Dawn Patrol

11

“What's the state of the nation?” Boone asks Cheerful.

Cheerful punches a few more numbers into the adding machine, looks at the result, and says, “You can either eat or pay rent, but not both.”

This is not an unusual short list of options for Boone. His perpetually shallow cash flow isn't because Boone is a bad private investigator. The truth is, he's a very good private investigator; it's just that he'd rather surf. He's totally up front about the fact that he works just enough to get by.

Or not, because he is now three months late on the rent and would be facing eviction if not for the fact that Cheerful is not only his business manager but also his landlord. Cheerful owns the building, Pacific Surf, and about a dozen other rental properties in Pacific Beach.

Cheerful is, in fact, a millionaire several times over, but it doesn't make him any more cheerful, especially not with tenants like Boone. He's taken on the redemption of Boone's business affairs as a quixotic challenge to his own managerial skills, sort of Edmund Hillary trying to summit a mountain of debt, fiscal irresponsibility, unpaid bills, unfiled taxes, unwritten invoices, and uncashed checks.

For an accountant and businessman, Boone Daniels is Mount Everest.

“As your accountant,” he tells Boone now, “I strongly advise you to take the case.”

“How about as my landlord?”

“I strongly advise you to take the case.”

“Are you going to evict me?”

“You have negative cash flow,” Cheerful says. “Do you know what that means?”

“It means I have more money going out than I have coming in.”

“No,” Cheerful says. “If you were paying your bills, you'd have more money going out than coming in.”

Boone performs the complicated maneuver of putting on jeans while still keeping the towel wrapped around him as he moans, “Twelve to twenty feet… double overheads…”

“Oh, stop whinging,” Petra says. Whinge is one of her favorite Brit words-a combination between a whine and a cringe. “If you're as good as your reputation, you'll find my witness before your swelling goes down.”

She proffers a file folder.

Boone pulls a North Shore T-shirt over his head, followed by a hooded Killer Dana sweatshirt, slips into a pair of Reef sandals, takes the file, and walks downstairs.

“Where are you going?” Petra calls after him.

“Breakfast.”

“Now?”

“It's the most important meal of the day.”