by Don Winslow
“About what your detective friend said,” Petra says, “about not being able to protect Tammy. We should let her go, help her disappear, and God bless.”
Boone's shocked. This isn't the ambitious, career-oriented, ruthless lawyer talking.
“What about your case?” he asks. “Making partner?”
“It's not worth another life,” Petra says. “Not hers, not yours. Let it go.”
He loves her for saying it, thinks a whole lot more of her that she made the offer. A totally cool, compassionate thing to do. But he says, “I can't.”
“Why not?”
“It's too late,” Boone says. “A woman's been killed, and someone has to do something about that. And…”
“What?”
“There's something else,” Boone says. “Something that's not making sense. Something's really wrong here and I can't figure it out. I just know I can't let it go until I do.”
“Boone-”
“Let it go, Pete,” he says. “We have to ride this wave out.”
“Do we?”
“Yeah.”
Boone leans down and kisses her. Her lips are a surprise, soft and fluttering under his. Nice, more passionate than he would have thought.
He breaks off the kiss.
“What?” she asks.
“I have to go see someone.”
“Now?”
“Yeah,” Boone says. “Right now. You'll be safe. Tide's guys are all over it and there's a cop over there. Just lie low and I'll be back.”
He starts to go, then comes back and says, “Uh, Pete. I liked the kiss.”
So did I, she thinks as Boone disappears into the mist. Actually, I wanted more. But whom could he be going to see at this time of night?
87
“Daniels is here?” Danny asks.
“Make yourself gone,” Red Eddie says.
Shouldn't be a problem-Eddie's house has, like, eight bedrooms. But Danny doesn't move. Instead, he says, “Do him.”
“Did you just give me an order?” Eddie asks.
“No,” Danny says. “It was more of a… suggestion.”
“Well I ‘suggestion’ you get your fat ass somewhere else,” Eddie says, “before I remember how much aggro you've caused me and turn you into a supersize dog biscuit, you dumb, wrong woman-killing fuck.”
Eddie's a little irritable.
Danny withdraws.
“Let him in,” Eddie says to the hui guy. “Don't keep him waiting.”
Boone comes in, steps down into the sunken living room. The air reeks of dope-very rich, expensive dope. Eddie is wearing an imperial purple silk robe, black sweatpants, and a black beanie.
“Boone Dawg!” he hollers. “What brings you to my crib?”
“Sorry it's so late.”
“The aloha mat is always out for you,” Eddie says, proffering a joint. “A taste?”
“I'm good.”
“I am surprised to see you, Boone Dawg,” Eddie says. He lights the joint again and takes a hit.
“You mean you're surprised to see me alive, ” Boone says.
“If I wanted you dead,” Eddie says, “you'd be dead. In fact, I laid down very specific rules of engagement to our friend Danny; to wit, Boone Daniels is to be considered a civilian, a big red cross flying over his head, not to be touched.”
“I was shot at,” Boone says.
“And missed,” Eddie replies. “You want some Cap'n Crunch?”
“Yeah.”
“Crunch!” Eddie yells. “Two bowls! And open some fresh fucking milk!”
He looks at Boone and shakes his head. “Entourages these days, you have to tell them every thing.”
He gestures for Boone to sit down in a chair shaped like a palm frond in front of an enormous flat-screen plasma TV showing The Searchers. A minute later, a hui guy comes in with two bowls of cereal and hands one to Boone. Eddie digs in like he hasn't eaten since he was in seventh grade.
“This is good,” Boone says.
“It's Crunch,” Eddie says, putting the DVD on pause. “So, Boone-baba-doone, what do you want?”
“Anything in this world.”
“That's a little vague, bruddah. ”
“‘Anything in this world,’” Boone repeats. “Remember?”
“Riiiiight,”Eddie says. He sets the bowl in his lap and opens his hands wide. “Anything in this world. What is it you want?”
“Tammy Roddick's life.”
“Oh, Boone.”
“She testifies and she walks,” Boone says. He has a spoonful of the cereal, then wipes his mouth with his sleeve. “She gets a lifetime pass.”
“I take you to Cartier,” Eddie says, “and you choose a Timex. I offer you any car on the lot, you pick out a Hyundai. I sit you down at Lutиce, you order a burger and fries. You're selling yourself cheap, Dawgie Boo, cashing in this chip for a stripper.”
“It's my chip,” Boone says.
“It is, it is,” Eddie says. “You sure about this, bro?”
Boone nods.
“Because you are my friend, Boone,” Eddie says. “You gave me back the most precious thing in my life and you are my friend. I'd give you anything. You want the house next door? Yours. You want this house? I move out to night; you move in. So as your friend, Boone, I'm begging you, don't waste this gift. Please, brah, don't throw my generosity away on some cheap gash.”
“It's what I want.”
Eddie shrugs. “Done. I won't lay a hand on the bitch.”
“Thank you,” Boone says. “Mahalo.”
“You know this is going to cost me.”
“I know,” Boone says.
“And it means I'm throwing Danny to the sharks.”
“You leave him to his own karma,” Boone says.
“One way of looking at it.”
Boone asks, “Did you have that woman killed, Eddie?”
“No.”
“Truth?”
Eddie looks him square in the eye. “On the life of my son.”
“Okay.”
“We good?”
“We're good.”
“More Crunch?”
“No, I'd better get going,” Boone says. Then: “I dunno, what the hell, why not.”
“More Crunch!”Eddie yells. “You ever see The Searchers in high-def?”
“No.”
“Me, neither,” Eddie says. “I mean, I've never seen it all.”
Eddie hits some buttons on the remote and the DVD comes back on. The image is so good, it almost feels like John Wayne is real.
88
Danny comes back into the room when Boone leaves.
“You sold me out?” he asks Eddie.
Eddie shakes his head. “Mo bettuh you think for once before you open your poi hole,” Eddie says. “What did I promise him? I promised him that the bitch gets to waste more air. So fucking what?”
“So she'll testify,” Danny says. “She'll tell what she saw, what she knows-”
“Then we had better provide her with some motivation to the contrary,” Eddie says. “What does she want?”
Two years at Wharton, you can sum up what he learned in four words:
Everybody
Has
A
Price.
89
The girl Luce lies on a bare, dirty mattress.
She's sad and scared, but somewhat comforted by the presence of the other girls, who lie around her like a litter of puppies. She can feel the warmth of their skin, hear their breathing, smell their bodies, the sour but familiar smell of sweat and dirt.
In the background, a shower nozzle drips with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.
Luce tries to sleep, but when she closes her eyes, she sees the same thing-a man's feet as seen from under the hotel bed. She hears Angela's muffled cry, sees her feet being lifted. Feels again her own terror and shame as she cowered under the bed as the feet walked out again. Remembers lying there in an agony of indecision-to stay hidden or run. Recalls the nerve it
took to get up, go to the balcony, and look over the edge. Sees again the hideous sight-Angela's broken body. Like a doll tossed on a trash pile back in Guanajuato.
Now she hears footsteps again. She pulls the thin blanket tightly over her shoulders and clamps her eyes shut-if she cannot see, perhaps she cannot be seen.
Then she hears a man's rough voice.
“Which one is she?”
Heavy footsteps as men walk around the mattresses, stop, and walk again. She pulls the blanket tighter, squeezes her eyes shut until they hurt. But it does no good. She feels the feet stop above her, then hears a man say:
“This one.”
She doesn't open her eyes when she feels the big hand on her shoulder. She risks moving her hand to grab the cross on her neck and squeeze it, as if it could prevent what she knows is going to happen. Hears the man say, “It's all right, nena. No one is going to hurt you.”
Then she feels herself being lifted.
90
Dawn comes to Pacific Beach.
A pale yellow light that infiltrates the morning fog like a faint, unsteady glimpse of hope.
Alone surfer sits on his board on the burgeoning sea.
It isn't Boone Daniels.
Nor is it Dave the Love God, or Sunny Day, or High Tide, or Johnny Banzai.
Only Hang Twelve has come out this morning. Now he sits alone, waiting for people who are not going to show up.
The Dawn Patrol is missing.
91
The girls emerge from the tree line that edges the strawberry fields.
Walk like soldiers on patrol toward the bed of reeds.
Teddy Cole watches them come.
He's slept rough in the reeds, his body aches with cold, and he shivers as he tries to focus on the girls' forms, peers through the mist, trying to make out individual faces. He smells the acrid smoke of a cook fire behind him, tortillas heating on a flat pan set on the open flame.
Teddy watches as the girls become distinct forms and now he sees the subtle differences in their stature and gait. He knows each of these girls- their arms and legs, the texture of their skin, their shy smiles. His heart starts to pound with anxiety and hope as distinct faces come into focus.
But hers is not one of them.
He looks again, fighting against disappointment and an ineffable sense of loss, but she isn't there.
Luce is gone from The Dawn Patrol.
92
Sunny sits at her computer with her herbal tea and checks on the swell.
Not that she needs a sophisticated computer program to tell her that the big swell is coming like Christmas, tomorrow morning. She can feel it burgeoning out there. A heavy, pregnant sea. She can feel her heartbeat matching the intensity of the coming waves-a heavy bass drumbeat in her chest.
Sunny goes back to the computer, checking for wind and current to see where the best spot will be to grab the wave, her wave. She checks the surf cams, but it's still too dark to really see anything. But the imagery on the computer-the current, the wind-it's unmistakable: Her wave is headed right for Pacific Beach Point.
Restless, she gets up again, goes to the window, and looks out at the actual ocean. It's dark and foggy, but the sun is starting to penetrate the marine layer and it feels odd to her, unhappy and strange, not to be out on the water with The Dawn Patrol. It's the first morning in years that she hasn't shown up.
She thought about going but just couldn't make herself do it. It seemed impossible to be there with Boone. It's ridiculous, she thinks now. Silly. She knows Boone has been with other women since they split up. She's been with other men. But there was something about seeing it-seeing that woman in her clothes, looking so comfortable and at home-that felt like a terrible betrayal. And Boone letting me think that he'd been killed, when he was doing her…
So she'd skipped The Dawn Patrol.
Maybe it's a good thing, she thinks. Time to move on. Catch my wave tomorrow and ride it into my new life.
She goes to get dressed. It will be busy at The Sundowner with all the surfers coming in, and Chuck could probably use the extra help.
So she decides to go in early.
93
High Tide thinks about going to The Sundowner, too.
He's hungry and cold, and a cup of hot coffee and a stack of banana pancakes soaked in maple syrup sound pretty damn good.
It's been a long night, sitting in his car, a half block south of Boone's crib, directing his old troops like a general who's come out of retirement to fight a war. And it felt good, in a weird way, to know that he could issue the battle cry and the boys would respond as if no time had passed. But it felt bad, too, bringing back the old days that he had left behind.
That bad feeling was nothing compared with the heartache that came with letting his cousin down. But life is full of tough choices, and he chose one family over the other.
Done.
But now he looks out at the ocean and sees that the family he chose isn't together. He didn't go out this morning because he was busy guarding Boone, and God knows where he is now. Johnny's not out there because he's probably well and truly pissed off at Boone and working the murder case. And Sunny's mad-hurt and betrayed.
Only Hang Twelve is out there, sitting like a latchkey kid waiting for Mom or Dad to come home.
He's thinking this when someone taps on his window.
Boone's standing there.
Tide rolls down the window.
“It's over,” Boone says.
“That's good.”
“There's still time for you to hit the water,” Boone says.
“You?”
Boone shakes his head, then looks up at his cottage. “Stuff to take care of.”
“Yeah, I think I'll give it a pass this morning,” Tide says. “Get me some breakfast instead.”
“Sounds good,” Boone says. “And Tide? Thanks, huh.”
“No worries, brah.”
You're aiga.
94
Johnny Banzai grabs a few hours of sleep, gets up, and picks a shirt, slacks, sports jacket, and tie from his closet. Then he rejects all of it in favor of a charcoal gray suit. He has to be in court today, maybe in front of a judge, and he's found that the extra touch of formality is usually worth it.
It feels odd, going to work from the house instead of the beach, changing clothes in his bedroom instead of his car. He's missed sessions of The Dawn Patrol before, because of work or family obligations, but this feels different.
Like the end of something.
The start of something else.
Phases and stages, I guess, Johnny thinks as he knots a bloodred knit tie and checks it in the mirror. At a certain time in your life, you think you'll never get married; then you are. Then you think you'll never have kids, and then suddenly you have two. And you've always said that you'd never leave The Dawn Patrol, but maybe now..
That stunt Boone pulled.
Not the thing with the Boonemobile-that was classic Boone, although it's hard to see him sacrifice the old van that held so many memories for all of them. So many road trips up and down the coast. The waves, the beer, the music, the girls. Hard to see that all go up in flames, but maybe it was necessary.
No, it was the stunt with the lady lawyer, the Brit. Maybe it was the accent that pissed Johnny off, but more probably it was Boone pulling the shit that Johnny expected from the La Jolla beautiful people, the rich and influential, and not a lifelong surfing buddy.
Face it, he tells himself as he looks down at his wife, Beth, sleeping in bed. You never thought you'd see Boone go for the money, never thought you'd see him go for that kind of woman. The whole ambitious professional thing.
Well, never say never.
Johnny kisses his wife and receives a murmured “Morning,” then stops off at each of his kids' rooms to check in on them. His son, Brian, is sound asleep, clad in Spider-Man pajamas, stretched out in the bottom bed of the set of bunks he'd wanted so that he could have friends for sleepovers. Abb
ie is likewise, curled into her Wonder Woman blanket, the lightest sheen of sweat on her upper lip. And thank God, Johnny thinks, that she takes after her mother.
He looks at her lying there so peaceful and innocent, and, hopefully, so safe, and it makes him think of the little girl's toothbrush in the room at the Crest Motel. Who was the girl? What was she doing there? Where is she now?
Johnny walks over, kisses his daughter softly on the cheek, and heads out the door.
It's going to be a tough day. Dan Silver's civil trial starts at nine and Tammy Roddick is scheduled to take the stand shortly afterward, and Johnny is going to be in the gallery when she does. So he'll have to get into a judge's chamber early to get a warrant written for both Boone and Roddick. She'll probably be on the stand for a couple of hours or more; then Johnny intends to pick them both up and get some answers about Angela Hart's death.
Sorry, B, he thinks.
I'm invoking the jump-in rule.
95
Boone stands on the pier and watches Hang Twelve sit out in the water by himself.
Kid's not even bothering to catch any of the good waves that are coming in like a machine's cranking them out. Just sits beyond the break and lets them roll under him like he's catatonic or something.
Boone waves his arms and yells, “Hang!”
Hang Twelve looks over, sees Boone, and then looks away.
A few seconds later, he paddles in. Boone watches him pick up his board, walk up the beach, and head up the street.
96
Petra's sitting at the kitchen table when Boone comes in. Her hands are wrapped around a mug of tea.
“Look, it's all good,” he says. “It's over. It's taken care of.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“You're good to go,” Boone says. “Tammy can testify about the arson, tell the cops whatever she knows about Angela's murder. Danny's not going to do a thing.”
