"Dude, I'm telling you, there won't be any."
"Bullshit, man. They always have some."
"Who's 'they'? Who's going to sell you one?"
"I'm telling you man, there's a shop right up the way." Mitch pointed down the length of the deserted arcade. "We're almost there, man."
Jim looked ahead dubiously. The stores lining either side of the wide, pedestrian walkway were uniformly dark and empty. Iron-mesh gates hung over most of the entrances — or, in some cases, lay in bent tangles in front of them. Bare shelves hung crookedly behind broken display windows. Stained marquees with dozens of missing letters advertised nothing.
"Dude, whatever," said Jim.
They walked on. The sound of the ocean grew louder. Glass gritted underfoot from broken skylights in the canopy above. Through them, the sky colored like a bruise in reverse: darkening from dingy yellow to deep, clotted purple.
A figure approached them from the arcade's far end.
"Which one is that one?" asked Jim.
"Looks like Lindbergh."
"Dude, shit. I wish someone would turn these guys off."
The figure lurched forward with a loose and knock-kneed gate. His left arm was gone completely, and his jaw swung loose by a single hinge. "My baby! Where's my baby?" he squawked, again and again. "Please, has anyone seen my baby?"
"Why don't you go ask the Russians, man?" Mitch called out. "Fuckin' commie."
"Nazi," Jim muttered.
"What?"
"He was a Nazi sympathizer, not a — dude, nevermind."
Mitch laughed. "Spirit of St. Louis, man, spirit of fuckin' St. Louis." He slapped Charles Lindbergh on the back as he passed. Lindbergh emitted a startled buzz, staggered, and flailed his one good arm. Something shiny dropped from his fingers and spun across the concrete, stopping at Jim's feet.
Jim stooped to pick it up.
"What's that?" asked Mitch.
"It's a lighter. Chrome plated." He flicked it open, spun the wheel and got sparks. "Still works, too."
"Aw, sweet."
Jim snapped it shut. "He must have picked it up from somewhere." The famous ones all seemed to love collecting random objects. A few days ago they had run across Richard Nixon down on the beach, gears half-clogged with sand, clutching handfuls of seashells to his chest. For some reason Mitch had found it hilarious.
Jim turned the lighter over in his hands. There were two sets of initials engraved on one side: "J.M." near the top, "R.S." underneath. Between them was a small, embossed symbol, shaped like a lighthouse.
"This belonged to someone, once," mused Jim. "Look, two initials. Must have been a gift: from J.M. to R.S. I wonder what for. Like, an anniversary present, maybe? Or maybe they had to be separated, and this was something she gave him to remember her by, on those long nights when he was, like, on sentry duty or something, all alone up on some wall in a strange, faraway land. But then... what about the lighthouse?" Jim ran his finger along its raised edges. "What's that about? What did it mean to them? Maybe it wasn't a gift at all. Maybe R.S. was gone, lost somewhere, and J.M. had this engraved as, like, a symbol that she would never stop looking. This lighter was like her beacon, always shining, always waiting for him to come home."
"Aw, man, fuck."
Jim looked up. They had reached the end of the arcade; twenty feet further and it opened onto the beach. Mitch stood in front of the last empty store-front on the right. Its insides appeared to have been blackened by fire. Rust had eaten away most of the sign hanging over it, but Jim could make out the words, ORLD EATEST ICE CR UNDAE.
"Dude," said Jim. "I told you."
"That wasn't just advertising bullshit either, man. They really were the world's fuckin' greatest."
"C'mon," said Jim, walking ahead. "There's a great view of the city from here."
Mitch stepped out onto the sand, wrinkling his nose at the smell coming in off the waves. "You know, man," he said, "that lighter would be a helluva lot sweeter if either one of us had a goddamn cigarette."
Jim sighed. "Dude, I know."
And across the harbor, the endless flames reached to heaven, staining the clouds above and coloring Mitch and Jim's faces with their sickly glow.
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