Dawn Patrol (28 page)

“¿Tomas, dónde está Luce?”
Teddy asks.

“Gone. With the others,” Tomas says.

“¿Dónde la encuentro?”
Teddy asks. Where do I find her? He’s learned a little Spanglish in his days in the reeds.

“You don’t.” The guy learned a little English from
his
days in the reeds.

Teddy sits down heavily in the dirt and puts his head in his hands.

“A madrugada,”
Tomas says.

Wait until dawn.

Boone stands with one foot on the railing and looks out at the ocean.

Might as well be out in the open. There’s no real danger now—Tide’s crew has the pier covered. Red Eddie would never try to go through them, and he wouldn’t let Dan Silver do it, either.

Johnny B. has gone to try to find a judge in the middle of the night—good luck with that—but has called a black-and-white, which is parked at the end of the pier. Maybe Johnny was right, Boone thinks. Maybe I am becoming an asshole. Just look at what I thought about Tide, that he sold me out to Red Eddie.

A total asshole thing to think.

Johnny was right about something else: Tammy Roddick is a dead woman if she testifies. If they can’t kill her to prevent it, they’ll kill her to avenge it. And I should have thought of that.
Would
have thought of it if I wasn’t so busy proving to Pete what a hotshot PI I am.

Asshole.

He stares out at the ocean, the whitecaps barely visible in the fog and faint moonlight. The ocean is ripping, getting itself geared up for the big party.

Petra comes up behind him.

“Am I intruding?” she asks. “I mean, any more than usual?”

“No, no more than usual.”

She stands next to him. “Is your swell coming in?”

“Yup.”

“You’ll be able to catch it now.”

“Yup.”

“I thought that would make you happy,” she says.

“I thought it would, too,” Boone replies. “You know what the best thing is about a wave?”

“No.”

“A wave,” Boone says, “puts you in your exact place in the universe. Say you’re just all full of yourself, you think you’re the king of the world, and you go out, and then this wave just slams you—picks you up, throws you down, rolls you, scrapes you along the bottom, and holds you there for a while. Like it’s God saying, ‘Listen, speck, when I let you back up, take a gulp of air, and step away from yourself a little bit.’ Or say you’re really low; you go out and you’re feeling like crap, like’s there’s not a place for you in the world. You go out there, and the ocean gives you this sweet ride, like it’s all just for you, you know? And that’s God saying, ‘Welcome, son, it’s for you and it’s all good.’ A wave always gives you what you need.”

It’s cold out. She leans into him. He doesn’t move away. A few seconds later, he puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her tighter.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she says.

“About what?”

“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?

“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-ba-ba-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 Lutèce, 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.

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.

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.

Dawn comes to Pacific Beach.

A pale yellow light that infiltrates the morning fog like a faint, unsteady glimpse of hope.

A lone 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.

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.

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 …