The Gentlemen's Hour

59

Corey freaking Blasingame.

Total loser.

Even when he tries to do something hatefully stupid and stupidly hateful, he fucks it up. Sees a dark-skinned man come out of a bar, thinks he’s African American, kills him, and then finds out his victim is Hawaiian.

Well done, C. Good job.

You killed one of the finest men I’ve ever known because you “thought he was a ‘nigger.’”

Excellent.

The rest of the scenario is easy to put together—Corey originally confessed to the crime but, realizing he’d fucked up, didn’t cop to his real motive. Then the Aryan Brotherhood boys got to him in the lockup and let him know that he could do his time in one of two ways—as a snitch or as a race hero. Even a fucking idiot like Corey figured out he’d better take door number two. So he fell back on the ‘I have nothing to say’ mantra, which made him more of a hero. But then he just couldn’t keep it inside—something forced him to make himself look as bad as possible.

“I killed him because I thought he was a nigger.”

Hateful

and

stupid.

Boone goes down the ramp below the big office building on Broadway and Sixth, takes a ticket from the machine, and makes several orbits of the parking structure before he finds a vacant space. He locks up the Deuce, gets into the elevator, and goes up to the fourteenth floor, to the door marked “Law Offices of Burke, Spitz, and Culver,” and goes inside.

He’s known Becky Hager for years. Middle-aged; very attractive; long, curly red hair, she’s the sentinel at Alan’s castle gate. If Becky doesn’t want you to get in to see Alan, you’re not getting in to see Alan.

“Daniels,” she says. “Long time no.”

“Busy, Becky.”

“Surf up?”

“Not lately,” Boone says.

“You here to see Mary Poppins? Blasingame?”

“Yup.”

Becky gives just enough of a smirk to inform him that she knows there’s a little more between him and Petra than a purely professional relationship, then pushes a couple of buttons and says into her mouthpiece, “Petra? There’s a ‘Boone Daniels’ here for you?”

She listens, then looks up at Boone and says, “She’ll be out in a minute. The new

Surfer

arrived.”

Boone sits down and looks at the magazine. Petra comes out two minutes later, looking cool and lovely in a white lawn self-stripe blouse over a light tan skirt.

“This is a surprise,” she says.

“Sorry I didn’t call.”

“That’s quite all right,” she says. “Come on back.”

“Nice to see you, Daniels.”

“And you, Becky.”

Petra’s office is midway down the hall. It has a nice view of the city, dominated by the aircraft carriers docked at the navy base with Point Loma as a backdrop, but Boone knows that she covets the corner office that comes with being made partner.

She sits behind her desk, which is as neat and tight as she is.

“I have motive for Corey,” Boone says.

“Do tell.”

“He was making his bones with the white supremacist movement,” Boone says, “and went after Kelly because he thought he was black.”

“How do you know this?”

“He told me.”

“You

asked

him if he did it?”

“Of course not,” Boone says. “He volunteered it.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a fuckup, Pete,” says Boone. “A total loser. I hate him. Anyway, that’s what I was doing last night when you called, checking it out. I didn’t mean to—”

“No, I’m sorry for the last-minute invitation. It was presumptuous of me.”

“Look, you can presume . . . what you want to . . . presume.”

“I don’t know

what

to presume about us, Boone,” she says. “Are we colleagues, or friends, or

more

than friends, or—”

Before he knows what he’s doing he’s standing up, leaning over her desk, and kissing her on the mouth. Her lips flutter under his, something he’s never experienced before, and they’re fuller and softer than he would have thought. He pulls her out of her chair, and papers spill off the desk onto the floor.

He lets her go.

“So that would be more than friends?” she says, smoothing her skirt. “I presume?”

What the hell are you doing? he asks himself. One second you’re ready to take her head off, the next second you’re kissing her.

“I’d better go tell Alan the good news,” she says.

“Right.”

Boone has felt awkward, uncomfortable, and indecisive before, but never anything like this. Do I just leave? he wonders. Or shake her hand? Or kiss her? On the lips? Or the cheek, or . . .

She comes around the desk, puts her hand behind his neck, closes her eyes, and kisses him, warmly.

“I’ll go with you,” Boone says.

“That would be nice.”

On his way out of the office he passes by Becky who says, “Wipe the lipstick off, idiot.”

“Thanks.”

“Nada.”

He goes into the lobby, turns around, and comes back. Hands Becky the parking ticket. “I forgot to get validated.”

“I think you got plenty validated,” Becky says. Then, her eyes wide with mock surprise, she adds, “Oh, you want me to stamp the

ticket.

”

She takes the ticket from him, stamps it, and hands it back. “Cheerio, old chap.”

Becky, Boone thinks, is the whole barrel of monkeys.