplace you'd really go without a good reason. It's not on the way to anywhere, really. Some people go back there to smoke dope, or when they're tripping, and of course the disc golf players go by there sometimes. But it still seemed odd.”
“Maybe he was tripping.”
“No; he's a pretty straight-arrow, as far as I've been able to find out. So that ruled out drugs. And my elves said he came from the direction of Classroom Unit rather than up from the quarry, which would rule out disc golf.”
“So you guessed he was going there. But why did you think he would be storing something there?”
“He lives with a couple of other students in a house on the West Side, remember? You've lived in the Box a few months; you know that privacy in a group house is . . .” he paused, searching for a good description.
“Yeah, pretty shaky.
“Right; shaky. So if he was doing something questionable, or had something suspicious, he might not want to keep it at the house. Or even in the lab, where other people have access.”
“So you figured he was stashing it on campus.”
“It made sense,” he said. ”The kidnapper is using it on campus; he wouldn't want to carry it on or off campus himself if he could avoid it. And there's plenty of spots on campus where you could stash something.”
“So what did you find, then?” We were almost at the Rabbit, which Tosh had left in the Baytree lot. “And didn't you worry I might hit the Rabbit with my tee shot?”
“Who'd notice if you did?” he said.
“Good point.”
We got in the car, and Tosh commenced nursing it to life. ”Anyway, it was the gun. And a bunch of the cartridges to go with it. He has it in a waterproof box, wrapped in a tarp, underneath a couple of the roof rocks.”
“Not the best place to store a weapon.”
“True,” Tosh said. ”On the other hand, safer than, say, in your bedroom in a suitcase under your bed.” He grinned impishly. I nodded my head at him to concede the point.
“Fair enough,” I said. The car had roared to life and Tosh was piloting us out of the parking lot and down the main drive back to town. I looked out over the vista as I almost always did; it was hard to imagine ever getting tired of seeing the bay spread out below me from the top of campus like that. I frowned and considered. ”Why did you leave it there, then? Or are we going to bust Smith?”
“Nuh uh,” said Tosh, shaking his head. ”We take the hardware, and the kidnapper will know someone is on to him and stay even more hidden. I don't want to let him know we're close. The same would happen if I told the police and they grabbed Smith.”
“What then?”
Tosh grinned widely at me. “I'm going to get the band back together.”
“You a friend of John Belushi?”
“Heh.” He shook his head. ”No, but I don't need to make money to pay off the property tax on an orphanage; I only need to lure a kidnapper in.”
“Okay,” I said, not even bothering to ask. ”You'll get the band back together. When?”
He frowned, staring out the windshield and thinking. ”Saturday night,” he said.
“Why Saturday? Why not Friday? Or hell, Thursday?”
He shook his head. ”The pattern is that he grabs women on Saturdays. It improves the chances.”
I saw an inkling of what he was thinking. ”Jesus, Tosh, you're not going to risk . . .”
“No, no, no!” he said emphatically. ”I promise you I won't risk another woman getting kidnapped.” He glanced over at me—but quickly, as Mission St. is narrow, and requires full attention—and said, “Especially if you can help me out.”
“You got it,” I said. Nodding thoughtfully, Tosh took us back to the Box.