by Don Winslow
So the question, he thinks as he pushes Petra and Tammy to the sand and lies on top of them, is whether or not he has time to wait for the cavalry to ride in. A spray of bullets zipping just over his head makes up his mind. The police are going to get there in time to find their bodies. So they have to make a move.
There’s only one place left to go.
65
High Tide sits in The Sundowner enjoying an End of the Workday Beer. The End of the Workday Beer is the best beer there is, with the possible exception of the occasional Weekend Morning Breakfast Beer or the Post Surf Session on a Hot Afternoon Beer.
But High Tide likes the End of the Workday Beer best because, as a supervisor for the San Diego Public Works Department, he puts in a hard, long workday. Josiah Pamavatuu, aka High Tide, is a busy man when weather like this pulls in. He’ll have crews out 24/7 for the next few days, and he’ll have to keep track of them all, making sure that they’re getting the job done, keeping the water flowing smoothly underneath the city.
It’s a lot of responsibility.
That’s okay—High Tide is up to it. He’s enjoying his brew when Red Eddie comes in and sits down on the stool beside him.
“Howzit, brah?” Eddie asks.
“Howzit.”
“Buy you a beer?”
Tide shakes his head. “Driving, brah. Just one before home to the kids.”
“Good man.”
“What you want, Eddie?” Tide asks.
“Bruddah can’t have a beer wid a bruddah he don’t want somethin’?” Eddie asks. He raises a finger, points it at Tide’s beer, and the bartender brings him one of the same.
“You’re about da business, Eddie,” Tide says.
“Okay, business,” Eddie says. “Your buddy Boone.”
“What about him?”
“He’s on a wave he shouldn’t be on.”
“I don’t tell Boone what he can ride.”
“If you’re his friend, you would,” Eddie says.
“You threatening him?” Tide asks. His fist tightens on the beer mug.
“D’opposite,” Eddie says. “I’m trying to toss him a line, pull him in. He’s looking for some wahine; she’s causing a lot of aggro. If certain peoples was to locate the chick first, Boone’s out of the impact zone, you know what I mean.”
“Boone can take care of himself,” Tide says. But he’s worried why Eddie’s approaching him about this. He waits for the other sandal to fall.
Doesn’t take long.
“You have a cuz in Waikiki,” Eddie says. “Zeke.”
It’s true. Like a lot of Samoans, Zeke moved to Hawaii five years ago to try to make some money. It didn’t work out that way. “What about him?”
“He’s an icehead.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” The whole family’s been worried sick about Zeke. His mother can’t sleep, can’t eat her dinner. She begged Tide to go over, straighten him out, and Tide took some sick days, flew to Honolulu, sat down and tried to talk some sense into Zeke. Got him into rehab. Zeke was out three days, went back to the pipe. Last time Tide heard, Zeke was sleeping rough out in Waimalu Park. Only a matter of time before he ODs, or some other icehead takes him out for a dime.
Ice is the devil.
“What you saying?” Tide asks.
“I’m saying I can get the word out,” Eddie says. “Zeke is taboo. You help Boone see things right, deliver this girl to the proper address, no dealer in the islands will sell Zeke a taste.”
Tide knows it’s a serious offer. Red Eddie has that kind of reach. All he has to do is put out the word, and no dealer in his right mind would even be seen talking to Zeke. They’d run away from him like he had leprosy. Zeke would have to straighten out.
“Don’t say yes, don’t say no.” Eddie finishes half his beer, lays a twenty on the bar, and gets up. “Don’t say nothin’. I’ll know by your actions what your answer is. I just think, brah, we island guys have to stick together. We’re the ohana, eh? Aiga.”
Eddie heads for the door. One of his moke boys opens it for him and he walks out, flashing Tide the shaka sign as he goes.
The devil comes in many forms.
The serpent to Eve.
Ice to a tweeker.
This time, it’s a rumor that wafts through The Sundowner like warm air under the ceiling fans.
The Boonemobile is parked by Shrink’s. Daniels must be checking out Shrink’s. If Daniels is there, he must be scoping it out for the big swell. It’s going to peak at Shrink’s.
Tide finishes his beer, walks out to his truck, and heads north.
Family is family.
66
Johnny Banzai rolls up to the security shack at the Institute of Self Awareness and stops in front of the gate.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the guard says. “This is private property. You can’t come in here.”
“Actually, I think I can.” He shows the guard his badge.
The guard tries to hang. “Do you have a warrant, Detective?”
“Yeah,” Johnny says. “My warrant is, if you don’t open that fucking gate like two seconds ago, I’m going to drive through it anyway. Then, first thing in the morning, a battalion of health inspectors is going to arrive for a close look at the sushi and the celebrities. Then the fire inspectors are going to—”
The gate opens.
Johnny drives through.
67
Navy SEALs do it in training, but they’re freaking Navy SEALs.
Lie in the ocean in winter at night, that is, not moving as frigid water washes over them, drops their body temps toward hypothermia, makes them shake uncontrollably, their bones and flesh aching with cold.
But that’s what Boone, Petra, and Tammy do as Danny and his boys hunt the beach for them. Boone wraps an arm around each woman and holds her as hard as he can, feels them shiver as he tries to relax his own body. It’s the only way to survive psychologically—force yourself to relax, not tighten up.
Cold and wet are a deadly combo. You can survive cold, you can tolerate wet, but the two of them together can kill you, send your body into shock, or force you out of the water into lethal gunfire.
Boone knows they don’t have a lot of time left. He looks over at Petra. Her face is set in grim determination. Stiff upper lip and all that happy crap, but the woman is holding on; she’s a lot tougher than she looks.
Tammy’s eyes are shut tight, her lips clamped together, her jaw muscles locked. She’s holding on.
Boone tightens his grip on both of them.
Dan is puzzled.
He had Daniels and the two broads in a box, and they’re gone.
Just gone.
Like the fog wrapped them up and took them.
He looks out toward the surf. No way, he thinks. No fucking way. That’s suicidal. The cop sirens come closer and Dan hears footsteps running down the stairs. Turns to see those big cop flashlights piercing the fog.
Time to boogie.
68
High Tide turns into the parking lot at Sea Cliff Park and pulls up next to the Boonemobile.
Boone ain’t in it.
What the hell, Tide wonders, is Boone doing up here on the bluff over the south end of Shrink’s at night? Checking out the surf? Really, bruddah?
Tide heads down the stairs toward the beach. Hurts his knee, walking down stairs, but what are you going to do? He has to have a word with Boone, and down the stairs is where Boone is apparently at.
Except he ain’t.
When Tide gets down on the sand, he doesn’t see Boone standing there checking out the waves.
All he sees is fog.
Then he spots something in the shallow white water. At first he thinks it’s a dolphin, but a dolphin wouldn’t be in the trench in this weather and he sees only one, and dolphins travel in groups. Must be driftwood, something came in with the tide.
The driftwood stands up.
“BOONE!” High Tide yells. “HAMO!”
Brother.
High Tide walks into the water and grabs Boone, then sees that there are two women with him. Boone grabs one of them, Tide the other, and they stagger onto the beach.
Boone mumbles, “Tide …”
“Easy, bro.”
“Are they—”
“They’re okay.” Tide takes off his jacket and wraps it around the smaller woman, who’s shivering uncontrollably. Then he takes off his wool beanie and puts it on the head of the tall redheaded woman. It’s not enough, but it will help for the time being.
Boone says, “How did you …”
“Beach-bongo telegraph,” High Tide says. “Word’s all along the coast you’re here.”
“We gotta get off this beach,” Boone says. He hefts the smaller woman into a fireman’s carry.
Petra starts to say, “I can—”
“I know you can.”
He carries her anyway. Tide easily sweeps up the redheaded woman and holds her close to his chest as they climb the steps back up to the parking lot. When they get there, Tide grabs two blankets and some towels from the back of his truck as Boone starts to undress Petra.
“What are you doing?” she murmurs.
“Have to get you out of these,” Boone says. “Hypothermia. Give me a hand, hamo?”
Boone, his fingers trembling with cold, strips Petra down to her underwear, wraps her tightly in the blanket, then vigorously rubs her hair dry while Tide does the same with Tammy.
“How about you?” Tide asks.
“I’m okay,” Boone says.
They get the women into the cab of Tide’s truck, then Tide starts the engine and cranks the heater on full blast. Boone goes to the back of his van, strips down, towels off, and changes into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.
Tide climbs into the van.
“S’up, brah?”
“It’s complicated, Tide,” Boone says. “Can you give me a hand? I need to buy some time.”
“What you got in mind?”
When Boone tells him, High Tide objects. “It’s the Boonemobile, man.”
But Boone puts the van in neutral, and he and Tide push it to the edge of the bluff, then take a running start and shove it through the thin wooden guardrail.
“Good-bye,” Boone says.
The van launches off the edge, stays upright for a second, then somersaults down onto the beach. A second later, a muffled explosion goes off; then a small tower of flame rises up through the fog.
Hell of a bonfire on the beach tonight.
A Viking funeral for the Boonemobile.
69
The devil doesn’t give you easy choices.
If he did, he wouldn’t be the devil, just some gyppo piker wannabe masquerading as the real deal.
The real devil doesn’t ask you to choose between good and evil. For most people, that’s too easy. Most people, even when faced with temptations beyond their previous imaginings, will choose to do good.
So the real devil asks you to choose between bad and worse. Let a family member die of a horrible addiction, or betray a friend. That’s why he’s the devil, man. And when he’s really on his game, he doesn’t make you choose between heaven and hell; he gives you a choice between hell and hell.
Josiah Pamavatuu is a good man, no doubt about it. Now he drives his truck with two wet and shivering women at his side and his best friend in the back, a man who is like family to him.
But like ain’t is.
Is is is.
70
Johnny Banzai finds a shaken Teddy D-Cup drinking an “organic martini” in the Lotus Cottage.
“Where’s Tammy Roddick?” Johnny asks him.
Teddy points his thumb in the general direction of the beach.
From whence comes an explosion and a ball of flame.
71
Hang Twelve runs.
Pushing off on all twelve toes, he hoofs it as hard as he can toward Sunny’s house. Like he’s trying to pump the fear through his bloodstream and out of his body.
It ain’t working.
Hang is terrified.
Word traveled down to Pacific Beach with the speed of rumor itself. The Boonemobile went off the bluff at Sea Cliff Park and burst into flames. Boone Daniels hasn’t been found. The firemen are there now. There’s already talk of a paddle-out and a memorial service after the big swell is over.
Hang doesn’t know what to do with his fear, so he takes it to Sunny.
You gotta understand where he’s coming from.
Where he came from.
Father a tweeker, mother a drunk, Brian Brousseau’s home life, if you want to call it that, was a bad dream during a nightmare. Brian got about as much care and attention as the cat, and you don’t want to see the cat. He was about eight when he started picking up the leftover roaches lying around the crappy little house.
Brian liked the feeling he got from smoking the roaches. It eased his fear, muffled the fights between his mom and dad, helped him get to sleep. By the time he was in junior high, he was toking up every day, before and after school. When school was finally over, he’d wander down to the beach, smoke up, and watch the surfers. One day, he was sitting in the sand, just toasted, when this surfer came out of the water, walked up to him, and said, “I see you here every day, grom.”
Brian said, “Uh-huh.”
“How come you just watch?” Boone asked. “How come you don’t surf?”
“Don’t know how,” Brian said. “Don’t have a board.”
Boone nodded, thought about it a second, looked down at the skinny little kid, and said, “You want to learn? I’ll show you.”
Brian wasn’t so sure. “You a fag, man?”
“You want to ride or not, dude?”
Brian wanted.
Scared as shit, but he wanted.
“I can’t swim,” he said.
“Then don’t fall off,” Boone said. He looked down at Brian’s feet. “Dude. Do you have six toes?”
“Twelve.”
Boone chuckled. “That’s your new name, gremmie—‘Hang Twelve.’ ”
“Okay.”
“Stand with your feet about shoulder width,” Boone said.
Hang got up. Boone shoved him in the chest. Hang stepped back with his right foot to keep his balance. “What—”
“You’re a goofy-foot,” Boone said. “Left-footed. Lie down on the board.”
Hang did.
“On your stomach,” Boone said. “Jesus.”
Hang turned over.
“Now, jump up on your knees,” Boone said. “Good. Now into a squat. Good. Now stand.”
Boone made him do it twenty times. By the time Hang finished, he was sweating and breathing hard—it was the most exercise he’d done maybe in his life—but he was totally into it. “This is fun, dude!”
“It’s even more fun in the water,” Boone said. He led Hang out to where some small waves were coming in shallow, had him lie down on the board, and pushed him into a wave. Hang rode it in like a boogie board.
Insta-love.
Hang kept Boone out there all frigging afternoon, until the sun set and after. On his third ride, he tried to stand. He fell off on that wave and the next thirty-seven. The sun was a bright orange ball on the horizon when Hang stood up on the board and rode it all the way to shore.
First thing he’d ever achieved.
The next day was Saturday, and Hang was out there first thing in the morning, standing on the beach and staring out at The Dawn Patrol.
“Who’s the grem?” Dave asked from the lineup.
“A stoner kid,” Boone said. “I dunno, he looked lost, so I took him out.”
“A stray puppy?” Sunny said.
“I guess,” Boone said. “He took to it, though.”
“Grems are a pain in the ass,” Dave warned.
“We were all grems once,” Sunny said.
“Not me,” Dave said. “I was born cool.”
Anyway, it was tacit permission to go bring the kid in. Boone got of
f the board on his next ride and went up to Hang. “You wanna surf?”
Hang nodded.
“Yeah, okay,” Boone said. “I have an old stick in my quiver over there. It’s a piece of shit, a log basically, but it will ride. Get it out, wax it; then I’ll show you how to paddle out. You stay close to me, out of other people’s way, try not to be a total kook, okay?”
“Okay.”
Hang waxed the board, paddled out, and got in everyone’s way. But that’s what grems do—it’s their job. The Dawn Patrol ran interference for him, both with the ocean and the other surfers. No one messed with the kid because it was clear that he was under The Dawn Patrol’s collective wing.
Hang took the board home that night.
Leaned it against the wall next to his bed.
Hang might have been invisible at home, he might have been a nothing at school, but now he had an identity.
He was surfer.
He was Dawn Patrol.
Now he runs toward Sunny’s house, gets to her door, and pounds on it. A few minutes later, a sleepy Sunny comes to the door.
“Hang, what—”
“It’s Boone.”
He tells her about Boone.
72
Cheerful sits at the hovel that is Boone’s desk, trying to balance the books.
Boone Daniels is a perpetual pain in the ass. Immature, irresponsible, a hopeless businessman.
But what were you, Cheerful asks himself, before Boone came into your life?
A lonely old man.
Boone once saved him several million dollars in alimony when the businessman uncharacteristically fell head over heels in love with a twenty-five-year-old Hooters waitress, for whom he bought a new rack and fuller lips to heighten her low self-esteem. Her self-image lifted, she promptly felt herself attractive enough to screw a twenty-five-year-old wannabe rock star and begin a television career that she intended to finance with California community property.
Boone felt bad for the lovesick old guy and took the case, took the pix, made the video, and never showed either of them to Cheerful. He did show them to the soon-to-be ex–Mrs. Cheerful and told her to take her big tits, full lips, guitar-stroking boyfriend, and a $100K alimony settlement, get out of San Dog, and leave Cheerful the hell alone.