The Gentlemen's Hour (Boone Daniels #2)

“Why are you here, Mr. Daniels?”


Boone looks at Dan, like, you do it, dude. Anyway, he wants to watch her reaction. Dan stands up and walks to her. Holds her hands and gently says, “Honey, Phil Schering was murdered tonight.”

“Oh, my God.” She puts her face into his shoulder. When she lifts it up again, Boone sees that her cheeks are wet with tears. “Oh, my God. Dan, tell me you didn’t—”

“No.”

“The police are going to want to talk to both of you,” Boone says.

Dan turns and looks at him. “Did you—”

“No,” Boone says. “I kept you out of it, but it’s only a matter of time. They’ll subpoena my records, get your name, Dan, and they’ll come talk to you. It would really be better if you got ahead of the curve and talked to them first. Do you have a good lawyer?”

“Oh, my God, Dan.” Donna sits down on the couch. She looks shaky.

“Sure,” Dan says, “but only for business. I have squads of corporate lawyers, but . . . for something like this . . . I mean, I’ve never even had a DUI.”

Boone digs in his wallet, comes out with Alan Burke’s card, and hands it to Dan. Why not? he thinks. Dan can afford his hourly, and this is right in Burke’s wheelhouse. Alan apparently doesn’t mind defending guilty clients, and this is just his kind of case. Are you kidding? A celebrity billionaire on trial for murder? Beautiful, socialite wife? Sordid love affair? The media will eat it up, and Alan does like to see himself on TV.

Nichols looks at the card and says, “Oh, sure, I’ve heard of him. I mean, I know him from social events and . . . he gets out on the Gentlemen’s Hour sometimes, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Boone says. “We can call him now, he’ll meet us at the precinct.”

“At this time of night?”

“He owes me a solid.”

Dan looks at the card and asks, “Can’t this wait until morning, Boone? I mean, they probably won’t get your records until then and, you know, with a little sleep—”

“Trust me, Dan, neither of you is going to sleep,” Boone says.

And I don’t trust you, Dan, Boone thinks. With your money, you could be on a private jet tonight, then on a beach in Croatia somewhere, buying your way out of an extradition. The cops will claim that I tipped you off so you could run, and then I am looking at an accessory rap. Even if I beat it, I lose my card.

So, no thanks.

“Dan,” says Donna, “let’s get this over with. The sooner we face up to this the better.”

“But you’ll—”

“I’ll take ownership of what I’ve done,” Donna says.

That’s nice, Boone thinks. Somewhere in Donna Nichols’s busy days, she’s found time to DVR Oprah. “Take ownership . . .”

Dan hands him back the card. “Could you call him, please? We’ll get dressed.”

“Sure,” Boone says.

Donna nods. “I think that would be good.”

They go back upstairs to get dressed.



86

Petra is très pissed off.

No man has ever stood her up before, ever, certainly never under these circumstances. Now she’s sitting on her sofa dressed in a lovely blue satin negligee ready to give herself to a man who has apparently, in the California vernacular, “spaced her off.”

It’s humiliating.

Completely, totally, utterly humiliating.

She feels like the second lead in a bad romance novel, or a modern, sexually loose Jane Austen character, vainly waiting for a man to come and take her away from her mundane existence. Pity the apartment lacks a harpsichord. A hovering mother, a dotty father, an earnest sister in whom to confide her heartbreak.

Heartbreak? she thinks.

Over Boone Daniels?

Please.

She is furious, though. I invited him here, she thinks, for what was obviously going to be our first sexual encounter, and the man forgets, doesn’t even have the common courtesy to ring and apologize? A flaw in character or a failure of nerve? she wonders. Either way it doesn’t bode well for a relationship. Do you really want a man who’s afraid to have sex with you?

Or, she thinks, does he just not fancy you? Not in “that way,” as they say. Fair enough, but what about that kiss? That took you totally unprepared. He certainly seemed to fancy you then, didn’t he?

A bottle of good red wine sits open on the coffee table, flanked by two long-stemmed glasses. She picks up one, pours herself a long drink, then changes her mind and goes to her liquor cabinet for some whiskey. God, she thinks, first I make myself into a slut—albeit rejected—for him, now he’s turning me into an alcoholic.

She takes her Scotch neat, sits down, and turns on the television.

Damn Boone Daniels.



87

Johnny Banzai is not exactly crazy about Boone either when he walks into the precinct house with Dan and Donna Nichols in tow.

Not to mention Alan Burke.

It’s sort of like giving with one hand and taking back with the other. Here, Johnny my bro, here’s a suspect for you. And, oh, here’s someone who won’t let the suspect talk to you.

Thanks, Boone, por nada.

“Are these the clients you were protecting?” Johnny asks Boone.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Swell.”

“Indeed.”

“Don’t say anything more, Boone,” Alan Burke says. He doesn’t look his usual dapper self, in a pair of jeans and an old sweatshirt that he pulled on when he got Boone’s call. His hair is tousled and he’s unshaved.

“Are you representing Mr. Daniels?” Johnny asks him.

“No.”

“Then don’t instruct him,” Johnny says.

“Am I out of here?” Boone asks.

“For now,” Johnny answers.

“I never thought I’d hear myself say this,” Harrington says, “but Daniels, don’t leave town.”

Boone nods and walks out the door. Technically, they could still jam him up on obstruction charges but it won’t go far, seeing as how he brought Dan Nichols in to be interviewed. So he’s free and clear. As for Dan and Donna, their problems are their problems. You got Dan a good lawyer, you’re out of this.

Forget about it.

Forget . . .

Oh, shit.

Petra.

He gets on his phone.

It rings and rings and rings.

Clearly, she has caller ID.



88

Yeah, but he has one of the all-time great excuses, right?

“Honey, I was detained on suspicion of murder.” Has to be good for a hall pass, doesn’t it? Has to be, Boone thinks, if I can get her to listen to it.

He debates with himself what to do next. Part of him says to let it slide until morning—he looks at his watch, okay, later in the morning—and let her cool down. Another part of him says he should drive over there right now and ring her doorbell.

What to do, what to do?

He calls Dave.

Who is, after all, the Love God.

“Oh, this better be prime,” Dave says when he answers the phone.

“You busy?”

“I was getting busy,” Dave answers. “What is it, you forgot the lyrics to The Jetsons? For the last time, it’s ‘His boy, Elroy. Jane, his wife.’”

Boone explains his situation, without specific reference to the Nicholses. Dave just lets it slide that Boone was picked up on suspicion of homicide and that Johnny B was the picker-upper. He gets right to the problem at hand.

“Go over there.”

“Really?”

“Hell, yes,” Dave says. “Dude, do you have any idea how pissed she is? Chick sets up a booty call and you don’t get your booty over there?”

“Uhh, murder charge?”

“Doesn’t matter to a woman,” Dave says.

“Has to. Come on.”

“Hold on,” Dave says. Boone hears him talking softly to someone, then Dave gets back on and says, “No. Doesn’t matter.”

“Shit.”

“Shit indeed,” Dave says. “Listen to your Uncle Dave, who has himself been in this same doleful situation. . . . I just said that to make him feel like a little less of an idiot, babe. . . . What you do is, you go over there, ring her bell, and beg forgiveness over the intercom. She won’t let you in, but she’ll feel better that you made the effort.”