by Don Winslow
Dave touches the bridge of his nose to check that the zinc oxide is still fresh. Then he says, “Sounds about right.”
“What I thought,” Boone says, getting up.
“That’s it?”
“Yup.”
“’Bye.”
“Thanks.”
“Nada.”
Boone walks up the beach.
15
Boone only knows what happened that night from the newspaper accounts and the usual beach-bongo telegram system of rumors that went around PB.
But here’s how it went.
Kelly Kuhio walked out of The Sundowner a little after midnight, stone-cold sober, on his way to his car in a parking lot on the corner.
He never made it.
Corey Blasingame—drunk, stoned, high on whatever—stepped out of the alley, backed by his crew, walked up to Kelly, and punched him.
Kelly fell backward and hit his head on the curb.
He never regained consciousness.
They unplugged him from life support three days later.
16
Petra sits and sips her tea.
Very unlike her, to sit and do nothing, but she’s sort of enjoying it, sitting and musing about Boone.
An odd man, she thinks. Simplistic on the surface, but extraordinarily complicated below. A maelstrom of contradictions beneath a placid-seeming sea. A Tarzan-like surfer boy who reads Russian novels at night. A devoted glutton of junk food without an ounce of body fat who can grill fish to a turn over an open fire. A philistine who, when jollied into it, can talk quite intelligently about art. A disillusioned cynic with barely concealed idealism. A man who will desperately sprint away from anything that resembles emotion, but a deeply sensitive soul who might simply be the kindest and gentlest man you’ve ever met.
And attractive, damn it, she thinks. And frustrating. They’ve been sort of dating for some three months now and he’s attempted nothing more than a quick, virtually chaste brush on the lips.
No, he’s been terribly well behaved, a real gentleman. Just two nights ago she had dragged him to a charity event at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and he showed up wearing a smart summer khaki suit, with a blue Perry Ellis shirt he certainly couldn’t afford, and had actually had his hair cut. He’d been wonderfully tolerant of all the chitchat, and even wandered around the gallery with her and made some sharp observations about some of the pieces, though none of them was a depiction of breaking waves or a wood-sided station wagon from the 1950s. And, in truth, he’d been absolutely charming to the other guests and the hosts, displaying a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the charity in question, and Petra had quite bristled at a colleague’s ladies’ room remark that her “boy toy cleaned up nicely.”
But he stood at her doorway later that night as if his feet were planted in the concrete, gave her a polite hug and a perfunctory kiss, and that was it.
Do I want more? she asks herself. Certainly in this day and age, and as a modern, liberated woman, if I wanted more I could go after it. I’m perfectly capable of making the first move.
So why don’t you? she asks.
Are you feeling the same ambivalence that he is? Because clearly he’s attracted to you, else why would he ask you out repeatedly, but he seems hesitant to take it to the next level. As are you, to be honest. Why is that? Is it because we know that we’re so different and it would therefore never work? Or is it because we both know in our heart of hearts that he’s not yet over Sunny?
Is that a “yet,” she wonders, or an “ever”?
And do I want him or not?
This attitude about Corey Blasingame certainly argues against it. How an intelligent person could take such a knee-jerk, “law and order,” vengeful, Dirty Harry, unenlightened stance . . .
17
There were paddle-outs for Kelly Kuhio all over the world, timed to go off at the same moment.
The one in San Diego was especially poignant.
They went out just before dawn to wait for the sun, as Kelly had for his morning meditations. Everyone brought a flower lei and tossed it into the water. Someone played a tune on the uke while someone else sang a song in Hawaiian, then a Buddhist monk said a prayer. Then anyone who wanted shared a memory or a thought about Kelly—his kindness, his superb skill, what he taught, how he was, his gentle humor, his strong compassion. There was some laughter and a lot of crying.
Boone didn’t say anything; he just fought to hold back his tears.
What impressed him the most were the black and Mexican kids who paddled out even though most of them couldn’t swim and looked scared shitless. Boone kept an eye on them to make sure they made it back okay, which they did.
They just wanted to pay their respects to the man.
Now Boone looks out at the same piece of water and remembers that day. He also remembers something that Kelly said to him one Saturday afternoon. Boone had been helping him keep a bunch of inner-city kids from drowning themselves while body-boarding down at La Jolla Shores, and a tired Boone asked Kelly why he went to all this trouble.
In his famously soft voice, Kelly answered, “You and I were lucky. At a very early age we found something that we loved, something that made our lives worth living. And I can’t but believe that if you think your own life is worth living, you value other people’s lives as well. Not everyone is as lucky as us, Boone.”
Now Boone argues with Kelly Kuhio’s memory. Yeah, but Kelly, the kids you worked with had nothing. The kid who killed you is a rich, spoiled little bastard who grew up with every advantage.
Then he hears Kelly’s dry, humorous voice. Apparently not, Boone.
So you’re going to help Corey Blasingame, Boone tells himself. Stop flailing around like a barney, you know you’re going to do it.
Because Kelly Kuhio would want you to.
18
Boone walks back into The Sundowner and sits down at the booth.
Not Sunny sighs and turns to the cook.
“Got it,” the cook says.
“Why me?” Boone asks. “Why not some other PI?”
“Because you know the scene,” Petra answers. “Another PI would take God knows how much time just to catch up on a learning curve that you already know.”
“Why did Alan take this case?” Boone snaps.
“Corey’s father is an old fraternity brother,” Petra says.
“So I take it he can handle Alan’s bill.”
Petra nods.
“Doctor? Lawyer? Indian chief?”
“Real estate developer.”
“I hate him already.”
This is true. Generally speaking, Boone would have every real estate developer in Southern California put on a bus and driven over a cliff if it wouldn’t kill the bus driver. If he can find a bus-driving real estate developer, though, it’s on.
Not Sunny sets Boone’s plate down. He takes a big bite of the reheated machaca, then says, “I won’t help you go for an acquittal.”
“We’re not asking that,” Petra says. “Just a sentence that reflects the facts, that a drunken teenager threw one punch with unfortunately tragic consequences, as opposed to the mob mentality that’s driving an inflated first-degree murder charge. We don’t want to go to trial, Boone. Just try to get enough leverage that we can make a deal that resembles justice.”
They want to knock it down to voluntary manslaughter. Boone knows that the State of California has mandatory sentencing guidelines—a vol man plea bargain could get Corey anywhere from 24 to 132 months in prison. Figure it somewhere in the middle range.
“Tell Alan I’ll take the case.”
“Actually, I already did.”
Because with all your contradictions you’re really a very simple man, she thinks.
You’ll do the right thing.
She reaches over to his plate, tears off a piece of tortilla, and says mildly, “There’s a slight problem.”
Actually, six slight problems.
Five eyewitnesse
s.
And Corey’s confession.
19
Since starting to date Pete, Boone has gained an appreciation of British understatement.
If she says she’s “a bit peckish,” it means she’s starving; if she’s “a tad annoyed,” she’s really approaching near homicidal rage; and little Corey’s having “a slight problem” means he’s totally screwed.
Calling Corey’s confession “a slight problem” is like tagging a tsunami “a little wave,” Boone thinks as he looks over the file. It could sweep Corey off the beach and carry him all the way to San Quentin, never to be seen again.
Here’s what stupid Corey wrote:
“We were outside the bar waiting because we were pissed that they threw us out of there earlier. So I saw the guy coming out of the bar and decided to mess him up. I walked up to him and hit him with a Superman Punch.”
A “Superman Punch”? Boone asks himself. What the hell is a “Superman Punch”?
“I saw his lights go out before he hit the ground. Other than that, I have nothing to say.”
“Other than that”? Boone wonders. Other than that, you moronic dweeb? Other than admitting to premeditation, then the premeditated act? Yeah. Other than that, good time to clam up, dim bulb. Efficient writing style, though—life without parole in five crisp sentences. Hemingway couldn’t have done it better.
Three of the witness statements are from his little friends.
Corey’s Rockpile crewmates threw him under the bus.
Typical of gangs, Boone thinks. It’s all “brothers forever” until they start doing the hard math of murder one vs. accessory to manslaughter vs. witness with immunity; then the brotherhood goes Cain and Abel.
Of course, the police were shaping the case that way from moment one. They had two other eyewitnesses who would testify to Corey throwing the fatal punch, so the cops went to work on the potential codefendants, making sure they had Corey sewn up tight in the net.
Technically, they could book all four for murder—doubtless that was their opening gambit—but in practice they could never make anything but an accessory charge stick so they put a bright light over the “Exit” door for three of them to find their way.
Trevor’s statement is priceless.
“We were hanging in the alley when we saw this guy come down the street. Corey said, ‘Check it out—I’m going to mess with him. I’m going to fuck him up.’ I tried to restrane him . . .”
“Tried to restrane him,” Boone thinks. Three years on the SDPD, Boone recognizes “copspeak” when he hears it.
Trevor was coached.
They just couldn’t coach him to spell.
A nice touch of authenticity, though.
And the “I’m going to fuck him up” is really bad news.
“ . . . but Corey shook me off, walked up, and hit the guy with a Superman Punch.”
This Superman Punch, Boone thinks, seems to be like a thing, whatever it is.
“Then I heard this really bad ‘crack’ sound when Mr. Kuhio’s head hit. I knew it was real bad then. I said to Corey, ‘What did you do, dude? What did you do?’
“I know we should have called 911 and stayed, but we got freeked out and scared and so we got back in the car and drove away. I was crying. Corey was yelling, ‘I got him! I got the motherfucker. Did you see me get him?’”
Yup, Trevor has the shovel out and he’s digging like mad. With a helping hand from the investigating officer.
Boone could practically hear the detective in the interview room with dumb-ass Trevor: This might be your last chance to help yourself, guy. The train is pulling out of the station. There’s a big difference between a witness and an accessory, kid. The former gets to go home, the latter gets to take showers with the Mexican Mafia. Then he slides a pad of paper and a pen across the table and tells Trevor to start writing.
Write for his life.
Then the cops buzz back and forth like bees, cross-pollinating Trevor Bodin with Billy and Dean Knowles. Have them toss as much shit as they can at each other, but especially on Corey. A little expository writing workshop, there in the precinct house. Pencils up, students, be sure to use vivid verbs and lively adjectives. Tell it in your own words, find your inner voice.
The one kid who didn’t get a tutorial was Corey. They just handed him the suicide pen and told him to write. “Just stick the point in your belly, son, and slash up and across. And try not to leak your bloody entrails on our furniture, kid.”
The investigating officers on the file were Steve Harrington and John Kodani.
Johnny Banzai.
A slight problem there.
Even with the jump-in rule.
Boone and Johnny established the jump-in rule shortly after Boone got his PI card and they realized that their lines were going to clash from time to time. So the rule is just an understanding that their business lives are sometimes going to conflict with their friendship—that sometimes one of them is going to have to jump in on the other guy’s wave, and it’s nothing personal.
Yeah, but . . .
This threatens to get real personal, because for Boone to do his job he’s going to have to attack Johnny’s work, his professional ethics. Which is not something you do to a friend and, no mistake, Boone and Johnny Banzai are friends.
They’ve been boys since they were freshmen law enforcement majors at San Diego State. In those days, Johnny used to surf down in Ocean Beach, and it was Boone who told him that he should check out PB Pier, Boone who made sure that he didn’t catch any locie aggro as a newbie. Yeah, that didn’t take long—when the PB boys saw Johnny shred that wave like he was born in it, when they caught how cool a guy he was, they took him right in.
Yeah, Boone and JB are friends, as in . . .
Boone was the best man at Johnny’s wedding (and studied for weeks to learn enough Japanese to properly greet Johnny’s grandparents). As in . . .
If Johnny and his wife both had to work a weekend day, they’d leave their boys with Boone and Dave at the beach and never give it a second thought because they knew that Boone and Dave would die before they’d let anything happen to those kids. As in . . .
One of those kids, the younger son, is named James Boone Kodani. As in . . . The normally ultrapeaceful Boone clocked some clown who called Johnny a “slant” right here in this same Sundowner. As in . . .
When Boone had his problems over the Rain Sweeny case, when he was a pariah on the force, it was J Banzai—and only J Banzai—who stood by him, who’d be seen talking to him, who’d sit down and have lunch with him. And although Boone never knew it, after he pulled the pin, it was Johnny B who whipped out his judo and put an epic ass-kicking on three—count them, three—cops who bad-mouthed Boone in the locker room. As in . . .
JB came to visit Boone in his crib almost every day during Boone’s long months of lying around feeling sorry for himself. It was JB who kicked his ass to get off the sofa, JB who commiserated with him when Sunny couldn’t stand it anymore and threw him out, Johnny Banzai who told him, “Get back to the ocean, bro. Get back in the water.” As in . . .
They’re friends.
So this ain’t gonna be fun.
20
Boone ponders this as he gets into the Deuce to meet Pete over at the central jail downtown. That he’s going to have to take a chunk out of one of his oldest friends to save garbage like Corey Blasingame.
And classic Johnny to catch the biggest case in San Dog and not mention it. Then again, JB usually keeps his cards pretty close to his chest where his cases are concerned, especially after Boone left the police force. They can talk shit out on the lineup, but there’s a lot of shit they can’t talk anymore.
The Deuce is a used Dodge van, the replacement for the legendary Boonemobile, which went out in a Viking funeral last April.
“This is your chance, you know,” Petra had pointed out to him, “to own a real, grown-up sort of car.”
Not really—the insurance payment on the Boonemob
ile had been exactly zero, Boone having been honest about the fact that he set the van on fire himself and also pushed it off the edge of a cliff. So there wasn’t a lot of cash to go out and buy “a real, grown-up sort of car,” not that Boone wanted one. He wanted, and bought, another old van that he could fit his stuff in. A vehicle that cannot carry a surfboard is a sculpture.