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Two days after his car — an ’85 Chrysler LeBaron with leather seats and all-power accessories — vanished from the driveway, Warren Ziller crept past the expensive homes of his neighbors, trying to match his dog’s limp. Buggy Whip Lane was shrouded in a mist that blurred his glasses. It was June, month of foggy mornings; vines of bougainvillea climbed the telephone poles and hung like tinsel from the wires. Warren tugged at Mr. Leonard’s leash, trying to keep to the narrow horse trail skirting the road. The wood chips at his feet sent up a pleasing funk of manure. He passed the Hathaways’ and Wongs’ and Dunkirks’, the Temples’ and Starchilds’, each house white as a tooth, distinguished only by a lone cactus or bronze deer in the yard or surfboard tipped against the wall. There was something very appealing about these surfboards. They looked doomed and precarious but never seemed to fall over. He’d lived here three years and the sight of them still gave him a thrill. When he tried to define California to himself, to reckon the fathomless miles he’d traveled from Wisconsin, Warren always thought of these beautiful toys on the verge of collapse.

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