The Gentlemen's Hour

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 Boonemobile 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.

“Then,” Petra said, graciously yielding to the inevitable, “this is your chance to own a vehicle that does not have a sophomoric name.”

“I didn’t name the Boonemobile,” Boone said a little defensively. “Other people did.”

The other people—Dave, Tide, Hang, Johnny, and most of the Greater San Diego surfing community—inevitably called the “new” van Boonemobile II, after its iconic predecessor. The really annoying thing for Petra was that the replacement van acquired not one, but two monikers, because Boonemobile II was too long; so the nickname got a nickname of its own: “Deuce.”

“You know,” Johnny said, “guys who are ‘the third’ get tagged ‘Trey.’ Let’s call Boone’s second van ‘Deuce.’”

So Deuce it was.

She’s waiting in the parking lot when he gets there.

“Your boy is driftwood,” Boone says.

Washed up on the beach.

“I can’t allow myself to think that way,” Petra answers.

“How are you going to get around the confession?” Boone asks. Some waves you don’t get around, over, or under. They just crush you. Out.

Petra shrugs. “Confusion? Coercion? A cop putting ideas into his head? That sort of thing does happen.”

“Not with John Kodani,” Boone says.

JB will definitely play hardball and he doesn’t always throw straight down the middle. No, Johnny hurls some filthy junk—curveball, slider, even the occasional knuckleball—but he’s always going to catch the edge of the plate. Banzai wouldn’t just rear back and throw a spitter at someone’s head—convince some stupid kid that he did something he didn’t.

“The first thing we have to do,” she says, ignoring the five-hundred-pound gorilla, “is to demonstrate that the Rockpile Crew isn’t a ‘gang.’ The ‘special circumstances’ on the first-degree charge hinge on the allegation of gang activity.”

“The Rockpile Crew is a gang,” Boone says.

“Mere association and group self-identification do not meet the legal threshold required of a ‘gang,’” she answers. “For instance, is the Dawn Patrol a gang?”

“Sort of.”

“The ‘gang’ has to exist for the furtherance of criminal activity,” she says. “I don’t think that the Dawn Patrol engages in organized criminal activity.”

Clearly, Boone thinks, she’s never seen the Dawn Patrol hit a lunch buffet. Okay, the ‘organized’ thing is a stretch.

“Like murder?” he asks.

“Only,” she insists, “if the murder is a direct consequence of, and/or in furtherance of, the stated criminal activity. It can’t be merely coincidental.”

Boone wonders how Kelly’s loved ones might feel about his murder being “merely coincidental,” but keeps the thought to himself. “So we need to find out if the Rockpile Crew was involved in anything other than the violent defense of its turf—say, drug dealing or something like that.”

“Precisely,” she says. “Although I suppose it would be prudent to find out if any of these gangs of ‘locies’—is that what you call them?—”

“Okay.”

“—derive any financial profit from the defense of said turf,” she says. “For instance, if they’re practicing extortion, or charging ‘taxes’ for the use of the water, that would constitute a ‘gang’ under the legal interpretation.”

So, Boone thinks, if the Rockpile Crew says “You can’t surf here” and enforce it, they’re not a gang. If they say, “You can’t surf here unless you give us twenty bucks” and enforce that, they are. You gotta love the law.

What about the big five-star hotel chains that are buying up the coastline, and do everything they can to keep the public from getting access to “their” beaches? Are they a gang under the law?

Oughta be.

Bet they’re not.

He asks, “What does Corey say about it?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Let’s go ask him.”

To meet Corey is to take an instant dislike to him.

In the interest of efficiency.

Clad in an orange jumpsuit, he slumps in a chair in the interview room and refuses to look at either Boone or Petra. He’s thin and pale, but his shoulders and biceps are big, his head shaven, and he maintains a sullen, antisocial expression.

“Corey,” Petra says, “this is Mr. Daniels. He’s here to help on your case.”

Corey shrugs. “I have nothing to say.”

Boone shrugs. Sure, now you have nothing to say. Bad timing on your part going Marcel Marceau now.

“Since writing his statement, that’s all he’s ever said,” Petra remarks to Boone. She turns back to Corey. “There’s tremendous variation in what you could be convicted of, Corey. From involuntary manslaughter, in which case you’d be released for time served, all the way to murder with special circumstances, in which case you’re looking at life without parole.”

Corey sighs. Like he’s bored out of his mind, like he could give a rat’s ass, like he’s so gang, so down, so tough, that killing someone is No Big Deal. “I have nothing to say.”

“Please help us to help you,” Petra says.

Corey shrugs again.

“Forget it,” Boone says to her. “Let him slide.”

A lot of people have drowned, he thinks, trying to save a drowning swimmer. And this one isn’t even worthy of saving. Let him go.

Petra doesn’t. “Your father retained us to—”

Which seems to spark a small flame, anyway. “Hey,” Corey says, “you want to make my dad happy so he pays your bill, knock yourselves out. It has nothing to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with—”

“No,” Corey says. “Trust me—it doesn’t.”

He gets up.

“Sit down,” Boone says.

“You gonna make me?”

“Maybe.”

Corey sighs again but he sits down and stares at the floor.

“Tell me about the Rockpile Crew,” Boone says.

“Nothing to say,” Corey says. Except he goes ahead and says it. “We surf, we party, we brawl. S’bout it.”

Kid sounds like a bad hip-hop lyric, Boone thinks. “You deal?”

“Nah.”

“What about the juice?”

“Say again?”

“Don’t jack me around, I’m not in the mood,” Boone says. “The steroids—you sell, or you just use?”

“I just use,” Corey says.

“Where do you get them?”

“I have nothing to say.” Corey smiles. He looks up from the floor and smiles at Petra. “ ‘Life without parole?’ Do I look like some taco to you? I’ll get probation, the money my dad’s paying.”

He gets up and the guard leads him out.