The Gentleman's Hour

by Don Winslow

  “Are you?” Boone asks. “ ‘Comfortable’?”

  She rolls over and puts her head on his chest. “Much, much more than comfortable. I’m ecstatic.”

  He holds her tight. “Why don’t you stay here until you’re ready to move back in to your place?”

  “Yes?” she asks. “Yes, thank you, I’d love that, but it wasn’t an answer.”

  “Yeah, Pete,” he says, “I think I’ll do it, the law school thing.”

  She smiles and settles closer into him. A few minutes later Boone feels her breathing deepen and he looks down to see that she’s fallen asleep. He loves the smell of her, the feel of her, her hair splayed against his chest.

  He doesn’t sleep.

  Lies there and thinks.

  166

  Boone beats the sun out of bed.

  He carefully disentangles himself from Petra, so as not to wake her, pulls the sheet back up around her neck, then throws on a sweatshirt, jeans, and sandals and walks into the kitchen to write her a note.

  He steps outside into the still-dark morning, gets into the Deuce, and pulls off the pier onto the PCH. His route takes him right past the spot where the Dawn Patrol goes out, and in the faint light that is just now gathering, he can see their forms on the beach, performing the morning ritual of waxing and stretching and quiet conversation.

  He doesn’t stop, but keeps driving north.

  167

  The lightness in the bed wakes Petra up.

  She misses his weight and warmth, but she’s glad he’s going back out on the Dawn Patrol, and then she thinks how nice it would be to have a morning cup with him before he goes out, maybe look out the window and watch him surf before she goes in to work.

  She gets up and goes into the kitchen, but he’s already gone.

  A note is propped against a cup on the table.

  Pete,

  I’m sorry, I love you, but I can’t do it. The lawyer thing, I mean. It just isn’t who I am. I guess I’m just not a gentleman. I have something I have to take care of—my piece of the world—right now, but when I get back we’ll talk about it. There’s tea in the third cupboard to the right.

  Boone

  Of course you can’t do it, she thinks. The lawyer thing.

  Of course you can’t, and of course it isn’t who you are. It’s not the man I love, nor the man who apparently loves me. My God, she thinks—a simple, uncomplicated declaration of love. Subject, verb, object. I love you. Something you’ve never had before in your life.

  Well, I love you, too, Boone.

  And don’t be sorry, please don’t be sorry. I wouldn’t change you, I was wrong to try, and as for not being a gentleman, you couldn’t be more wrong about that, and when you get back . . .

  She looks at the note again.

  “I have something I have to take care of—my piece of the world—right now.”

  Feeling a horrible pang of alarm, Petra hurriedly dresses and rushes out.

  She catches the Dawn Patrol just as they’re headed out.

  Paddling in the shallow water.

  Petra stands on the sand, waves her arms above her head, and hollers, “Help! I need you! Come back! Help!”

  Dave the Love God is more used to distress calls coming from the opposite direction, but a lifeguard is a lifeguard, so he turns around and paddles back in. He’s not real thrilled to see that it’s the Brit.

  “It’s about Boone,” she says.

  “What about him?”

  “I think he’s gone to do something stupid,” Petra says.

  “I can almost guarantee that,” Dave answers.

  She hands him the note.

  168

  Boone drives all the way up the PCH to Oceanside on that road he loves so much.

  Up through Pacific Beach and La Jolla, then down along Shores, then up to Torrey Pines and back down again along that incredible stretch of open beach, then up the steep hill to Del Mar. He goes down past Jake’s, and the old train station, then drives up into Solana Beach, Leucadia, then down again past the long, open coast at Cardiff and Carlsbad.

  When he reaches the power station at the south edge of O’Side, he turns around and drives the whole thing again.

  This road of memories and dreams.

  He pulls off the road at Rockpile.

  169

  Boone pulls into the little parking lot.

  Hard to find a spot, because the boys are really out.

  Or not quite—most are still on the beach, getting ready to hit the water. Ten or twelve guys, Boone estimates, all of them white.

  One of them is Mike Boyd.

  Boone gets out of the van, walks up to him, and says, “You’re gone.”

  “What?”

  “You filled those stupid kids with your garbage,” Boone says, “and pumped them full of your shit, and you’re guiltier than any of them. I don’t want you in my ocean or on my beach—here or anywhere, anytime. I don’t want you in my world. You and all your buddies, you’re gone.”

  Boyd smirks, looks behind him at his crew, and then says, “You’re going to throw us all out, Daniels? Just you? You’re believing your own legend there, dude.”

  “I’m going to start with you, Mike,” Boone says. “Then I’m going to work my way through the rest of them.”

  Boyd laughs. “Check yourself, Daniels. You’re a fucking mess. You won’t last five seconds against me, never mind the rest of the boys. Walk away while I still let you. You know what? Better yet, don’t. Stay right where you are so we can stomp the shit out of you.”

  His crew has gathered around him, eager to back him up.

  No compunction.

  Boyd smiles at Boone again, then the smile disappears from his face and his eyes widen as he focuses over Boone’s shoulder at:

  Dave, Johnny, High Tide, Hang Twelve, Petra, even Cheerful.

  The Dawn Patrol.

  170

  The Battle of Rockpile becomes a legend among the surfing community of San Diego.

  By that afternoon, the story gets told at The Sundowner and every other bar, burger place, taco joint, and hangout on the coast.

  The Dawn Patrol v. The Rockpile Crew.

  It was a beat-down.

  An ass-kicking.

  A balls-to-the-walls, all-out, no-mercy epic.

  The tale gets told how the PB Dawn Patrol slashed through the Rockpile like a tsunami wave through a pier. How Boone freaking Daniels, Dave the Love and War God, Johnny Absolutely Banzai, High Rolling Tide, and Hang Tough Twelve threw down, fists and feet, until the beach looked like a Tijuana bullfight—blood in the sand, baby. Even the chick got into it, man—punching, kicking, clawing—while that crazy ancient dude went around keying cars and smashing in windshields and headlights.

  Alarmed artists on the bluffs (concerned citizens they) dialed 911, but the kookiest thing happened—the cops rolled up, all right, but then they parked on the bluffs and never got out of their cruisers until it was time to buzz the EMTs to carry out the wounded.

  Of which there were many, because DtLG went dervish, like that was the dude who once punched a shark, yeah, so he just went off on the Rockpile, and JB was all judo and shit so that Brazilian crap just couldn’t cut it, and Tide, he grabbed three of those Pilers and banged their melons together like, well, okay, coconuts, and the squirrely little soul surfer rasta dude totally foffed Energizer bunny, man, he just took the hits and kept on coming.

  And would you like to have been there (and, much later, many would claim that they were), the beach denizens asked each other, when Mike Boyd launched himself into a Superman Punch to take out BD, and Boone stepped back, cocked his right knee, and cracked that surfing-strengthened-to-steel leg straight into Boyd’s junk? They say you could hear that bang from the bluffs, like a board crashing into the rocks. Like . . . whump!

  The beach-bongo telegram system spreads the story, and by sundown it’s made it all the way to Oz, where Sunny Day looks at her text message and smiles.

  T
he Battle of Rockpile.

  The “Fivers,” as they get glossed, expelled from the beach.

  Which was rechristened “K2’s.”

  Paradise Found.

  Epic.

  Macking.

  Crunchy.

  171

  “Violence on the beach,” Dave intones through a swollen lip, “is very uncool.”

  “Completely inappropriate,” Johnny agrees.

  “No place for it,” High Tide concurs.

  “East of the 5,” Hang Twelve says.

  Boone just nods. He’s too busy grilling fish to engage in conversation, he doesn’t want to burn the fillets, and the drop-dead, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me, there-has-to-be-a-God show of a sunset is already distracting enough. Besides, his jaw throbs, as does his almost certainly broken nose, so it’s just easier to keep his piehole shut.

  And enjoy the resumption of the sundown cookout on the beach.

  Even Cheerful showed up for the party, though he stays carefully on the boardwalk away from the sand and will have nothing to do with a fish taco. Boone has a Stouffer’s in the microwave inside all set to go for him.

  Pete looks good with a black eye.

  She sure doesn’t think so, and she’s “horribly embarrassed” at her “unprofessional” behavior at Rockpile, but Boone knows that she got a rush from it. Even better, by virtue of her participation in the Battle of Rockpile—even if she never gets on a board—Pete is now and forever a fully accredited, completely accepted member of the Dawn Patrol.

  As witnessed by the fact that they came up with a nickname for her.

  Loco Ono.

  It’s sarcastic, and rough, but she’s smart enough to know that they’re poking more fun at themselves than they are at her. So that’s a good thing, good for her and good for their relationship.

  Because I guess that’s what we have now, thinks Boone, a relationship. Wow. Even though we’re still going to be SEI. I’m not going to law school, and head of security at Nichols’s is out, so what next?

  Nothing, I guess.

  Nothing new, anyway, and that’s just fine. The summer is coming to an end, and the more serious seasons will start. It’s going to be plenty, just dealing with what’s on its way. The Paradise Homes conspiracy is already unraveling, people are scrambling for cover or racing to be the first in the testimonial daisy chain, and both Mary Lou and Alan are issuing subpoenas like supermarket coupons.

  But there will be an inevitable push-back. Half the power structure of San Diego is going to come charging, and the Baja Cartel as well, and Boone doesn’t know which is more lethal.

  He looks around at the group of his friends as he takes the fish off the grill. Sliding the pieces into tortillas, he passes the tacos around. They are friends again, but it really isn’t over, he thinks. I have relationships to mend—with Dave and Hang, Johnny and Tide especially—and that’s going to take time.

  It’s going to require some good surf sessions, some days hanging together on the beach, some nights talking story. Maybe it’s going to mean that we take a fresh look at ourselves. Like Sunny had e-mailed him.

  Hey B,

  Heard about all your craziness lately. Wow. Double wow. Sounds like the Dawn Patrol has gone through the washing machine. But you know how it is—if you make it through to come out the other side, the world looks a little different. Kind of fresh. I remember something Kelly used to say. “Your view is as much a mirror as a window.” It’s a pretty cool view, B, for you and all our friends. Enjoy, yeah? And take care of each other.

  Mucho lovo,

  Sunny

  P.S. How’d the booty call go?

  Boone looks out at the ocean.

  The surf is beginning to build.

  There are waves. They’re small, but they’re waves.

  Not Kansas anymore.

  Maybe . . .

  South Dakota.

  About the Author

  Don Winslow, a former private investigator and consultant, is the author of fourteen novels, including Savages, The Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life, and The Death and Life of Bobby Z. He lives in Southern California.

  About the Author

  Don Winslow, a former private investigator and consultant, is the author of fourteen novels, including Savages, The Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life, and The Death and Life of Bobby Z. He lives in Southern California.