The Gentlemen's Hour

126

They have the papers spread out all over Petra’s living-room floor as they create piles of related records and documents that link one to another.

“Do you know what we have here?” Petra asks him.

Boone knows. Freaking dynamite, enough to blow the lid off the city and shake it to its foundations. Bribes to city, county, and state officials for approvals for building projects on dangerous ground; cover-ups of shoddy construction practices; real-estate development partnerships that connect to half the big businesspeople in the county. And this is from just one developer, Bill Blasingame. He can’t be the only pitcher working the corners of the plate; there must be dozens. Where would those connections lead?

Yeah, Boone knows what they have there.

“This might be more wave than we want,” he says.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Boone explains that sometimes you get into a wave that’s too big for you to handle. It isn’t a matter of pride or ego or even your skill level, it’s just physics—the wave is too tall, heavy, and fast for your board and your body, and it will crush you.

He has that sense here. The individuals and businesses listed in Nicole’s records are connected, and the connections are connected, and it’s not just linear—each line reaches out in multiple directions to other lines. It’s what that old yuppie concept of “networking” is all about, and in a city as small and tight as San Diego, the network is close and dense.

Where in that network do you bring this information? he asks her. You bring it to the DA’s office—where is the district attorney in that matrix? Bring it to the cops—same thing. A judge—ditto, ditto.

“Certainly we can take this to Alan,” Petra says. “I mean, we have to take it to Alan, it’s potentially exculpatory evidence for a client. For you, as well.”

She sees the look on his face and says, “Good lord, Boone, you don’t suspect Alan?”

He doesn’t suspect that Burke is involved in any sketchy real-estate deal, but Alan is definitely woven into the San Diego power network. And Petra doesn’t know the leverage that can be worked on a guy like Alan—all of a sudden the wiring in his office building is out of code, a slam-dunk motion in court goes the other way, a guy he defended five years ago claims that Alan suborned him to perjury . . .

It’s Chinatown, Pete. It’s Chinatown.

“So what do you want to do?” Petra asks.

“We’ll turn it over to Alan in the morning,” Boone says. “In the meantime, let me lay a little pipe.”

“Really, Boone, these metaphors.”

If you take the info to one source, he explains, it might get buried. Take it to two or three, you improve your chances.

“But to whom do you take it?” she asks.

Depends in whom you trust.