The Gentlemen's Hour

by Don Winslow

  “Negligence,” Boone repeats. And what is that perfume? Because it’s really affecting his concentration. But he pushes through it and says, “Negligence is not specifically excluded as a cause of loss. But ‘weak link’ doctrine, if you will, holds that if negligence is found

  anywhere

  in the chain of events, then the loss is covered.”

  “Is that what it holds?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I see.”

  “No, I don’t think you do,” Boone says, looking into those amazing violet eyes. “See, if negligence occurs in the chain of events, the insurance company must pay the insured even if it intends to pursue subrogation—”

  “What’s subrogation?”

  “Subrogation . . .” Boone says. “Subrogation is when an insurance company sues the negligent party to recover the money it paid the insured.”

  “That’s right. You’ve got it.”

  “I do?”

  “Oh, yes,” she says. “You know, you might want to think about law school.”

  “Do you feel the same way about desktop sex as you do kitchen-counter sex?” he asks.

  “No,” she says, “they are two entirely separate entities in my mind.”

  “That’s good.”

  “That’s very good.”

  He has one leg of his jeans off when they hear a door open, then footsteps come down the hall. Boone hops over and closes the door.

  “Is someone here?”

  “Becky?”

  Petra gets up and straightens her clothes as Boone does the same. Then she rearranges her hair and opens the door.

  “Well,” Becky says, “it’s nice to know that someone gets in before me from time to time. Good morning, Boone.”

  “Good morning, Becky.”

  “We were doing some research,” Petra says.

  “Well, there you go.”

  “We’re almost finished.”

  “I’m sorry I interrupted.”

  “Boone,” Petra says, “I think that’s about as far as we can get on this—for the moment, anyway. I think I’ll just go splash a little water on my face and track down a coffee.”

  She walks past Becky.

  “Yeah,” Boone says, “I think I’ll . . .”

  “Fly?”

  “Yeah, you know, take off.”

  “

  Your

  fly, idiot,” Becky says with a smile. “Zip your fly!”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  It’s a long drive to Pacific Beach.

  He doesn’t bother to catch the end of the Dawn Patrol.

  109

  Cheerful looks up from the desk as Boone comes in.

  “You’re in early.”

  “Yeah, well,” Boone says, “you gotta grow up sometime.”

  “You look like hell.”

  “And feel worse,” Boone says. “But I do know about negligence.”

  “You’ve

  always

  known about negligence,” Cheerful says.

  “No, I know about capital N negligence,” Boone says. He runs down what he learned in the all-night session with Petra, leaving out the coitus interruptus part. Or, more accurately, he thinks, the Becky interruptus.

  “We don’t know,” Cheerful says, “what Schering’s report was going to say, because he didn’t live long enough to produce it. But if he was billing for the insurance company, it probably meant that they hired him to produce a certain result, and that result would be that there was no negligence involved in the chain of events, which would get them off the hook.”

  “Maybe,” Boone says, “or that there was clear negligence that they could successfully subrogate.”

  “If Schering was killed over this,” Cheerful says, “somebody knew what his report was going to say, and it was dangerous enough that they killed to prevent him from testifying to it.”

  But how would anyone know? Boone wondered. Did Schering talk about it? Telegraph it somehow? Write a preliminary report? Or . . .

  “Was he putting himself up for auction?” Boone asks.

  “His opinion for sale to the highest bidder?”

  “Which could mean that the losing bidder might have decided he didn’t want to lose,” Boone says.

  “Or,” Cheerful offers, “the highest bidder decided that he didn’t want to pay.”

  110

  “You’re saying that Phil Schering was a whore?” Alan Burke asks, a little out of breath because he and Boone have just paddled out to the break and Alan hasn’t hit the Gentlemen’s Hour in a while.

  You want to know what kind of cardio condition you’re in, paddle a surfboard, even in a mild sea. It will tell you all you need to know. It tells Alan he needs to hit the Gentlemen’s Hour more often, or maybe get one of those roller boards and put it in the office.

  “A whore?” Boone asks.

  “A geo-whore,” Alan says cheerfully. “Listen, I cut my teeth on all those dirt cases back in the eighties and nineties, and there was a geo-whore on every corner. They knew what opinion you wanted without you having to tell them, and they delivered it. You got to court, it was pretty much a battle between your geo-whore and their geo-whore. You get a whore who gives good testimony, you usually win.”

  “Did you know Schering?”

  “No,” Burke says. “He’s newer to the game. But I’ll have Petra run a search and grab his testimony transcripts, and that should give us an idea of what his shtick was. So you don’t think Dan Nichols did it?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “I don’t,” Alan says. “It’s too retro. People don’t kill over adultery anymore, they just divorce. Did you know they had a prenup?”

  “Nope.”

  “Yup,” Alan says. “So Dan loses a little money and goes out shopping for the next trophy wife. Big deal. She’s done him a favor by leaving on her own before her sell-by date.”

  “Cynical.”

  “SoCal.” Alan shrugs. “So Boone . . .”

  “So Alan.”

  “Look,” Alan says, “a good investigator is hard to find, so much as I’d hate to lose one . . . you don’t want to do this the rest of your life. It’s a living, but there’s no upside. So here’s my offer: I’ll finance your way through law school; you have a job in my firm when you pass the exam.”

  Whoa.

  Speaking of SoCal, in other places offers like this are made on the golf course; here it’s out in the surf, or absence thereof.

  “Alan, I don’t know—”

  “Don’t answer now,” Alan says. “Think about it. But really

  think

  about it, Boone. It would be a big change for you, but change can be a good thing.”

  “Sure.”

  “Let me know.”

  “Okay.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “What?”

  Alan points. “A wave.”

  Boone looks. Sure enough, a ripple about a hundred yards out breaks the otherwise flat surface of the sea. Then it appears as a small ridge, then it builds into an actually rideable wave. Nothing to make the cover of

  Surfer

  , to be sure, but definitely a wave.

  “It’s yours,” Alan says.

  “No, you take it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “You’re a gentleman.”

  Alan starts paddling. Boone watches him catch the wave, then gets up, and feels the wave pass beneath him.

  I’m a gentleman, he thinks.

  Dave is waiting for him on the beach.

  111

  “What’s up?” Boone asks.

  “I heard.”

  From the steely look on Dave’s face, Boone knows what he’s talking about. “You have a problem with it?”

  “You don’t?”

  “Of course I do,” Boone says. He hesitates, then adds, “Look, weird as this sounds, I think it’s what Kelly would have wanted.”

>   “What are you

  smoking

  ?”

  “Anyway, I’m not convinced that Corey did it.”

  “Johnny’s pretty convinced,” Dave says. “He took the confession. You’re going to jam him up, B?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then don’t.” Because you don’t fuck a friend. They both know this. You just don’t do it. “How many times has JB stood up for you?”

  “A lot.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean anything?”

  “He’s wrong on this one,” Boone says.

  “And you’re right,” Dave says.

  “I think I am.”

  Dave shakes his head. “Dude, I don’t even know if I know you anymore. Maybe you should just climb into a suit and tie and become one of them.”

  “One of them?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Boone says, starting to get mad. “And yeah, maybe I should. Maybe I don’t want to be a surf bum all my life.”

  Dave nods. Looks way out toward the water and then back again at Boone. “You go ahead, bro. Us bums will try to get by without you.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Sure you did,” Dave says. “At least stand by your words, leave me with some respect for you. It’s been a ride, B. Late.”

  He walks away.

  Late, Boone thinks.

  112

  Winners and losers.

  Start with the potential losers, Boone tells himself as he walks over to The Sundowner. Potential losers are more likely to kill out of desperation than potential winners are for profit. People tend to dread their losses more than they hope for their wins.

  So list the losers.

  Hefley Insurance.

  Could be a big loser. What if Schering wasn’t giving them the answer they wanted, or was holding them up for more money? But, as Cheerful says, insurance companies don’t actually, physically kill people . . . do they?

  Keep them on the list, but unlikely.

  He walks into The Sundowner, where Not Sunny is caught off-guard by his uncharacteristically early appearance. She’s leaning against the bar, catching a standing nap, when the door opening wakes her. She sees Boone and signals the cook to get his usual going on the grill. Then she walks over and pours him a cup of coffee.

  “Thank you,” Boone says.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Uhhhh, what’s your name?”

  “Not Sunny.”

  “No, I mean, what’s your real name?” Boone asks. “Not the one we glossed you with.”

  The question takes her by surprise. Having been called Not Sunny during working hours for several months now, she actually has to think about it for a second. “Jennifer.”

  “Thank you, Jennifer.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Your usual?”

  “Yeah. No,” Boone says. “It might be time to change things up a little, Not—Jennifer. I’ll have . . . the, uhhhh . . . blueberry pancakes.”

  “Blueberry pancakes?” Not Sunny Jennifer asks.

  “Are the blueberries fresh?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take them anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  She goes to piss off the cook, who already has the eggs working.

  Boone goes back to contemplating losers.

  If Schering kept faith with Hefley’s, Boone thinks, the next possible losers would be the homeowners. So you’d have to have a homeowner with a lot of bucks to lose having an uninsured house fall into the rabbit hole, or a homeowners’ association.

  Now, homeowners’ associations in SoCal are known for their brutality and utter ruthlessness in enforcing their codes, but Boone can’t quite envision one commissioning a contract murder, although he’d loved to have sat in on that meeting.

  “All in favor of snuffing Phil Schering, please indicate by saying ‘aye.’ Motion carried. There’s coffee and cookies . . .”

  He doesn’t even know if there is a homeowners’ association for the neighborhood, so decides that his first task after consuming the pancakes is to go down to the County Building and start researching ownership records. Come up with a list of the homeowners and try to see if any of them are likely candidates.

  Not Sunny Jennifer brings him the pancakes.

  And a bill.

  “Will there be anything else?” she asks as if she worked hard to memorize the line.

  Boone’s a little startled. As an unofficial bouncer and keeper of the peace at The Sundowner, he hasn’t received a bill for breakfast in years. Not Sunny Jennifer sees the surprised look on his face. Anxiety overwhelms her, and she gives it straight up. “Chuck said to next time you came in. Charge you. Like, you’re not family.”

  “Relax. It’s cool.”

  “I feel weird.”

  “Don’t,” Boone says. He gets up, digs out his wallet, and leaves enough cash to pay the bill, plus a generous tip.

  “Just tell Chuck for me that someone else can keep things cool around here from now on. I don’t go where I’m not invited.”

  Not Sunny Jennifer frowns—it’s a lot to remember.

  “Just tell him adiós,” Boone says.

  “‘Adiós,’” she repeats.

  Adiós.

  113

  Searching real-estate records at the County Administration Building is a sure antidote to any genre-inspired desire to be a private investigator.

  The (sad) truth is that a real PI does a hell of a lot more paper-chasing than sitting around the office slugging bourbon while some long-legged blonde drapes herself across his lap and begs for sexual penance for her sins and a tenor saxophone wails in the background. Most of the work is a slog through records, and Boone hasn’t heard a Coltrane riff yet.

  The County Administration Building is an enormous edifice that takes up three blocks on the east side of Harbor Drive, smack in the middle of the tourist district. Across the street, visitors come to see the old sailboats that are now maritime museums, or the decommissioned aircraft carrier, or go on harbor cruises, or grub down at Anthony’s Fish Grotto. Farther down Harbor Drive are the enormous docks where the big cruise ships come, spilling tourists out to hit the bars and clubs a few blocks away in the Gaslamp District, or to take a pedicab ride, or just stroll the long promenade that curves around the harbor, where hundreds of small, private sailboats moor.

  But the CAB is a monument of mundane bureaucracy set in the middle of all the good times, like a stern librarian with a finger to her lips.

  It’s a busy place, with people coming in to file records, take exams for various professional licenses, get married, all manner of happy crap. Boone has to take the Deuce for several orbits around the huge parking lot before he finds a spot.

  So now he sits at a computer station and sifts through real-estate transfer notices, tax records, and building permits, and cross-references them against street maps, utility plots, and newspaper accounts of the sinkhole episode. It takes him well into the afternoon, but by then he has a list of the eighteen owners whose homes were destroyed.

  Then he runs the list of names through his own mental file-card tray of local bad guys. The truth is that very few people will kill for money, even lots of it. Very few people will kill at all, even in the “heat of passion,” and fewer still will kill in the fabled “cold blood.”

  But those who will, do, and if you’re looking at San Diego—the busiest corridor for illegal substances trafficking since Satan slipped Eve the apple—you have to think about drug money and the expensive houses it can buy in a town like La Jolla. The big drug barons—most of them from Tijuana—are, of course, multimillionaires, and multimillionaires invest their multimillions in the most exclusive neighborhoods. Now, you’re talking about people who can and have killed over a nickel, so offing someone to protect a $3 million or $4 million investment is a no-brainer.

  But Boone’s mental search comes up with no matches. None of the owners listed is a drug lord, mob guy, or
otherwise sketchy, although Boone is aware that some of the homes might have ghost owners behind the recorded names. But that would be a dead-end street anyway, so he asks himself about more potential losers in the game of negligence hot potato.

  If Hefley’s were to subrogate, he reasons, who would it sue? And if a homeowner were left with a destroyed home and couldn’t collect from the insurance company, who would he sue?

  Either the builder or the county.

  The builder for some kind of negligence, or the county for issuing a permit for that builder to construct a house on unsafe ground.

  You can cross off the county—it has no budget line for contract killings—so you’re left with the builders.

  Boone leaves the CAB and drives up to Mira Mesa.

  114

  The San Diego County Building Permits office sits on a very nondescript street in a nondescript suburban neighborhood in North County, and is generally known not by its name but by its location.

  “Ruffin Road.”

  Ruffin Road is limbo. Building plans have been held up for

  years

  by the bureaucrats at Ruffin Road, or just been lost, misplaced, or misfiled, never to be seen again. Contractors will explain interminable delays by simply saying, “I’ve been at Ruffin Road,” or “It’s held up at Ruffin Road,” and those excuses will be accepted.

  San Diegans have opined that Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, and the Holy Grail are all to be found at Ruffin Road, if only you could get a clerk to search, and the more waggish insist that Osama bin Laden is not hiding in Tora Bora or Waziristan, but is safely filed as “vin Laden, Osama” somewhere in the bowels of Ruffin Road.

  Ruffin Road makes the DMV look like the drive-through window at In-N-Out Burger. Anyone who has ever built a new home, remodeled an old one, or rebuilt after a fire or landslide pronounces “Ruffin Road” in the same hushed tone that was once used for the Bridge of Sighs, the Tower of London, the Inquisition.

  “I have to go to Ruffin Road” is a statement met with sympathy not unmixed with relief that it’s the other guy, not you.

  Burly roofing contractors—hard-drinking brawlers who work the highest buildings with a scornful laugh—stand trembling before the counter at Ruffin Road, metaphorical hat in hand, waiting hopefully, plaintively, for an inspector to give their plans, literally, the stamp of approval. Desperate homeowners on their fifth or sixth try to get that addition approved stand in tortured suspense as one of the bureaucratic Torquemadas pores over the latest version of their proposed plans.