Dawn Patrol

by Don Winslow

  She briefly considers waking him up but then rejects the idea.

  Maybe I'm just jealous she thinks, envious at this ability to sleep so easily.

  She doesn't fall asleep easily or sleep particularly well. Instead, she lies awake thinking about cases, about things she needs to do, second-guessing herself about decisions she's made, worrying about them, worrying about how she's perceived at the firm, whether she's working hard, whether she's working too hard and arousing dangerous jealousies. She worries about her wardrobe, her hair. She worries about worrying. Half the time, she can't sleep because she's worrying about not getting enough sleep.

  If it weren't for Ambien, she might not sleep at all.

  But this waterlogged Cro-Magnon with a PI license, she thinks, he sleeps like a baby. It must be true, then: Ignorance is bliss.

  Her mind turns to the girl at the restaurant that morning. The tall, athletic creature with the tawny hair. Clearly, he's sleeping with her, and who could blame him? She's gorgeous. But what on earth could she see in him? She could have any man she wanted, so why does she choose this? Could he be that good in bed? Worth having to wake up to? Certainly not.

  It's a mystery.

  She's working it through when she sees Teddy walking up the road.

  54

  “Ouch.”

  Boone's awake even before he feels Petra's elbow dig into his ribs.

  You develop a sixth sense on stakeouts after a while. You can be asleep, but there's an internal alarm clock that will wake you up when something's going down.

  Boone pulls his beanie up and sees Petra pointing down the road at Teddy.

  He has a little girl with him.

  The girl from the reeds.

  55

  “Stay in the van.”

  “But-”

  “I said, stay in the fucking van,” Boone snaps in a voice that even Petra doesn't question. He gets out of the van and walks toward the cabin.

  It has a central front door with a small window on either side. A front sitting room leads into a back bedroom and a bath. The curtain is open on one of the windows and Boone sees Teddy sitting on the bed next to the girl, shaking some pills from a vial into his hand.

  Boone feels like kicking the motel door in, then beating the uncouth piss out of Teddy until the good doctor needs a cosmetic surgeon for himself.

  Because Teddy D-Cup, with access to literally hundreds of beautiful women, is feeding roofies to a little girl in a motel room preparatory to raping her. And now Boone knows what the good Dr. Cole was doing in the strawberry fields-shopping for a family so fucking desperate, they'd sell their daughter to him. And the mojados who worked Boone over in the reeds were taking his back.

  It's a beautiful world.

  Boone throws his shoulder into the door, which splinters around the bolt lock and opens. He's into the bedroom in three long strides and has Teddy by the shirtfront on the fourth. He lifts Teddy up and holds him in the air.

  The girl screams and runs out the door.

  “This isn't what it looks like,” Teddy says.

  Christ, Boone thinks, does every fucking child molester have to say that every fucking time? No, dude, it's always what it looks like. Boone pivots and slams Teddy into the wall. Pulls him in toward his own chest and then slams him again.

  Teddy yells, “I'm helping her!”

  Yeah, I'll bet you are, Boone thinks. He takes his right hand off Teddy's shirt, clenches it into a tight fist, and cocks his arm, ready to blast Teddy's face into oatmeal. Except suddenly it isn't Teddy's face; it's Russ Rasmussen's. Boone's world goes red. Tilting crazily, like a bad wipeout.

  “Boone!”

  Through the red haze, he hears Petra, gets that she disapproves, but he doesn't care.

  “Boone!”

  He turns around to tell her to butt out.

  Dan Silver is holding a gun to her head. Two of his boys stand behind him.

  “Let him go, Boone,” Dan says.

  The world comes level again, back into focus. Boone says, “He's a short eyes.”

  “We'll take care of him,” Dan says. “Let him go now or I'll put two in her pretty head before I do you.”

  Boone looks at Petra. Her pale skin is absolutely white, her eyes are big and full of tears, and her legs quiver. She's scared to death. Boone lowers his clenched fist but then jams his palm into Teddy's ribs before releasing his grip on the man.

  Teddy slides to the floor.

  “Good thing for you I showed up,” Dan says to him, “before this barbarian beat the shit out of you. I feel like the cavalry riding in. Nick of time and all that happy bullshit. You're coming with me voluntarily, aren't you, Dr. Cole?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Help him up.”

  Dan's boys take Teddy by the arms and walk him out the door.

  “This isn't over, Teddy,” says Boone.

  Dan gestures at Petra. “You banging this, Daniels?”

  Boone doesn't answer.

  “No, you ain't,” Dan says. “She's much too juicy for you.”

  He turns to Petra. “You get tired of slummin', you want a real man, you come see me, honey. I'll take good care of you.”

  She hears herself say, “I'd rather fuck a pig.”

  Dan smiles, but his face turns red. “Maybe we can work that out for you, bitch.”

  “Enough,” Boone says.

  “You're in no position to-”

  “I said, ‘Enough,’” Boone repeats. Something in his voice tells Dan to back off before he has to shoot this guy. And this guy is Eddie's asshole buddy, something about him pulling Eddie's brat out of the drink or something. And the last thing in the world Dan needs right now is more problems with Red Eddie.

  “Stay in here for a few minutes,” Dan says. “You come out, ‘Friend Of Eddie’ or not, I'll smoke you. Her, too.”

  He takes a moment to leer at Petra and then walks out.

  “You okay?” Boone asks Petra.

  She sits down heavily on the bed and puts her head in her hands. Boone understands it. You get a gun pointed at your head, it changes you. It makes you realize how quickly you could not exist anymore. In that second, all you want is your life-desperately, fervently-and you'd give almost anything for it. And that moment of realization changes you as a person. You're never quite the same after you realize you'd do almost anything to live.

  But talk about guts. “I'd rather fuck a pig”? To a guy who has a gun pointed at your head! That's a crazy, sick kind of courage. He walks over and puts his hand on her head, strokes her hair a little, and says, “It's all right. You're okay.”

  “I was so afraid,” she says.

  Then Boone realizes that she's crying. “You were amazing,” he says. “Really brave.”

  A second later, they hear two shots.

  Pop.

  Pop.

  What they call “execution-style.”

  56

  The girl runs back into the reeds, because she doesn't have anywhere else to go.

  Her name is Luce.

  She doesn't find anyone in the reeds. They're all gone now, so she crawls into one of the little caves, huddles there, and says the Rosary as she rubs the little crucifix. It will be a cold night, she knows, but the other girls will be back at dawn.

  She wraps her arms around her knees and waits for the sun to rise again.

  57

  Dan Silver sits beside Teddy Cole in the backseat of the Explorer.

  He grabs Teddy's right index finger and says, “Your hands are your life, aren't they, Doc?”

  Teddy's chin-sculpted, Botoxed, nose-jobbed, skin-peeled, hair-transplanted, eye-tightened, face-lifted, tummy-tucked, dental-worked, lasered, and tanned face turns absolutely white with fear. He tries to speak, but the words get jammed in his throat. All he can manage is a weak, shaky nod.

  “Hands of a surgeon, right?” Dan asks. “That's what you are, cosmetic surgeon to the stars? Nip/Tuck? So, what if I start breaking your fingers, one by one,
starting with your thumbs? It's going to hurt like you wouldn't believe, Doc, and, afterward, no more strippers, starlets, and trophy wives for you.”

  Teddy tries to hold out.

  For Luce's sake, for Tammy's sake, for the sake of his own soul-if that isn't a hopeless, antiquated concept. He holds out until Dan starts counting down from ten.

  He makes it to six.

  “I'm only going to ask you once,” Dan says, “and I'm really hoping I don't have to ask you ten times. Where is Tammy Roddick?”

  58

  The Boonemobile rests on its front bumper, like a wounded bull on its front knees, exhausted in the ring.

  Its front right tire is flat.

  Boone looks at the van. “God damnit.”

  “I thought they shot Teddy,” Petra says. She goes into the front seat and roots around in her purse. “They took my phone.”

  “Mine, too,” Boone says. “It's a good thing I took Teddy's.”

  He pulls Teddy's RAZR out of his pants pocket and scrolls through Teddy's call history. Seventeen calls in the past two days made to the same number. He punches it in.

  Tammy picks it up right away, like she's been waiting for the call.

  “Teddy?” Tammy asks.

  Her voice sounds anxious, worried, scared.

  “Where are you, Tammy?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Wherever you are,” Boone says, “get out now.”

  “What are you-”

  “Teddy is on his way,” Boone says, “with Dan and some of his thugs. He gave you up, Tammy.”

  “He wouldn't do that.”

  “He wouldn't want to,” Boone says, “but I guarantee you, if he hasn't already, he will. Get out. Let me meet you somewhere. I can help you.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Petra Hall is here with me.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “You want to talk with her?”

  “No,” Tammy says.

  “Look,” Boone says, “you have no reason to trust me, but you have to get out. Now. ”

  “I don't know.”

  “Let me meet you somewhere,” Boone says. “I'll pick you up, take you somewhere safe.”

  She clicks off.

  “Damn it!” Boone says. He gets on the horn to Hang Twelve while he goes into the back of the van, pulls out a spare tire and a jack, then goes to work on the car.

  “I could do that for you,” Petra says.

  “I'll bet you could,” Boone says, fitting the tire on. “But I don't want you to wreck your clothes.”

  Boone gets the tire on, tightens down the lugs, and releases the jack. He's putting it back into the van when Hang calls back.

  He has the number traced.

  59

  The Institute of Self Awareness was founded back in the 1960s.

  Of course.

  If there was any single word that typified that decade, it was self.

  Some shrink came down from Esalen with a head full of acid and a trust fund and bought the old Episcopalian retreat that had been founded on a bluff above one of the best right breaks on the entire West Coast.

  The shrink didn't surf but didn't mind those who did using the stairs on the south side of his property to go out and hit that marvelous break. To honor that generous man, and because The Institute of Self Awareness was too cumbersome to pronounce all the time, the beach below the retreat simply became known as “Shrink's.”

  The Institute of Self Awareness became first a hippie, and later a New Age retreat where people could check into a room, eat vegetarian meals, take meditation seminars, yoga classes, and otherwise become aware of themselves.

  “What does that mean?” Dave the Love God asked Boone one day while they were sitting in the lineup at Shrink's waiting for the next set and looking up at the retreat's cottages.

  “It has nothing to do with masturbation,” Sunny told Hang Twelve.

  “I don't know,” Boone said. “I guess you just do it.”

  “Yeah, but do what?” Dave asked.

  “Whatever it is.”

  Then the set came in and they forgot about the question.

  Boone had only been vaguely aware that the place was even called The Institute of Self Awareness anyway. He had always known it as Shrink's, had carried his board down those wooden steps probably hundreds of times, and there was no way he was ever going to check into a room, eat vegetarian meals, take meditation seminars, yoga classes, and otherwise become self-aware.

  For one thing, he couldn't afford the steep room rate. For another thing, he wasn't introspectively inclined. For a third and final thing, he was already pretty aware of who he was.

  “If there is one thing that can be said about Boone,” Sunny Day proclaimed during a reasonably drunken session at The Sundowner after closing time, “it is that he knows who he is.”

  “That's true,” Boone said. “I surf, I eat, I sleep, I work-”

  “Sometimes,” High Tide said.

  “Sometimes,” Boone said, “and, every now and then-more then than now-I make love. And that's about it.”

  But now he wishes that he had gone to the place at least once, so he'd know the lay of the land, because now he's pretty sure that's where Tammy is.

  The Institute of Self Awareness has developed a specialized and lucrative clientele.

  To wit, people-especially famous people-who have become aware that their real selves might need a little cosmetic surgery, need a place where they can hide from the prying eyes of the public while the swelling goes down, the black eyes fade, and time passes before they reemerge into the world with their new noses, breasts, faces, lips, stomachs, butts, or all of the above. So the ISA now makes a lot of its income by providing a cocoon in which celebrities can hide until they fully morph into their new selves.

  And the institute zealously guards its clientele against the paparazzi, the tabloids, and the just plain curious. The founding shrink may not have thrown up any fences against the surfers, but the new management has built high walls to shield its guests against even the longest lenses of the paparazzi. The walls are topped with strands of barbed wire and motion sensors, lest anyone should try to climb in. Beefy security guards patrol the perimeter and man the front gate of the reception room, barring entrance to everyone but expected visitors and attending physicians.

  So while tourists and local visitors can walk around the gardens all they want, to get into the private part of the retreat itself is akin to entering the gates of Troy.

  Teddy can walk right in.

  Theodore Cole, M.D., is a cash cow for The Institute of Self Awareness. Teddy not only has strippers in there recovering from boob jobs; he has Hollywood stars and starlets, Orange County trophy wives who want a little distance from their home turf, and San Diego society matrons from La Jolla who have coincidentally discovered their need for spirituality along with their face-lifts.

  So if Teddy wants to store a girlfriend inside the walls for a night or two, the welcome mat is out. And if Teddy says that no one is going to get in there to look for her, then no one is going to get in there to look for her.

  60

  When the Explorer pulls into the parking lot of The Institute of Self Awareness, the driver rolls down the window and Teddy, now in the front passenger seat, leans across and waves to the guard.

  “Good evening, Dr. Cole,” the guard says, giving a slight stink eye to the car full of guys who don't look like they're seeking any kind of awareness, self or otherwise.

  “I'm just going in to check on a client,” Teddy says, feeling Dan's pistol jammed into the back of the seat against his spine.

  “Should I call ahead?” the guard asks.

  “No,” Dan murmurs.

  “No,” Teddy says.

  The gate swings open, the Explorer goes through, and the gate swings shut behind it. Teddy directs the driver to a small parking lot.

  “Now take us to where she is,” Dan says. “And, Doc, if you mess with me, I'm going to put one
in your spine.”

  Teddy leads them along the curving walkways lit by the little solar-powered lamps. Most of the guests are in their cottages, but a few are out taking a stroll around the grounds. One in particular, a tall redheaded woman in a white terry-cloth robe, attracts Dan's attention.

  “Hey, is that…” Dan says, then names a famous movie actress.

  “Could be,” Teddy says.

  “What's she getting, a boob job?”

  “Nose,” Teddy says. She wanted her nose shaved down. A tuck around the eyes. A little something to hold off the day when she has to play the bitch mother or the eccentric aunt. But Teddy's mind isn't really on that. He's thinking about some way that he can tip Tammy off, get her out of there before… He doesn't even want to think about what happens after the “before.”

  As they approach Tammy's cottage, he can see lights on through the curtain of the front window.

  “You got a key?” Dan asks him.

  “Well, it's a card.”

  “What the fuck ever,” Dan says. “You let yourself in, you leave the door open behind you. Got it, Doc?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Doc?”

  “What?”

  “If you're thinking about trying to be a hero,” Dan says, “stop thinking. You may be boss hog in the operating room, but this ain't your world, hoss. It will just get you in the wheelchair basketball league. Tell me you understand.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Open the door.”

  Teddy walks up to the Lotus Cottage. It's always been one of his favorites, redolent with memories. Teddy has put some serious talent in the Lotus Cottage and has gotten some head in there that you wouldn't believe. Hand shaking, he fumbles with the card and eventually manages to insert it into the lock. The little green light comes on, followed by the soft click of the lock opening. Teddy gently pushes the door open a crack and says, “Tammy? It's me.”

  Dan shoves him out of the way and steps into the cottage.