The Gentlemen's Hour (Boone Daniels #2)

“Come on, sit down, Mary Lou,” Alan says. “We don’t want it to end this way.”


Mary Lou sits back down. “Neither Harrington’s borderline subornation of perjury nor Kodani’s assertive interview of the defendants changes the fact that your client, at least partially motivated by racial hatred, at least participated in a beating that cost a human life.”

“Agreed.”

“He has to do some serious time for that, Alan.”

“Also agreed,” Alan says. “But he didn’t throw the fatal punch, Mary Lou. That was Bodin. And he wasn’t the ringleader. That was Bodin too.”

“There are practical reasons why I can’t go after Bodin.”

“That doesn’t mean you should single Corey out for special punishment,” Alan responds. “There’s an issue of justice here.”

“There’s an issue of justice for Kelly, too.”

“I share that view,” Alan says. “My client participated in a disgusting act with a tragic result, and he should face the consequences. I’ll go vol man.

“With max sentencing—eleven years.”

“Minimum—three.”

It’s kabuki theater—they both know the next step in this ritual.

“Fine,” Mary Lou says. “Medium-range. Six.”

“Done.”

They shake hands—Alan and Mary Lou, Alan and Johnny, Petra and Mary Lou, Petra and Johnny, Boone and Mary Lou, not Boone and Johnny.

They avoid each other.



162

Boone drives to La Jolla.

The Hole.

Rabbit and Echo are on duty in front of the house. Rabbit pats Boone down while Echo gets on the horn and then comes back and says it’s okay for Boone to go in. Or out.

Red Eddie’s lying on a floatie in the pool, sipping some fruity drink with an umbrella in it. His ankle bracelet is wrapped in a plastic Baggie. Dahmer’s stretched out on a floating cushion nearby. Eddie cranes his neck up, squints into the sun, and says, “Boonie, an unexpected pleasure! You could have just sent a card.”

Red Eddie’s pidgin Hawaiian comes in and out like the tide. It depends on his mood and intent. Today, he’s all Wharton Business.

“F*ck you, Eddie.”

“Not exactly the Hallmark sentiment I was expecting.” Eddie says, “but pithy, nevertheless.”

“Stay out of my life.”

“Even to save it, Boone?” Eddie asks. “It’s not just a past-tense question—the cartel is very upset with you, costing them all this money and trouble. They’re not so happy with me, either, wiping out two of their boys and one of their best interrogators. When things settle for them, they’ll be coming for both of us.”

“Look out for yourself,” Boone says. “Not me.”

Eddie paddles to the edge of the pool and sets his drink down. Then he rolls off the floatie into the water, dives down to cool himself, comes back up, and says, “This is the problem with that, Boone: I owe you. My son’s life. My life, too. How can I ever stop repaying that? I can’t. So you will just have to learn to accept my care and largesse—a little more graciously, please.”

“I just came to tell you that Corey Blasingame didn’t kill—”

“I already heard,” Eddie says. “Do you think that I’m without resources in the hallways of power? I am informed that it was Trevor Bodin who murdered my calabash cousin. Is that correct?”

Boone doesn’t answer, but says, “I suppose it’s useless to ask you to refrain from doing what you’re going to do.”

“Supposition correct.”

“Even if Kelly wouldn’t want you to do it?”

“I never respond to ‘even ifs,’” Eddie says. “Aloha, Boone.”

“Drown.”

Boone walks away.

“Nice,” Eddie says. He dives again, comes up, and yells at Rabbit, “What, you think my drink is going to swim over here by itself, da kine?”

Rabbit hustles for the drink.



163

Corey Blasingame goes before the judge that afternoon and pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

The judge accepts the plea and sets sentencing for two months down the road, but as preagreed he’s going to give Corey the medium-range sentence of seventy-two months, with credit for time served.

In the normal course of things, Corey will be out in fewer than three years.

The judge gives him a few minutes to say good-bye to people before the sheriffs take him away, but there really isn’t anyone to say good-bye to. Both parents are dead, he has no siblings, and no real friends. Boone notes that none of the surfers from Rockpile or the fighters from Team Domination bothered to show up.

Banzai is there, almost as if he wants to take responsibility for blowing the murder case.

A lot of surfers show up, too, as many as the gallery can hold, more outside the courthouse, a bunch of “human rights” groups holding signs reading “Justice for Kelly,” “Stop Hate Now,” and “Racism” with that diagonal line through it. Their disgust at the plea arrangement is palpable, and, inside the courtroom, Boone can feel their eyes burning through the back of his head.

So it’s just the defense team—Alan, Petra, and Boone—who’s there for Corey. If any of them was expecting gratitude, they’d have been disappointed. Corey just looks at them with his stupid, conflicted “I just got away with something” smile.

Alan feels that he has to say something. “You’ll probably be out in three years, maybe less. You’ll have your whole life in front of you.”

Sort of, Boone thinks. Corey probably hasn’t figured out yet that his father’s estate will be tied up in litigation and then sold off to pay lawsuits. So Corey will get out of the hole without a home or a dime in the bank, with a felony sheet, in a city that hates him, and not a friend in the world. Boone doesn’t bother to enlighten him to that, nor to the fact that he saved the kid from a jailhouse shanking or worse.

Corey looks at Alan, then at Petra, then Boone, and mutters, “I have nothing to say.”

Me neither, Boone thinks.

Nothing at all.

5.



164

He doesn’t have anything to say, either, when he walks outside the courthouse through a mob of protesting surfers.

Some of whom shout his name and couple it with “Traitor” and “Sellout.”

He just puts a protective arm around Petra and helps her into the waiting car that takes them back to the law office.



165

They lie in bed at his place that night.

After a little while she asks, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Really? Because you seem sad.”

He thinks about it. “Yeah, kind of, I am.”

“Your friends?”

“That’s part of it,” he says. “But only part. It’s the whole thing, you know? It’s made me question . . . who I am. I never saw the ugliness until it was too late, until it killed someone like Kelly. Maybe I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to see it. I only wanted to see . . . paradise.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“No, I’m not,” Boone says. “If you don’t see something, you don’t have to do anything about it. And I didn’t do a damn thing.”

“You’re not responsible for the whole world.”

“Just my piece of it.”

Petra kisses his neck, then his shoulder and his chest, and slides down his body gently, because he’s bruised and sore and aching, but she does soft, loving things until he cries out. Much later, her head in the crook of his neck, she asks, “Have you had a chance to think about Alan’s offer?”

Boone smiles. “He told you about that?”

“Yes.”

“Before or after he made it?”

“Before,” she says. “Does that matter?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Ah. I see. I didn’t ask him, Boone. It was his idea.”

“But he ran it by you first.”

“I’m sure just to see if I’d be comfortable with the idea of you being around the office,” she says.

“Are you?” Boone asks. “ ‘Comfortable’?”

She rolls over and puts her head on his chest. “Much, much more than comfortable. I’m ecstatic.”

He holds her tight. “Why don’t you stay here until you’re ready to move back in to your place?”