The Dawn Patrol

by Don Winslow

It hurts like crazy.

  And where the nose goes, the head and neck are bound to follow; however, if they don’t, your nose is coming off.

  So basically, Boone tries to rip Tweety’s nose off his face, presenting him with a choice—suffer rhinoplasty or talk.

  “Do you have her?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who, Tweety,” Boone says. “I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you have Tammy Roddick?”

  “No!”

  Boone lets him go.

  Tweety makes a valiant effort to get up. It works okay on the one leg, but when he tries to put weight on the dislocated knee, it gives out under him and he falls forward onto the floor.

  But Boone backs up, just in case.

  He’s tempted to give Tweety another kick in the knee, but it would probably be bad karma, something Sunny’s always talking about since deciding to become a Buddhist. Boone doesn’t totally get the whole karma thing, but he decides that kicking a guy in his dislocated knee would probably compel Sunny to chant a few thousand more mantras, another concept he’s not totally with.

  “You should have a mantra,” Sunny told him.

  “I have one,” Boone replied.

  “ ‘Everything tastes better on a tortilla’?” Sunny said. “It’s a start.”

  Anyway, Boone doesn’t kick Tweety in the knee and further decides he should get out of there before the bouncer decides to check out what’s happening in the old VIP Room.

  But Tweety says, “Daniels? I’ll be seeing you again. And when I do—”

  Boone comes back and kicks him in the knee.

  What Sunny doesn’t know …

  Boone walks out of the VIP Room.

  “That was quick,” Petra says. “Sated?”

  “Our absence has been requested,” Boone explains.

  “I’ve been thrown out of better places,” Petra says.

  She follows him out the door.

  36

  Dave the Love God looks out at the burgeoning ocean and thinks about George Freeth.

  George freaking Freeth.

  Freeth was a legend. A god. “The Hawaiian Wonder” was the father of San Diego surfing and the first-ever San Diego lifeguard.

  If you don’t know about Freeth, Dave thinks, you don’t know your own heritage, where you came from. You don’t know about Freeth, you can’t sit in this lifeguard tower and pretend to know who you even are.

  It goes back to Jack London.

  At the turn of the last century, London was in Honolulu, trying to surf, and he saw this “brown-skinned god” go flying past him. Turned out it was Freeth, son of an English father and a Hawaiian mother. He taught London to surf. London talked Freeth into coming to California.

  Around the same time, Henry Huntington built a pier at his eponymous beach and was trying to promote it, so he hired Freeth to come give surfing demonstrations. He billed Freeth as “The Man Who Can Walk On Water.” Thousands of people went down to the pier to see him do just that. It was a smash, and pretty soon Freeth was going up and down the coast, teaching young guys how to ride a wave.

  He was a prophet, a missionary, making the reverse journey from Hawaii.

  The Man Who Could Walk On Water.

  Hell, Freeth could do anything in or on the water. One day in 1908, a Japanese fishing skiff capsized in heavy surf off Santa Monica Bay. Freeth swam out there, righted the skiff, and, standing up in it, surfed it back to shore, saving the seven Japanese on board. Congress gave him a Medal of Honor.

  It was the only gold medal he’d receive, though. He tried to get into the Olympics but couldn’t because he had taken Huntington’s money to walk on water. Buster Crabbe went, became a movie star, and got rich. Not George Freeth. He was quiet, shy, unassuming. He just did his thing and kept his mouth shut about it.

  People in California were really starting to get into the ocean. But there was a problem with that: They were also starting to drown in the ocean. Freeth had some of the answers. He created the crawl stroke, which lifeguards still use; he invented the torpedo-shaped life float that they still use.

  Eventually, he migrated down to San Diego and became the swim coach of the San Diego Rowing Club. Then, one day in May of 1918, thirteen swimmers drowned in a single riptide off Ocean Beach. Freeth started the San Diego lifeguard corps.

  He lived less than a year after that. In April of 1919, after rescuing another group off Ocean Beach, Freeth got a respiratory infection and died in a flophouse in the Gaslamp District.

  Broke.

  He had saved seventy-eight people from drowning.

  So now Dave’s thinking about George Freeth. In his thirties now, Dave is wondering if he’s headed for the same fate.

  Alone and broke.

  It’s all good when you’re in your twenties—hanging out, picking up tourist chicks, slamming beers at The Sundowner, jerking people out of the soup. The summer days are long and you think you’re going to live forever.

  Then suddenly you’re in your thirties and you realize that you aren’t immortal, and you also realize that you have nothing. No money in the bank, no house, no wife, no real girlfriend, no family.

  And every day, you’re out there rescuing people who have all that.

  So that time back at Red Eddie’s hilarious housewarming party, Eddie made the offer. A little night work. “Use your skills,” Eddie said, “to make yourself some money, some real money, brah.”

  Easy money, easy work. Just drive a Zodiac out there, pick up the product, bring it in. Or go down to Rosarito, bring a boat back up. Where’s the harm? What’s the bad? Not like it’s heroin, or meth, or coke.

  “I dunno, Eddie,” Dave said.

  “Nothin’ to know or not to know,” Eddie replied. “When you’re ready, just say the word.”

  Just say the word.

  Later that same week, he went out into a riptide to pull in a turista who’d let herself get sucked out. The woman, not small, was so hysterical that she damned near pulled Dave under with her. She grabbed on to his neck and wouldn’t let go, and he damned near had to knock her out to get her under control and onto the sled.

  When he got her back to the beach, all she could say was, “He hit me.”

  He watched her and her indignant hubby get into their Mercedes and drive away. No thank you, just “He hit me.”

  Dave thought about George Freeth.

  Brought surfing to California.

  Saved seventy-eight lives.

  Died broke at thirty-five.

  Dave called Eddie and said the word.

  37

  There are thousands of Mick Penners.

  A stripper’s boyfriend who hangs around strip clubs is not exactly a unique profile. He’s a definite type, this guy, and you can see him everywhere. He’s that weird dude who gets his rocks off watching his girlfriend take her clothes off for a roomful of guys, and he’s alternately turned on and repulsed by it. On the one hand, he thinks he’s a stud because he has a hot chick that other guys want; on the other hand, he’s jealous that other guys want her. So when the girl comes home—and a Mick Penner usually lives with her while she pays the rent—he works out his ambivalence by slapping her around and then taking her to bed.

  You can see a Mick Penner hovering in the back of any strip club, keeping an eye on his girl, chatting up the other dancers, bothering the bartender, generally being a pain in the ass. The more benign Mick Penners leave it at that; the worse ones mooch off the girl, taking her tip money as soon as she makes it. The worse ones yet use her to get to other girls. The very worst pimp her out.

  The Mick Penners of the world always have something cooking, always have something on the stove, always are running some scam or the other. And it’s always the next big thing, financed by the stripper girlfriend until the ship comes in. A real estate investment, a start-up tech company waiting for the bust-out IPO, a screenplay that Spielberg’s people have expressed interest in, a Web site. It’s always going to bring in a million bucks a
nd it never does. Something always happens somewhere along the way to the big payoff, but no worries—by that time, a Mick Penner is on to the next big thing.

  “How do we find this Mick Penner?” Petra asks.

  “You’re in luck,” Boone says. “I know the dude.”

  “You do?”

  “Yup,” Boone says.

  On the way to the Hotel Milano, he tells her how he knows Mick Penner.

  38

  Mick Penner parks cars.

  This is how Boone knows him. If you’re a private investigator in a resort town like San Diego, you know the parking valets at the major hotels and restaurants. If you’re a more financially successful private investigator than Boone Daniels, you go around at Christmastime handing out twenty-dollar bills to the parking valets at the major hotels and restaurants.

  Not that Boone hasn’t handed out a few bills in his day. He has, lots of times, and more than once to Mick Penner, who is a daytime valet at the Hotel Milano in La Jolla.

  You do this because nobody in California goes anywhere except in their cars. You want to track somebody in Cali, you track their vehicle, and vehicles have to park somewhere. And when they park at a hotel, you have a good idea about what they’re doing there.

  You want to know who’s having lunch with whom, who’s laying out big bucks for a dinner party to make a deal, who’s banging somebody they shouldn’t be, you stroke the parking valet. You want to stake out someone at a hotel and you don’t want to be seen, you lay off a couple of blocks and let the valet call you when the person rings for his car. You need video of a husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend getting in or out of a car in a hotel parking lot, you pay one of the valets to let you park in there. You’re looking for some high-rolling scam artist, you want a parking valet to give you a jingle when your guy checks into his hotel.

  Parking valets, concierges, desk clerks, room-service waiters—their base salaries are just that, a base; the smart ones make their real money from tips and tip-offs.

  And Mick Penner is one of the smart ones.

  Mick is a good-looking guy. Slim but built, about six-one, with black hair, deep blue eyes, and white teeth. He has what you might call movie star good looks.

  He’d better have.

  Mick parks cars and fucks trophy wives.

  This is why he works the day shift. See, you’d think a parking valet would want nights, when the tips are bigger, but Mick does matinees, when he can flash that smile at the ladies who lunch.

  It’s a numbers game.

  Mick smiles at a lot of ladies who lunch, and enough of them are going to have lunch and then have Mick. And enough of them are going to tell their friends that Mick spends some of his afternoons up in the rooms sharing the unique joy that is Mick.

  The ladies don’t give him cash—that would make him a prostitute, and Mick doesn’t see himself that way. They give him gifts—clothes, jewelry, watches—but that’s not where the money is.

  The money is in their homes.

  When Mick gets tired of banging a woman, or she gets tired of him, or the gifts get thin, Mick cashes out. He’s very careful about which women he picks to give him his severance pay—they have to be married, have to have signed a prenup, have to have a real, rooting interest in keeping their marriages intact.

  But if a woman qualifies, then Mick puts in a call to a friend who does high-level house burglaries. Mick has her keys, right? He gets them copied, and he knows for a fact when she’s not going to be in the house. So the woman is snuggled up with Mick in bed in a room overlooking the ocean while Mick’s pal is in her house, taking the jewelry she decided not to wear that day. And maybe her silverware, crystal, artworks, loose cash, anything portable.

  Even if the woman figures out that sweet Mick fucked her over, she isn’t going to tell the cops where she was; she’s not going to tell them who might have access and knowledge. She’s going to keep her mouth shut, because, at the end of the day, it’s the insurance company’s problem.

  It’s not that Mick does this a lot, just enough to help finance the next big thing.

  Mick’s a screenwriter. He hasn’t written a word in about three months, but he has an idea that’s drawn some attention from the assistant to a senior VP at Paramount. It’s a sure thing, just a matter of time, just a matter of sitting down and doing it.

  But Mick’s been too busy.

  Boone pulls the van up to the valet stand at the Milano, an exclusive, bucks-up hotel in the heart of La Jolla Village.

  Calling La Jolla Village a village is like calling the Queen Mary a rowboat.

  Boone’s always thought of a village as a place with grass huts and chickens running around, or a quiet row of thatch-roofed cottages in one of those English movies that a girl made him go to.

  So he’s always been amused at the folksy pretentiousness of calling some of the most expensive real estate on earth a village. The Village occupies a bluff overlooking the ocean, with a magnificent sweep of a view, a cove that features some of the best diving in California, and a small but tasty reef break. There are no grass huts, running chickens, or thatch-roofed cottages. No, this village features platinum-card boutiques, exclusive hotels, art galleries, and froufrou restaurants that cater to the beautiful people.

  The Boonemobile looks distinctly out of place in the Village, among the Rollses, Mercedeses, BMWs, Porsches, and Lexuses. Boone thinks that the locals might figure that he’s a cleaner or something, but the house-cleaners in the Village drive better cars than the Boonemobile.

  Anyway, he pulls it up to the valet stand at the Milano. A valet ambles over, ready to tell whoever this is that he has the wrong address. Boone thinks he might have the wrong place, too. Several parking valets are standing around, none of them Mick.

  Boone rolls down his window. “Hey.”

  “Hey, it’s you,” the valet says. He and Boone touch fists. “What brings?”

  “Alex, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Mick around?”

  “It’s his day off,” Alex says.

  “His day off?” Boone asks. “Or he just didn’t show?”

  “Okay, door number two,” Alex says, glancing at Petra. He lowers his voice and adds, “You need a room, I can probably hook you up.”

  Boone shakes his head. “I’m good.”

  Alex shrugs. “Dude didn’t show today, didn’t show yesterday. He’s gonna lose the gig, he doesn’t straighten up.”

  “D’you cover for him?”

  “I made up some bullshit story. I dunno, the flu.”

  Boone asks, “Where does he lay his head these days?”

  “He was crashing with this stripper chick,” Alex says. “In PB.”

  “I tried,” Boone says. “He’s not there.”

  “Oh, you know her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fucking Mick, huh?” Alex says with a smile of envious admiration.

  “Fucking Mick,” Boone agrees. “Anyway, you have his phone number, right?”

  “It’s in the shack. I can get it.”

  “It would be a help, man. I’d appreciate it.”

  “Be right back.”

  Alex trots away.

  “She’s with this Mick person,” Petra says.

  “That’s how I read it,” Boone says.

  “Do you think they’re still in town?”

  “Not if they’re smart.”

  If they’re smart, they’re two days’ drive away, maybe up the coast in Oregon or even Washington. Or they drove out to Vegas, where Tammy could get work easily. Hell, they could be anywhere.

  Alex comes back and hands Boone a slip of paper with Mick’s number on it.

  “Thanks, bro.”

  “No worries.”

  “Mick still drive that little silver BMW?” Boone asks.

  “Oh yeah. He loves that car.”

  “Well, late, man.”

  He slips Alex a ten.

  “Late.”

  Parking valets drivi
ng Beemers, Boone thinks. The trophy-wife business must be booming.

  He backs out into the street and drives down to the cove and finds a parking spot overlooking the beach where the seals gather. A couple of big males are lying out on the rocks, with tourists standing above them snapping pictures.

  “So we think that Mick and Tammy have disguised themselves as sea lions?” Petra asks.

  Boone ignores her. He grabs his cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” Petra asks.

  “I’m calling Mick to tell him we’re on our way over.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yo. I mean, Pacific Surf,” Hang says when he picks up.

  “Hang?”

  “Boone?”

  “Get off whatever porn site you’re on and run a reverse for me,” Boone says. He gives him Mick’s phone number.

  “That’s a cell phone, Boone.”

  “I know.”

  “Gonna take a minute.”

  Boone knows this, too. Hang will use the number to go on the service provider’s Web site, get a new password for the one he “lost,” then access the billing record to get a home address.

  It’s going to take at least five minutes.

  Hang’s back on in three.

  “Two-seven-eight-two Vista del Playa. Apartment B.”

  “Down in Shores?” Boone asks.

  “Hold on a sec.”

  Boone hears him tapping at some keys, then Hang says, “Yup. You take—”

  “No, I got it, thanks.”

  Boone pulls out of the slot and heads back up to the Village, then heads north for La Jolla Shores. Mick’s place is only ten minutes away, and Boone already knows what he’s going to find there.

  No Mick.

  No Mick’s Beemer.

  No Tammy.

  39

  Dan Silver is already irritable.

  And concerned.

  What had Eddie said? “Open mike night at Ha Ha’s is over, big man. It’s time you got serious, you feel me?”

  Yeah, Dan felt him. Felt him like a rock lodged in his belly. Felt what Red Eddie was telling him, too. Clean up your mess. And what a fucking mess it is. That dumb goddamn roid case Tweety going out and killing the wrong gash.