by Don Winslow
“You have to lie down,” Petra says. “You have a major concussion.
They want you to stay here at least two more days for observation. They’re going to run some tests, see if you have brain damage. Although, how’d they tell …”
“There’s something I have to do,” Boone says. He forces himself to sit up, then swings his legs out and puts his feet on the floor. It’s sketchy, but he manages to get his legs underneath him and stand up.
“Boone …”
He’s not listening. He gets dressed and walks down the hall toward the lobby. The nurses ignore him—they have their hands full with people who want help and have no time for people who don’t. Johnny follows him in case he falls, but Boone doesn’t.
Petra’s out in the hallway. “Dave, don’t let him be an idiot,” she says. “Bring him back.”
Dave opens the door for Boone and follows him out.
153
They drive south on the 101.
Boone sits in the passenger seat and looks out the window.
Beautiful, beautiful day.
Deep blue ocean.
Deep blue sky.
The big swell is almost over.
“So?” Boone asks.
They’ve been friends forever. They’ve ridden a thousand waves together. They’re going to tell each other nothing but the truth. Dave tells him all about his work for Red Eddie.
“Did you know?” Boone asks. “About the kids?”
“Not until that night,” Dave says. “I called Johnny. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Boone nods.
They both know what to do now.
154
Boone paddles out.
Eddie’s on the line on the inside shore break.
“Yo, Boone Dawg!” Eddie yells. Then he sees Boone’s head. “What happened to you, my bruddah?”
“A little aggro.” Boone juts his chin to the outside reef. The waves aren’t giant anymore, but they’re big, and they’re breaking outside. “Let’s go outside, Eddie! You got the balls?”
“Dangling, brah!”
They paddle out, side by side, then pull up along the shoulder beside the break.
“We need to talk, Eddie.”
“Talk.”
“The girls,” Boone said. “That was your operation.”
“No, brah.”
“Yeah, it was,” Boone says. “The whole story about Dan owing you money was bullshit. You were just trying to cover your pathetic ass.”
Eddie’s not used to being talked to like that. His eyes get hard. “Watch yourself, Boone.”
“You broke your word to me, Eddie,” says Boone. “You told me you’d leave Tammy Roddick alone.”
“Hey, that was Dan, not me,” Eddie says. “I didn’t promise anything about Dan.”
“You’re dirty,” Boone says. “And you make everything and everyone around you dirty. I brought you into The Dawn Patrol and you made it ugly. You destroy everything around you, Eddie, just like you took those little kids and destroyed them. I’m sorry I met you. I’m sorry I pulled your son out of the water, if he grows up to be anything like you.”
“You ever going to grow up, Boone?”
“Yeah,” Boone says. “I am.”
He shoots out his leg and kicks Eddie off his board.
Eddie falls into the water.
Boone wraps Eddie’s leash around his own ankle and watches as Eddie tries to sit up and let himself loose. But Eddie can’t reach the Velcro strap around his ankle. He turns and tries to swim, tries to bust to the surface, but Boone back-paddles like a cowboy on a pony with a calf on his rope.
Eddie flips over again and tries to reach Boone. He reaches up, desperately grabbing, first at Boone’s foot, then at his own. But Boone just keeps pressing down on the leash, and looks into Eddie’s widening eyes.
They say drowning is a peaceful death.
I hope they’re wrong, Boone thinks.
He watches Eddie struggle. Watches him suffer.
Then he takes his foot off the leash. Not because he cares about Eddie’s life, but because he cares about his own. Eddie grabs for his board, but Boone kicks his hand off. Choking and gasping for air, Eddie asks, “What the—”
“Here’s the deal, Julius,” says Boone. “I let you back on my board and tow you in to Johnny Banzai. He’s already waiting with a warrant. You’re looking at thirty to life. Or you go back in the water, and this time you don’t come back up. And we’ll throw a hell of a fucking party.”
He starts to press down on the leash again. “Personally? I hope you take door number two.”
But Eddie says, “Take me in.”
Boone lets up on the leash and hauls the exhausted Eddie onto his board, then tows him to shore. Johnny’s standing on the beach. Slaps the cuffs on Eddie, does the ritual reading of the rights, and shoves him into his car.
Eddie doesn’t have one fucking thing to say.
“Are we good?” Dave asks Boone.
“We’re good.”
It’s over.
155
Three weeks later.
Dusk on Pacific Beach.
It’s cool, sweatshirt weather, as the mist is starting to move in as if the sun were pulling a curtain around its bed before going to sleep.
Boone stands in front of a grill, carefully turning pieces of yellowtail over the low fire. You have to be gentle with yellowtail. You have to cook it slowly or it dries out and loses its juice.
Johnny Banzai stands beside him, supervising.
Johnny lifts a Corona to his lips, takes a swallow, then says, “Harrington is really pissed he can’t crank you on this thing.”
Boone is too big a hero for anyone to mess with right now. The bust of the child-sex operation is all over the talk-radio stations. There’s talk of medals, civic awards. Harrington mumbled to Johnny, “Tell that shitbag this doesn’t change anything.”
It doesn’t, Boone thinks. Not really.
Angela Hart is dead.
And Rain Sweeny, if she’s alive, is still in the wind.
“Anyway,” Johnny says. “The DA arm-wrestled him into dropping the assault charges against you.”
“That,” Boone says, “makes the List of Things That Are Good.”
“Yes,” Johnny says. “But in what position?”
“The eternal question,” Boone says.
“Fifth,” Hang Twelve suggests.
“In front of free stuff?” High Tide asks. “You’re lolo.”
“Free stuff is very, very good,” Dave says.
“You could use some free stuff,” Cheerful says to Boone. “I’ve finished your books and free stuff would come in very handy.”
“I have a paycheck coming in,” Boone says. He gently removes the fish from the grill and sets the pieces on a plate. Then he lays some tortillas on the grill until they are just warm, but not burned.
“How’s it coming?” he asks Petra, who sits on the sand with her legs crossed and a cutting board on her lap. She’s just finishing slicing up the mango and red onion, and she’s staring out at the sun just dipping on the horizon.
They’d talked after he got back from confronting Red Eddie.
“Right, I’ll be the one to take the leap,” Petra said. “Are we going to see each other again? I mean, outside of our professional relationship.”
“Is that what we have?”
“So far.”
“I dunno,” Boone said. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know, either,” Petra said. “I mean, I don’t know where it could go. We want such different things from life.”
“Truth.”
“But maybe that’s not a bad thing,” Petra said.
He knew what the smart thing would be. Walk away now. Because they are so different, because they do want different things from life. But there’s something about those eyes you don’t walk away from. And something about her.
A lot about her.
She’s smart, tough, funny, h
ot, brave, cool.
She’s a good person.
They decided to just take things as they come.
And Sunny?
Sunny’s out there, he thinks as he watches the sun going down. What a future—all the places she’ll go now, all the oceans she’ll see, the waves she’ll ride. It’s her world now, all of it, and who knows if one of those waves will ever bring them together again.
“Here,” Petra says. She gets up and hands him the cutting board. Boone slides the chopped mango and onion into a bowl, then adds some lime juice, a little jalapeño, and a handful of cilantro and mixes it all up.
Then he takes the tortillas off the grill, lays a piece of fish on each one, then spoons a generous dollop of the fresh mango salsa over the fish.
“Dinner’s ready, guys!” he says.
He hands a taco to Petra.
“God, that’s wonderful,” she says.
Boone serves the tacos, then takes a moment to look at the ocean, the setting sun, the long beach.
This is his beach, his world.
His friends.
His family.
“As I’ve always said …” he pronounces.
Everything tastes better on a tortilla.
