The Hungry Sea [antikvár]

I realized, as I drove across the gigantic arch of concrete and steel spanning the mouth of a primeval canyon that emptied into the Pacific, that I should have stayed in Carmel overnight. But the same streak of perverse obstinacy that had made me take the job in the first place defied caution. Besides, there had been no fog in Carmel, and the cost of another nights lodging would have strained my limited resources. I should reach my destination, not far beyond Big Sur, well before dark. The name kept running through my mind as though it were trapped in my yellow convertible to mock me. Casa Estrana. I knew enough Spanish to translate it into Srange House.The fog was not yet thick enough to blot the weird hill rising out of die ocean near the naval installation alongside the highway. Houses crowned the flat top of the hill like diadems, and a spider-web road girdled the mountain in a climbing spiral. It was another radar post on constant vigil for sudden death. The thought sent a shiver through me. Up ahead I saw the cleft of Big Sur, filled with downy white fog as though a giantess had emptied her feather-