The Gentlemen's Hour (Boone Daniels #2)

Petra sighs. “Oh, why not?”


Not Sunny sets the glass on the table.

We have something in common, Petra thinks.

We’re both not Sunny.



12

The night that Kelly Kuhio was killed, PB was rolling with tourists and locals out for a good time. The bars were full and spilling out onto the sidewalks, the beer and wine were flowing, music was pulsing from the clubs and cruising cars with the bass turned up.

Dave and Tide were in The Sundowner, hogueing a platter full of fish tacos, just cooling it out after a day-long session. Dave was burned out from a double shift; Tide was bored from a week of supervising bone-dry storm drains. They were sitting at their table, speculating on where Sunny might be at that moment, somewhere in the world, when the aggro started.

Yelling coming from the bar.

Corey Blasingame was a local kid, nineteen or so, who usually surfed out at Rockpile. Corey could ride a wave, but that was about it—he had no flair, no skill that would distinguish him. Now he was sporting a shaved head and a hoodie in the middle of freaking summer, although the sleeves were cut off to reveal his tattoos.

He had three boys with him—domes also shaved, ripped T-shirts and hoodies, baggy cammie trunks over ankle-high Uggs—and there was some ridiculous crap going around about these guys glossing themselves the Rockpile Crew, how they charged themselves with keeping “law and order” at that La Jolla break, just up the road from Pacific Beach, how they kept the “foreigners” out of their water.

A surf gang in La Jolla. Totally goobed. You know, La Jolla? The richest place in America? Where grown men with silver hair shamelessly wear pink polo shirts? A gang? It was so funny you almost couldn’t laugh at it.

Tide did. When Boone brought up the ludicrous nature of a La Jolla gang during the Dawn Patrol, Tide said, “They got gangs in La Jolla. Doctor gangs, lawyer gangs, banker gangs. Those mean f*ckers will rip you up, man, you don’t replace a divot.”

“Art gallery gangs,” Dave added. “You don’t mess with them janes, you value your junk.”

Anyway, the Rockpile Crew was up front, demanding service that the bartender had refused because they were underage. They started yapping about it, arguing, chanting “Rockpile Crew,” and just generally being pains in the ass, disrupting the nice vibe of the evening. Chuck Halloran, the owner, looked out from behind the bar at Dave, like, can you give me a hand with this?

Kelly Kuhio was in a booth with some friends, and he started to get up. Dave saw this and waved him off, like, I got this. That was the thing, Boone thought later, after it all went south—Kelly wasn’t even involved in the hassle. He just sat in his booth drinking grapefruit juice and hitting some nachos. He had nothing to do with it.

For that matter, Boone had nothing to do with it, either. He was MIA from The Sundowner that night, on a date with Petra.

So it was Dave who got up from his chair and edged his way through the crowd to the bar and asked Corey, “What’s up?”

“What’s it to you?”

Dave looked at Corey’s eyes and he could see the kid was jacked up. Certainly on beers, but probably something more—meth or speed or something. The boy was hopping up and down on the balls of his feet, his fingers flexing. Still, Dave could also tell from the look in his eye that Corey didn’t really want a fight, that he was looking for a face-saving way to back down.

No problem, Dave thought. I’m all about the peace. Yeah, not really. Dave actually likes to go, but that’s not what Chuck needed at the moment, and anyway, K2 was in the house, and the man deplored violence. So Dave said, “Dude, you’re too cool to want to cost Chuck his license, right? And I don’t want to throw with you, you look tough, man.”

Corey smiled and it should have been over right there.

Except that one of Corey’s crew didn’t want it to be over.

Trevor Bodin was a punk. Unlike Corey, Trevor had the build to back it up. Trevor did his time in the gym and in the dojo, and he fancied himself some kind of mixed martial artist, always yapping about breaking into the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Now Trevor opened his piehole to say, “You don’t want to mess with us, man.”

It was all too predictable that Bodin would want to keep this flame burning. Unlike if he were in a UFC octagon, he was surrounded by his boys who could pull his nutsack out of the fire if he got in trouble, so Trevor was real brave and mouthy.

“What’s this have to do with you?” Dave asked him.

“What’s it have to do with you?” Trevor answered.

Which was, like, a mistake.

Dave stepped forward and just kept walking, moving the guy toward the door. Tide did the same with Corey and the two other Rockpile Crew, and not one of them, not Corey or Trevor or Billy or Dean Knowles, did a damn thing about it. They didn’t push back, they didn’t throw, they just let themselves get ushered out onto the sidewalk.

Which was good thinking for morons. They were looking at two Pacific Beach legends, and the legends wanted them out of there, and they were just smart enough to go. But not smart enough to keep their mouths shut. It was almost comical, Corey hopping so he could yell over Tide’s shoulder, “Rockpile Crew! Rockpile Crew!”

“Whatever,” Dave said. “Move along.”

“You don’t own the sidewalk,” Trevor said.

“You want to see what I own?” Dave asked.

Trevor didn’t. Neither did the rest of the crew. They strutted up Garnet, chanting, “Rockpile Crew! Rockpile Crew!”

Dave and Tide went back to the bar and laughed about it.

Nobody was laughing about it the next day.

Because Kelly Kuhio was in a coma.



13

Boone walks straight to the beach.

Where he always goes when he’s pissed off, sad, or confused. Looks to the ocean for an answer, or at least solace.

Pete’s full of shit, he thinks as he looks at the torpid sea. Classic defense attorney bullshit. It’s always somebody else’s fault, not the poor criminal’s. He’s just a victim of society. “Lynch mob” my aching ass. Four guys going to a man’s house and beating him to death, that’s a lynch mob.

Except Pete’s not some knee-jerk, NPR-addicted, Volvo-driving, crunchy granola, left-wing type. She enthuses about the Laffer curve, thinks litterers should get jail time, and owns a gun, for Chrissakes. Hell, if she wasn’t getting paid to do the opposite, she’d be out to hang little Corey from the yardarm.

The beach is crowded today, mostly with families. Lots of kids running around, and they don’t seem to care that there’s no surf. The mommies and daddies sure like it, they can relax and let the kiddies ride the boogie boards in the tiny whitewash. Other kids are tossing Frisbees, playing paddleball, making sand castles. A few women are asleep in beach chairs, paperback books lying open on their laps.

Up on Crystal Pier people are strolling around, enjoying the view, the sunshine, the blue water. A few fishermen cluster at the end of the pier, their lines stretched down into the water, pretty much just an excuse to be out there on a day when the fish aren’t biting. Below the pier a few lunchtime surfers are out, more from habit than hope that any decent wave is going to come along. Still, it’s better than sitting in the office cubicle waiting for the bell to sound again and summon them back to whatever shit is waiting on their desks.

Pete’s right about the lynching thing, Boone reluctantly concedes. The papers have been full of editorials and letters demanding strong reaction to the Kuhio murder, and the radio talk shows have been hammering the deterioration of Pacific Beach, the callers and hosts screaming for a “crackdown.”

So dumb-ass Corey takes some of that weight. Is that so unfair? He killed someone.