The Gentlemen's Hour

125

Nicole drives Boone to a storage locker in Solana Beach and tells him to wait in the car. Comes out five minutes later with a box and puts it on his lap, then drives him back to her office parking lot and drops him off at the Deuce.

“That’s quite some ride you have there,” she says. “The PI business booming?”

“Like real estate,” he says. “What are you going to do now?”

“Go home, I guess.”

“You have a friend or a relative you could stay with?” Boone asks. “Someone Bill doesn’t know about?”

She has her grandmother up in Escondido, and Boone suggests she stay there for a few days. She gets it, tells him she will, and they exchange cell phone numbers.

“You did the right thing,” Boone says.

“The right thing,” she says, “won’t pay my mortgage.”

Too true, Boone thinks.