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Just before dawn, Harry the beachcomber started his morning routine.

He'd lived on the beach as long as anyone could remember. No one knew his real name. Some called him The Old Man of the Beach, as he'd been there as long as they'd been alive. Others called him Harry as a joke. A great mane of graying blond hair and a beard to his waist were the root of that anecdote.

Every morning Harry appeared from under the pier. The pilings and rocks were covered with sharp-edged mussels and only a brave man would try to thread his way back into the dark where the pier met the shore, but Harry knew every nook and cranny. Somewhere under there was one of his dens. Every so often the beach patrol, egged on by some local who didn't want That Dude on "his" beach, would halfheartedly chase him off. Harry would move a couple of piers down the beach to another one of his dens or even a few miles further if the patrol was particularly cranky. Eventually he'd be back, though. He'd lived on the beach for at least forty years and he wasn't going anywhere.

Harry studied the predawn sky and decided it was time for his morning constitutional. He had a walking stick that used to be a broom handle, scavenged from a dumpster like a lot of his gear, a backpack that'd seen better days, and a faded woman's shoulder bag big enough to use as a grocery sack. Loose gray shorts, flip-flops and an oddly discolored - even by tie-die shirt standard - shirt. A broad straw hat and sunglasses completed the picture.

The first thing he did was walk the better part of a mile along the tide line, eyes fixed on the sand. Every so often he'd poke at something with his walking stick and once he bent down to dig something from the sand. It was a diver's mask, in fairly good condition despite the heavily pitted metal of its strap clasp. The rubber, plastic and glass the rest of it was made of was immune to whatever corroded the metal and he nodded and dropped it into his shoulder bag.

Harry tsk'd. Not much to show for his walk so far. Ahead in the shadow of the next pier he saw a number of brown torpedo shapes, sleeping seals and sea lions with one of the local giant otters mixed in. He also saw Dan.

"Mornin'," Harry grunted noncommittally as their eyes met. Dan was another beachcomber, younger and new to the beach. There was only room for so many scavengers but barring picking a fight, Dan was here to stay.

Dan was over by one of the sea lions. Just as Harry had known at a glance this one was oddly fat, one might almost say lumpy, so Dan had seen the bulge and knew what was going on. He waited by the sea lion's head until the sleepy beast yawned and then quick as a flash he shot his hand into its maw and came out with a pale blue Croc. The rubber shoe was none the worse for wear after being retrieved from a sea lion's gullet and Dan dropped it, ready to grab the shoe's mate as soon as the sea lion yawned again.

Crocs were popular and a pair in good condition would fetch enough money to buy a nice lunch. Harry's somewhat-the-worse-for-wear dive mask wouldn't net him nearly as much but he wasn't going to get in a fight over a pair of shoes.

What he might have done was share what he thought about this manner of scavenging. He kept his own council and walked past Dan, moving under the next pier.

In the shadows past the rocks was another series of marine mammals. Seals and sea lions are easy to tell apart if you can see the whole animal and know what to look for. One clue is that sea lions have visible external ears and seals don't. Among the snoozing animals was a bulky, probably male sea lion with a prominent bulge in its middle. Harry moved around to the side far enough to be out of easy bite range and put the sole of his flip-flop against the thing's scarred, furry hide.

Decades of experience told him where to push and how much force to use. Harry sank his foot into the sea lion's thick fat and was at once rewarded as it unleashed a great belch. The gentle, but very firm push woke it and it blinked at him sleepily, but didn't move as he leaned into another push. This time the animal grunted, coughed, but finally burped. Harry saw something go flying from its mouth.

The sea lion looked positively relieved to have that big bubble of air out of its system but Harry still gave its toothy end a wide berth as he went to see what it'd burped up. He'd followed the something as it flew and saw it land in a mat of washed-up seaweed. It only took a moment's search to find it and he made sure not to turn his back on the sea lion as he looked.

There are old beachcombers and there are bold beachcombers. Harry was not a bold beachcomber. He found the watch among the strands of seaweed and smiled. It was covered with a thick layer of gullet slime and smelled of bile but it hadn't been in the sea lion's stomach long and it still worked. These fitness watches track the number of steps you take and count calories you burn doing it. Most cell phones could do the same thing but the watches were a fashion fad these days and he had much more use for it than its previous owner.

It was his best find in a week and Harry whistled a jaunty tune as he considered the other sleeping sea mammals. One brown-furred sea otter looked a bit plump but otters are vicious when they want to be and a lot faster on land than a seal or sea lion.

The animals were also clustered together in a confusing tangle of bodies and there was no way to get close to one without being in reach of at least one muzzle. Harry gave up on the otter and made his way down under the pier toward the waterline.

Burping sea mammals was only one way of scavenging. His educated eye considered the various droppings they'd left as they inchwormed up the beach to their sunning spots. One pile of sea mammal poop was a lot bigger than the others and fully of chalky whiteness that showed it'd digested some large, bony creature and not just a bunch of fish. Harry poked the pile apart with the butt of his walking stick.

Score. The leather wallet was mostly digested, only its flexible plastic photo holders intact, but the sight of those told him to look more closely. Soon he had the mess thoroughly picked apart and there amongst the earthly remains of some beachgoer were several credit cards and half a dozen bills, the later badly discolored by their trip through an animal's bowels but otherwise perfectly intact.

From Harry's backpack came blue disposable gloves and Ziplock bags, both winkled from a dumpster like most of his stuff. Who throws away a whole box of unused gloves just because they were past their recommended usage date? Well, someone had. Between the stuff that washed up on the beach and what he picked out of richer folk's trash Harry had everything he needed to make his morning rounds.

The money and cards went in different Ziplocks, after a quick wash in the surf, and then into the backpack. He'd clean them later because naturally people threw away cleaning supplies and alcohol too. The bills were too stained to read their denominations so they might all be ones but he might get lucky and if the cards were still active he'd sell those. You can't be too softhearted when you're surviving on your own and like the watch, he needed the money more than its previous owner did.

Harry considered the next stretch of beach but decided to head back and clean the money before moving on. A spotted seal had rolled away from the sleeping ground and he pushed his foot into its suspiciously bulgy middle. That yielded only a fart and he shrugged and moved on.

Back on the near side of the pier and though he'd only been gone ten minutes there was no sign of Dan. Or maybe there was after all. Harry did a double take as he saw what was stretched out among the rocks.

The sea lion Dan was bothering earlier was gone into the waves but stretched out in a shadow of the rocks was another one. This one was on the small side, maybe only twice his own weight...or about three times if you counted the ponderous bulge distorting its long body.

Many of the local sea mammals seemed to be little more than fur or hide stretched over a giant stomach and this one had a whole man stuffed into its guts. The beast grunted as the bulge moved and then groaned as its meal tried, and failed, to squirm back up its throat.

The canvas bag and stick near the bloated beast told him who was in there and Harry carefully made his way past the pointy end so he could shove his foot into the bulge. Even under the thick fat he could feel Dan kicking. From the shape of the bulge he worked out where most of the trapped air lay and one good push drove a long wet belch out of the sea lion along with an equally wet blue Croc. Dan had wasted no time putting on his new shoes.

The sea lion blinked quizzically at him as he got the grabby stick out of his backpack. He wasn't sure what the things were properly called but he had a half dozen assorted gripper-on-a-sticks he'd scavenged out of trash cans. People used them to pick trash up off the beach and like everything else they got thrown away or lost, often while perfectly functional.

The sea lion seemed to know what he wanted and as he approached its muzzle it yawned a jaw-cracking yawn. Among the slimy purple folds of its gullet were wriggling pink toes and the toe of the other Croc. Quick as a flash, but without putting so much as a finger into the beast's maw Harry used the grabby stick to reach in and pull the Croc off Dan's foot.

The sea lion grunted agreeably, smart enough to know this meant one less indigestible thing to push laboriously through its bowels, and yawned even wider. You wouldn't believe how wide the things could yawn if you didn't see them do it. Harry could have put his whole head and shoulders in there and barely grazed a fang.

Harry didn't. Harry stayed well clear of the maw, pausing only to make sure nothing within grabby stick range was in view. He got a good view of Dan's bare feet, still lying in the slimy gullet. He could have reached in and grabbed them, tried to pull the man back out. He didn't do that either. Sure, the beast was seemingly friendly now, but Dan probably thought it was as well.

Putting any part of himself in there was just asking to end up as part of a massive double bulge. Even if he ran and got the patrol and they coerced the beast into disgorging its meal or killed it, all they'd get back is Dan's slimy, maybe partly digested body. He'd be dead before help could arrive so Dan could find his own way out of the fix he'd gotten himself into.

The second Croc was thickly coated by slime but undamaged and he dropped it into his shoulder bag with the other one. The sea lion closed its maw and settled down to sleep off its meal. Dan was still alive in there, judging from the movements of the bulge, but that wouldn't last. Soon enough the last sips of air would be done, the acids would flow in, and digestion would begin.

The sea lion's stomach juices would go to work on Dan's head and torso, and as they dissolved hips and upper legs would follow. Eventually Dan's feet, currently safe in the slippery folds of gullet, would slide in after the rest and have their turn.

Harry picked up Dan's bag and stick. He checked out the contents of the bag - a couple of shirts Dan had found washed up on the beach, one as discolored as his own and likely for the same reason. Clothing usually made its way all the way through a predator and reappeared intact. Only the discoloration left by gastric juices and exposure to the thing's bowels let you know. To an experienced eye like Harry's the nature of the trip the shirt took was obvious and you'd be surprised what people would pay for a "naturally weathered" shirt like that.

His day had started out slow but turned out quite profitable. Harry considered the snoozing sea lion, whose bulge was now quiet save for the twitches caused by the internal movements of its digestive process, and did some math in his head.

High tide was in three hours and that would push this sea lion further up the beach, probably into the rocks at the very head of the pier. Harry would go pick through his morning's finds, sell what he could, buy himself a nice breakfast. Hang out on the pier, take a nap in his den. Then around sunset he'd head back here.

About then, Dan would reappear. Or what used to be Dan anyway. The bones would take longer to digest but the fleshy bits and clothing, plus any small valuables, would show up. The sea lion had a full belly and no reason to move until Dan did, as it were.

He'd come back with his stick and backpack and gloves and collect whatever valuables Dan left behind when he departed this mortal coil. Waste not, want not.

Harry whistled a jaunty tune as he went back down the beach. The sun was just up and a reflection in the shallow waves led him to a set of swim goggles. These weren't pitted or discolored and were probably just lost, not passed intact through the guts of some animal. Unlike the shirt in his bag, unlike the one he wore and unlike the swim mask he found earlier.

He could have warned Dan. Sticking your hand in an animal's mouth is looking for trouble. The good news is there was one less scavenger on the beach. He wouldn't push a rival into the maw of a hungry beast, but he wouldn't stop an idiot from volunteering to be a meal. Good decisions some from experience and experience comes from bad decisions. It's just that it's hard to learn from that bad decision when it sends you on a short tour of a sea lion's guts.

Beachcombing was like a lottery. Sometimes you got nothing, sometimes you practically got rich overnight, and sometimes, if you weren't careful, you - or your belongings, anyway - end up as one of the prizes.