The Gentlemen's Hour (11 page)

“Maybe we need to recruit another female onto the Dawn Patrol,” Boone suggests.

“A replacement Sunny?” Dave asks.

“We already have Not Sunny the Waitress,” Tide says. “Do we also want Not Sunny the Surfer?”

“Recruiting a replacement Sunny,” says Johnny, clearly nonplussed, “would be making a statement that the real Sunny isn't coming back.”

She isn't, Boone thinks. She's moved on. To the professional, sponsored surfer ranks. Good for her, but we have to face the fact that we're mostly going to be seeing Sunny on magazine covers, not out here in the lineup.

Hang Twelve, mouth agape, stares at him.

“What?” Boone asks.

“Shame on you,” Hang says.

The session drags on in desultory silence. Even the ocean doesn't make a pretense of showing up, just lies there lifeless and supine.

“It's like a big lake,” Tide says.

“Lakes don't have salt,” Hang says, still pouting over Boone's suggestion of replacing Sunny. “There's no such thing as a big salt lake.”

The other surfers look at each other for a second, then Johnny says, “No. Don't bother.”

They don't. They don't bother to educate Hang about Utah, they don't bother to launch into another topic of conversation, the ocean doesn't bother to come up with waves. Boone is grateful when the Dawn Patrol drags to an end and the guys start to paddle in.

“You coming?” Dave asks him.

“Nah, I'm going to hang.”

He looks toward the shore, where the veteran denizens of the Gentlemen's
Hour are already gathering, pointing at nonexistent waves, sipping coffee, and sucking cigarettes, doubtless talking about flat Augusts past.

And Dan Nichols is paddling out.

Boone tells him that he didn't find anything suspicious in the phone records or e-mail files.

Dan looks almost disappointed.

“Could she have a phone I don't know about?” he asks.

Boone shrugs. “I dunno. Could she? Wouldn't the billing come to you?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I'm going out of town tomorrow. That would be a good time to . . .”

He doesn't say to what.

Boone's always thought that if you don't want to say something, it's a pretty good indication that you shouldn't do the something, so he says, “Dan, are you sure, man? Are you sure you shouldn't just, like, talk to her? Upfront, ask her what's up?”

“What if she says nothing is?”

“Good.”

“But what if she's lying?”

That's kind of that, Boone thinks. He knows now that he's going to have to follow Donna Nichols and hope like hell the route doesn't lead to some other man's bed. It would be a very skippy result, to come back to Dan and tell him he's a paranoid jerk, go buy some flowers, and stop being dumb and insecure.

“Okay,” Boone says. “I'm on it.”

“You're a gentleman and a scholar.”

I'm neither, Boone thinks, but whatever. “I'll have to pick up some equipment.”

“Whatever you need.”

What he's going to need is a little unit that will fit under the bumper of Donna's car.

“What does Donna usually drive?” Boone asks. “A white Lexus SUV,” Dan said. “Birthday present.”

Nice, Boone thinks. For his last birthday he got some sex wax from Hang, some two-fer coupons for Jeff's Burger from Tide, and a card from Dave expressing the sentiment “Go Fuck Yourself.”

“Who's the car registered to?” Boone asks.

“Me,” Dan answers. “Well, the corporation.”

“Natch.”

Tax stuff, Boone thinks. People with corporations don't buy anything personally if they can help it. Anything that even tangentially touches the business is a write-off. But your wife's birthday present?

Dan says, “Donna's an officer.”

Doesn't matter, Boone thinks—it would still be perfectly kosher for Dan to put a tracking device on a car his corporation owns, and he wouldn't have to disclose it to Donna, even if she were an officer. Boone describes the little tracker device that's attached to a small but powerful magnet. “You just put it under the rear bumper.”

“Without her seeing me,” Dan says.

“That would be better, yeah.”

And the tracking device would be better than following her because this could be a long job, and it would be too easy to get made.

“I'll pick up the stuff and meet you somewhere to hand it over,” Boone says.

“Cool.”

No, uncool, Boone thinks, already feeling like a sleaze.

Very uncool.

They paddle in.

Boone skips The Sundowner because he's in a hurry.

He now has one clear day to explore the life and times of Corey Blasingame.

He drives over to Corey's “place of work,” as they say in the police reports.

Corey delivered pizzas.

Drove around in one of those little cars with the sign on top, carting twelve-dollar extra-large specials to college kids, slackers, and parents too busy on a given night to get supper together for the kids.

Yeah, okay, but what was rich kid Corey doing delivering pizzas for minimum wage and minimum tips? Tip money is good money if you're waiting tables at Mille Fleurs on a Saturday night, but not when you're pushing the pepperoni in dorms. Corey's daddy is slapping up half the luxury homes infesting the coastline, but the kid is driving around wearing a funny hat and taking shit for not getting there in twenty minutes?

Turns out Corey was about to lose even that job.

“Why?” Boone asks the franchise owner, Mr. McKay.

“The job was delivering pizzas,” Mr. McKay says. “And he wasn't delivering them.”

Worse, he was stealing them. McKay suspected that Corey had his friends call up, order pizzas, and then deny it when Corey went to “deliver.” Then Corey ate the “spoilage.” It got to the point where McKay insisted that Corey bring the spurned extra-large-with-everything-except-anchovies back to the store to be officially thrown away.

“Anyway, I think he was stoned,” McKay says.

“On what?”

McKay shrugs. “I don't know anything about drugs, but he seemed like he was hopped up on speed or something. Really, I was about to terminate him when . . .”

He lets it trail off.

Nobody liked talking about the Kuhio killing.

Depressing, Boone thinks as he drives over to Corey's old high school. The guy had a gig hauling pizzas and jacks his own product. Like, if you were around pizza all the time, is that really what you'd want for dinner?

Boone checks himself. Are you feeling sorry for this kid now?

Yeah, sort of, especially after he leaves the school.

LJPA.

La Jolla Prep.

More properly, La Jolla Preparatory Academy.

Prep for what? Boone thinks as he approaches the security shack that flanks the gated driveway. The students were born on third base, so it must be prep for getting them that last ninety feet. Not that these kids start with a foot on the bag. No, they take a nice long lead, secure in the knowledge that no one is going to even try to pick them off.

The guard isn't too enthused about the Deuce.

It's a funny thing about security guys, Boone thinks as he sees the uniformed man step out of the shack with that “Turn it around, buddy” look already on his face. They stay in one spot long enough, they get to thinking that they own the place. They actually take a protective pride in
guarding a group of people who are very polite, even warm, as they're going in and out, but are never, ever going to ask them inside to the Christmas party. Boone can never understand why people will man the gates that keep them out.

And, since Columbine, getting into a school is hard, especially when the school is one of the most exclusive on the West Coast. Boone rolls down the window.

“Can I help you?” the guard asks, meaning, “Can I help you
out
?”

Because the guard already knows. He takes one look inside the Deuce at the mess of wet suits, board trunks, fast-food wrappers, Styrofoam coffee cups, towels, and blankets, and
knows
that Boone doesn't belong here. Now he has to make sure that Boone knows he doesn't belong here.

While the guard was checking out the van, Boone took a quick glance of the little nameplate pinned on his shirt pocket. “You're Jim Nerburn, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Any relation to Ken Nerburn?”

“He's my kid.”

“He's a good guy, Ken.”

“You know him?”

“We've surfed together a little.” Boone sticks his hand out the window. “Boone Daniels.”

“Jim Nerburn.”

“We met at a Padres game, didn't we?” Boone asks. “You were with Ken and some of his friends?”

“That's right,” Nerburn says. “That Cardinal rookie threw a no-hitter.”

“I remember that. Dollar hot dog night, too.”

Nerburn pats his belly. “Yes, it was. What brings you here today, Boone?” Boone takes out his PI card and shows it to Nerburn. “I'm on the clock. I need to talk to some folks about Corey Blasingame.”

Nerburn's face darkens. Funny, Boone thinks, how faces tend to do
that when you bring up Corey's name. “They'd like to forget about Corey around here.”

I'll bet they would, Boone thinks. LJPA students go on to Stanford, UCLA, Princeton, and Duke, or maybe closer to home at UCSD. They don't go to jail. Boone seriously doubts that Corey is going to make the holiday newsletter this year.
“LJPA alum Corey Blasingame was admitted to San Quentin State Prison for the coming term, twenty-five to life. We wish Corey all the luck in the world as he starts his exciting new career. . . .”

“You knew him?” Boone asks.

“I knew him.”

“Trouble?”

Nerburn looks thoughtful. Then he says, “That's the thing—no. God knows we got our rich-kid chuckleheads around here, think they can get away with anything, but the Blasingame kid wasn't one of those. Never came blasting in or out of my gate.”

“What'd he drive?”

“Had a Lexus,” Nerburn says, “but he totaled it. Then his old man got him a preowned Honda.”

“Good cars.”

“Run forever.”

“He get hurt in the accident?”

Nerburn shakes his head. “Bumps and bruises.”

“Thank God, huh?”

“Truly,” Nerburn says. Then he asks, “The dad hired you?”

“Indirectly. The lawyer.”

“That's the way it works?”

“Usually.”

“Maintains the privilege,” Nerburn says.

“I guess.”

Nerburn reaches inside the booth, pulls out a clipboard, and scans it. “You have an appointment with anyone?”

“I could lie to you and say I did.”

“You're supposed to have an appointment.”

“You're right,” Boone admits. “But, you know how it is, you let people know you're coming, they start to think about what they're going to say . . .”

“You get canned stuff?”

“Yup.”

Nerburn thinks it over for a few seconds and then says, “I'll give you a pass for an hour, Boone. That's it.”

“I don't want to cause you any aggro.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I get that.”

Nerburn writes on a piece of paper and hands it to Boone. “I'm going to assume you're not carrying.”

“I'm not,” Boone says. Then he asks, “Hey, Ken didn't go here, did he?”

Nerburn shakes his head. “I could have sent him here—they have a program for long-term employees' kids—but I didn't.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I didn't want him thinking he was someone he wasn't.”

“Got it.”

And so much, Boone thinks as he winds down the window, for my condescending, full-of-shit theory about loyal dogs guarding the gates.

Boone maneuvers the Deuce along the narrow, winding driveway, past pink stucco buildings and broad green soccer, football, baseball, and lacrosse fields. Some boys are out playing lacrosse, and Boone is tempted to sit and watch, but he has work to do.

He parks in a slot marked “Visitor” and finds the admin building.

The head of school is real happy to see him.

The name Corey Blasingame is an automatic smile-killer.

“Come into my office,” Dr. Hancock says. She's a tall woman, gray hair cut short. Khaki suit jacket over a matching skirt, white blouse with a rounded collar. Boone follows her into her office and takes the offered chair across from her desk.

Framed diplomas decorate the walls.

Harvard.

Princeton.

Oxford.

“How can I help you, Mr. Daniels?” she asks. Right down to business.

“I'm just trying to get a sense of the kid.”

“Why?” Hancock asks. “How is your getting a ‘a sense of the kid' going to help him?”

Fair enough, Boone thinks. He says, “Because you can't know what you don't know, and you don't know what may or may not be useful until you find it out.”

“For instance?”

“For instance,” Boone says, “was Corey in a lot of fights in school? That's something the prosecution is going to ask, so we'd like to know it first. Was he popular, unpopular, maybe picked on? Did he have friends . . . a girlfriend, maybe? Or was he a loner? Did he do well in school? How were his grades? Why didn't he go to college, for instance?”

“Ninety-seven percent of our graduates go on to a four-year institution,” Hancock says.

Boone is tempted to say that Corey is also going on to an institution,
probably for a lot longer than four years, but he keeps his mouth shut. She senses it anyway.

“You have an attitude, Mr. Daniels.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she insists, “you do. You may or may not be aware of it—I suspect you are—but let me tell you what it is, just in case. You look down on these kids.”