The Gentlemen's Hour (Boone Daniels #2)

Here’s the story that Corey tells, on the record.

He started surfing with Trevor and the Knowles brothers. Something to do and it was fun, you know. At first, the older guys there didn’t really want them around, but Trevor made their bones by chasing some foreigners away. Then Mike said they should swing by his gym, check it out.

They were all, like, why not? MMA is cool, and it was, so they started spending most of their time at the gym and at Rockpile.

So they, like, hung around the break and the gym, and they helped keep it pure at Rockpile, you know. It was their water, their turf, and they tagged themselves the Rockpile Crew, and they were hanging in the gym one night and Mike asked if they’d like to check out some Web sites and they said sure, they thought he was talking about porn or something, but then he logged on and it was all about the white race and how they had to fight to preserve it, and Mike asked what they thought and they said they thought it was cool.

Mike said it was like the white race was their tribe and they were warriors, and warriors fight to protect their tribe, and were they willing to fight? And they said they were, and Mike said that’s what they were all about, training as warriors to protect their tribe. He told them about Alex Curtis going to prison and what Alex said and the number 5 and Corey went out after a few beers one night and got that ink and Mike said he was becoming a warrior . . .

And a warrior fights for his people.

“San Diego used to be white,” Mike said, “now it’s mud. They’re crowding us out. Pretty soon there won’t be room for white guys anymore on our street, at our beaches, in our own waves.”

And Trev said, “Somebody should do something about it.”

That night, that night, they were cruising that night, club-hopping, looking for trouble. If you wanted to be a fighter, okay, you had to fight, and you just couldn’t get enough fights in the gym, not unless you were one of the stars, which Corey wasn’t. But a lot of MMA guys had a lot of street fights, beach fights . . . man, they just kicked asses wherever they could find asses to kick.

So they went out.

Corey, Trevor, Billy, and Dean.

The Rockpile Crew.

They hit a bunch of bars but couldn’t get anything going. Then they rolled up on The Sundowner. By this time they’d had a lot of beers, and downed some speed, so they were torqued, ready to go, and that’s when that lifeguard guy came and threw them out.

Like we didn’t belong, Corey said. There was all kinds of mud in there—tacos and slants and even niggers—and they wouldn’t let white men stay?

That was bullshit.

So they went riding around, high and stoked, adrenaline pumping, and Trev just wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let it go, just kept at it, like: “We have to take care of this, we can’t let them disrespect us like that.”

“It ain’t right.”

So they went back and waited outside, across the street, in the alley. They got themselves worked up, started duking with each other, really throwing down, and that’s when Trev spotted the nigger coming out of The Sundowner.

And Trev was all, like, “Let’s go show him, let’s mess him up a little, f*ck with him, sweep the mud off our street.” So they went up to the guy, and they didn’t know it was K2—he had on this hooded poncho and it was dark and there was like blood in the back of Corey’s eyes, sloshing around inside his head, boiling hot . . . all he could see was that red. And then there was yelling. The next thing he knew he was sitting in the back of the car, and they were all stoked and shit, and Trev was slapping him on the back, yelling, “You got him good, man. You took him out! Did you guys see our boy Corey hit him with that Superman?” And then Billy and Dean were saying, like, “Yeah, we saw you, Corey. We saw you do him.”

And Corey was like . . .

Proud.

Like, proud that he’d defended his turf, you know? Stood up and fought like a warrior for his tribe.

They drove around some more, and then the cops found them. Put them in cuffs and took them down to the station, and that’s when Corey confessed.

“I hit him with a Superman Punch.”



102

“Come on, Mary Lou!” Alan says in her office.

“I don’t,” she says. “I don’t see how this really changes things. Except that your client has now confessed to a hate crime.”

Alan tries to blow right through that little problem. “He hasn’t confessed to anything. This wipes out his prior so-called confession.”

“Not necessarily,” she says. “It’s a new story he tells now that he’s closer to the reality of prison, but the original confession has immediacy.”

“I’ll put him on the stand,” Alan says, “and the jury will believe him.”

Yes, they will, she tells herself. Because even you think you believe him. Face it, you like Trevor Bodin for the killing now. It’s like Alan’s living in her head because he says, “Reduce Corey to manslaughter, rip up Bodin’s deal on the basis that he lied to you, and raise the charge on him.”

Right, she can hear the defense attorney cross-examine her already. “You originally charged Corey Blasingame with the killing, didn’t you? And you charged him because you were confident that he did it. Just as you say you’re confident now that my client did it?” She looks at Alan and says, “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know you can’t hold this charge on a kid you know is not guilty,” Alan says softly. “Isn’t in you, Mary Lou.”

“Don’t push it,” she snaps. “Your kid isn’t exactly a martyred innocent, is he? He went out looking for a fight, he found one, he went over in a gang, and they beat a man to death because the man wasn’t white. He has to do some time for that, Alan.”

“I agree,” Alan says. “But not life without parole.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Hours,” Alan says. “Not days.”

When he leaves, Mary Lou stands in the window and looks out at downtown San Diego, a city that will not react well to a reduction of the charges against Corey Blasingame. She’s already heard the refrains in reference to the other three: “Rich white kids get slapped on the wrist.” “If it had been Mexicans or Samoans who did this, they’d be under the jail.” Maybe they’re right, she thinks. And maybe Alan’s right when he implies that we’re making a scapegoat of Corey Blasingame.

But explaining the reduction to the powers will be brutal. She has to tell them something, give them some reason, and the only one she can give is that the confession was bogus, the witness statements hinky, and the investigation botched. Rush to judgment and all that. It’s Harrington and Kodani who’ll take the fall.

She couldn’t give a shit about Harrington, a loose cannon who has it coming, but John Kodani is a good detective, smart, ethical, hardworking. He had a suspect who confessed and he believed the confession, that’s all. Now it could cost him an otherwise brilliant career.

It’s a shame.

Then again, it’s all a shame, isn’t it?

Her intercom buzzes.

“Yes?”

“There’s a George Poptanich to see you?”



103

Dave the Love God climbs down from the tower.

Another uneventful day of watching tourists not drown. And tourists not drowning, as has been amply explained to him by the Chamber of Commerce, is a very good thing. Earlier in the year, a swimmer had been killed by a great white, which is a very bad thing—obviously for the swimmer but also for business, and also explained to the lifeguards by the Chamber.