The Gentlemen's Hour (23 page)

Iglesias is in an ugly mood, cooped up in the modest house in Point Loma, on the run from Ortega's assassination squads and the American
police. He's bored, edgy, and irritated that his business is not being conducted the way he expects.

“It just might take a little longer than . . .”

“No, we're done.”

“I really think . . .”

“I don't care what you think anymore,” Iglesias says. “We've tried your way. We'll do it my way now.”

Iglesias snaps the phone shut. He doesn't want to hear any more excuses or any further pleas for more time. He's given these
gueros
ample opportunity to work out their problems, he's been more than generous. He has tried to act like a gentleman, and expected that they would do the same, but it just hasn't happened.

At the end of the day it's about money. Gentlemen or no gentlemen, these
yanqui
buffoons are messing with his money, a lot of it, and that is something that he simply cannot tolerate.

He yells for Santiago to come out of the kitchen. His lieutenant is whipping up his deservedly famous
albondigas
, and it smells wonderful, but Iglesias has more urgent business than homemade cuisine.

“You look ridiculous in that apron,” he says when Santiago comes in.

“This is a new shirt,” Santiago protests. “Three hundred dollars, Fashion Valley. I don't want to get it . . .”

“That thing we talked about,” Iglesias says. “It's time to make it happen.”

“Los Niños Locos?”

“No,” Iglesias says. He doesn't want a gruesome execution to send a message, he just wants to get it done. “Give it to that man—”

“Jones?”

“Yes.” After all, they're paying his daily fee in addition to expenses; they might as well get some work out of him. “Just tell him to keep it simple.”

The man Jones has a tendency to get flamboyant.

But he does dress like a gentleman.

Dan Nichols feels a strange sense of relief.

It's odd, the calm that comes over you from just knowing.

Knowing what's happened, and knowing what you have to do now.

Boone tries to work out what to wear.

To a booty call.

Well, not exactly a booty call. You can't really call it a booty call when you've been putting it off for more than three months and you have genuine, if confused, feelings for the person. And is it really a booty call? Boone wonders. Or just the continuation of a kiss? Or a conversation about the “relationship” and where it's going? What do you wear to a conversation about a relationship? Usually body armor, although he hasn't owned a Kevlar vest since he left the police force.

Not that Boone has a lot from which to choose. He has a winter wedding and funeral suit and a summer wedding and funeral suit, one white and one blue dress shirt, and a single pair of khaki trousers that Cheerful ordered for him from the Land's End catalog and have never been off the hanger. Otherwise, his wardrobe, such as it is, consists of five pairs of jeans in various states of disrepair, T-shirts, long-sleeve pullovers from O'Neill, Ripcurl, Hobie, and Pacific Surf, and a staggering collection of boardshorts. Hooded sweaties make up a large part of his wardrobe, but it's too hot for them anyway. As for footwear, he owns the black dress shoes that go with the wedding and funeral suits, three pairs of Reef sandals,
and one pair of black Skechers tennis shoes, because the Skecher store is just a block from his office.

Boone decides on the white dress shirt and his least faded jeans and then sits there in mental paralysis over the choice of the tennis or dress shoes. Petra might infer from the tennis shoes that he's taking this too casually—which would piss her off and which he's certainly not—but the dress shoes might signal her that he expects that they're going to have sex, which he sort of does, but isn't really all that sure, and he doesn't want her to think that he's taking that for granted, but on the other hand, he does want her to think that . . .

Sandals are probably out of the question, Boone thinks.

He's mulling this over when his cell phone rings.

It's Sunny.

Phil Schering opens the door.

And says, “Oh, shit.”

No shit, “Oh, shit.”

Johnny Banzai gets the call.

Truth be told, he's almost relieved that it's not another gang slaying, more fallout from the Baja Cartel reorganization. On the other hand, the murder of a middle-aged white guy in a nice Del Mar neighborhood brings a lot
more heat than some dead teenage Mexican gangbangers in Barrio Logan.

He pulls up to 1457 Cuchara Drive.

The neighbors are out on the sidewalk, looking concerned. They have those “this kind of thing just doesn't happen here” looks on their faces. Yeah, but it does, Johnny thinks as he gets out of the car. Gangbangers lop each other's heads off, surfers beat another surfer to death, men get shot in “nice” neighborhoods, and it all happens here.

“This is going to be a major pain in the ass,” Harrington mutters as they walk up to the house.

Yes, it is, Johnny thinks. The recent killing spree in San Diego is bad for a town that depends on tourism. The City Council rags on the mayor, the mayor passes it down to Mary Lou, Mary Lou hands it off to the chief, and then the shit flows downhill to me. Why, he wonders with rare self-pity, do people have to kill each other on
my
shift?

The victim lies on his back in the living room.

One entry wound square in the forehead from close range.

Harrington's examining the front door. He looks down where Johnny's squatting beside the body and shakes his head. They've worked together for a while now, so Johnny knows what he means—there are no marks on the door around the lock.

The victim opened the door for the shooter.

“Stop 'n' Pop,” Harrington says.

Sure looks like it, Johnny speculates from the placement of the body. The victim opened the door, the shooter pulled the gun, walked the victim back a few steps, then shot him. Not your hot August night sudden flaring of violence, but a premeditated, cold-blooded murder.

Still, it doesn't have the look or feel of a professional hit. Contract killers don't normally do the job at the target's home—more often at their place of business or on the way to or from it. And they usually take the body, dump it somewhere, or destroy it.

So what you have here is probably an amateur, most likely a first-time killer angry enough to make a decision and then act on it.

The crime scene boys arrive so Johnny gets out of their way and goes out on the street to help Harrington with the canvas. There are certainly plenty of neighbors standing around to interview, but most of them have nothing useful to offer.

Some heard the shot and called 911.

No one saw anybody come to the door or leave.

One older guy, from across the street one door down, says that he's noticed a “weird” vehicle hanging around the neighborhood lately.

An old Dodge van.

Wary of burglars, he even jotted down the license plate.

Johnny recognizes it.

Boonemobile II.

Aka the Deuce.

“Sunny! Hey!”

“Hey yourself! S'up?”

“Nuch,” Boone says. “Where are you?”

“Bondi Beach, Oz,” she says. “Thought I'd give you a shout.”

It's great to hear her voice. “What time is it there?”

“I dunno,” Sunny says. “Listen, did I catch you at a bad time? You going out or something?”

Women are amazing, Boone thinks. Talk about high-tech spy stuff—she's on the other side of the freaking world and can smell over the phone that I have a date. He'd tell her no, but they have a long-standing
deal never to lie to each other, so he doesn't say anything.

“You do, don't you?” she asks. “At . . . ten at night? Boone, baby, that's a booty call.”

“I don't know.”

“Who is it?” she asks. “Is it the British betty? What's her name?”

Boone knows that Sunny knows her name. But he says, “Petra.”

“You charmingly call her ‘Pete.' ” Sunny laughs. “I'll bet she loves that. Makes her feel all girlie and stuff. It's her, right?”

“Look, this must be costing you a—”

“It is, isn't it?” Sunny says. “It's cool, my Boone. She's a good chick. I like her. Kinda tightly wound, but . . . okay, what are you going to wear?”

“Jesus, Sunny.”

“I know you, Boone,” she says. “I don't want you to blow this. So what are you wearing?”

This is both sick and wrong, Boone thinks. But he says, “White dress shirt, jeans.”

“Tennis or dress shoes?”

“I dunno. What do you think?”

“
Where
are you meeting her?” Sunny asks. “Bar or club?”

“Her place,” Boone says.

Sunny laughs. “If you're meeting a woman at ten
P.M
. at her place, it doesn't matter what you're wearing.” Her implication being that, whatever you're wearing, you won't be wearing it for long. Then she adds, “By the way, congratulations.”

“Tennis or dress?” Boone insists.

“Black or brown?”

“Black.”

“Dress.”

“Thanks.”

“De nada.”

“The shirt. In or out?”

“Jeans?”

“Yeah.”

“Is this the, uhhh, first . . .”

“Yes.”

“Aww, he's shy,” she says. “In.”

“Thanks.”

“No worries.”

They talk about her surf tour, how well it's going, how she's getting in shape for the big wave season in Hawaii, Pipeline, and all that. Boone fills her in a little on what he's been up to, skipping the Blasingame case, and tells her that the gang is doing well.

“Tell them I miss them,” Sunny says. “I miss you, too, Boone.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Love you, B.”

“Love you, Sunny.”

Boone hangs up. Five seconds later the phone rings and Sunny asks, “Do you have any cologne or after-shave?”

“No.”

“Good.”

She hangs up.

Feeling weirder than weird—he will never understand women and neither will anyone else, even Dave—Boone goes to his closet, takes out the black dress shoes, then finds a pair of white gym socks and wipes the dust off them. This leads him to the unhappy quandary of what color socks to wear, and again, he has limited choices.

White or white.

He decides on white and then checks his watch: nine twenty-five. Almost time to leave if he wants to be at Petra's apartment downtown by
ten. But the date isn't for ten, it's for “tennish,” so he sits and debates with himself about when to actually arrive. Ten? Five past? Ten past? What's “ish,” anyway? And is “ish” different in England than in the United States?

He heads out the door at nine-forty, to get there around ten-ten.

When he opens his door, Johnny Banzai is standing there.

Which is good.

“Johnny,” says Boone. “Look, I'm glad you came by. I'm—”

Then he sees Sergeant Steve Harrington walk up behind Johnny.

Which is bad.

They hate each other.

Boone and Harrington.

No, they don't hate each other, they fucking
hate
each other. Go to your thesaurus, look up every synonym for hatred, add them together, multiply them by ten, and you still don't come up to the level of malice that these two guys hold for each other.

“Good evening, piece of shit,” Harrington says.

“Johnny, what the hell?” Boone says, ignoring him and turning to Johnny Banzai. If they're here to bust my chops about Blasingame, Boone thinks, nine-something on a Friday night is way out of bounds.

“Can we come in?” Johnny says, looking grim. “Have a talk?”

“Now?”

“Yeah, ‘now,' asshole,” Harrington says. “We're here ‘now,' aren't we? We want to come inside ‘now.' We want to talk ‘now.' ”

Boone shines him on. He looks only at Johnny and asks, “You have a warrant?”

Johnny shakes his head.

“Then ‘no,' ” Boone says. “Anyway, I'm going out.”

“Got a date?” Harrington asks.

“As a matter of fact.”

“Where you taking her?” Harrington asks, checking his watch. “Legoland's closed for the night.”

The last time Boone punched Harrington he ended up in jail, so he keeps his hands down. It's what Harrington wants, anyway, an excuse to roust him. Johnny steps in and says, “Boone, it's better you come to the house so we can record the interview.”

“What are you talking about?” Boone asks.

“You want to tell us where you were tonight?” Harrington asks.

“Here.”

“You got anyone who can verify that?”

“No.”

Harrington looks at Johnny and smiles. Steve Harrington has a face like razor wire, and the smile doesn't help. “The neighbors noticed a suspicious vehicle lurking around the neighborhood, and one of them jotted down the plate. Guess who the vehicle belongs to, surf bum? I almost thought it was my birthday.”

“What neighbors? What are you yapping about?”

“Do you know a Philip Schering?” Johnny asks Boone.

Boone doesn't say anything.

“S'what I thought,” Harrington says. “Can we just take him in now?”

“Take me in for what?”

“You're a person of interest,” Johnny says.

“In what?”

“In Schering's murder,” says Johnny.

This is macking messed up, Boone thinks.

Dan Nichols used me to bird-dog his wife's lover.

Then he killed him.