Dawn Patrol

154

Boone paddles out.

Eddie's on the line on the inside shore break.

“Yo, Boone Dawg!” Eddie yells. Then he sees Boone's head. “What happened to you, my bruddah?”

“A little aggro.” Boone juts his chin to the outside reef. The waves aren't giant anymore, but they're big, and they're breaking outside. “Let's go outside, Eddie! You got the balls?”

“ Dangling, brah!”

They paddle out, side by side, then pull up along the shoulder beside the break.

“We need to talk, Eddie.”

“Talk.”

“The girls,” Boone said. “That was your operation.”

“No, brah.”

“Yeah, it was,” Boone says. “The whole story about Dan owing you money was bullshit. You were just trying to cover your pathetic ass.”

Eddie's not used to being talked to like that. His eyes get hard. “Watch yourself, Boone.”

“You broke your word to me, Eddie,” says Boone. “You told me you'd leave Tammy Roddick alone.”

“Hey, that was Dan, not me,” Eddie says. “I didn't promise anything about Dan.”

“You're dirty,” Boone says. “And you make everything and everyone around you dirty. I brought you into The Dawn Patrol and you made it ugly. You destroy everything around you, Eddie, just like you took those little kids and destroyed them. I'm sorry I met you. I'm sorry I pulled your son out of the water, if he grows up to be anything like you.”

“ Youever going to grow up, Boone?”

“Yeah,” Boone says. “I am.”

He shoots out his leg and kicks Eddie off his board.

Eddie falls into the water.

Boone wraps Eddie's leash around his own ankle and watches as Eddie tries to sit up and let himself loose. But Eddie can't reach the Velcro strap around his ankle. He turns and tries to swim, tries to bust to the surface, but Boone back-paddles like a cowboy on a pony with a calf on his rope.

Eddie flips over again and tries to reach Boone. He reaches up, desperately grabbing, first at Boone's foot, then at his own. But Boone just keeps pressing down on the leash, and looks into Eddie's widening eyes.

They say drowning is a peaceful death.

I hope they're wrong, Boone thinks.

He watches Eddie struggle. Watches him suffer.

Then he takes his foot off the leash. Not because he cares about Eddie's life, but because he cares about his own. Eddie grabs for his board, but Boone kicks his hand off. Choking and gasping for air, Eddie asks, “What the-”

“Here's the deal, Julius,” says Boone. “I let you back on my board and tow you in to Johnny Banzai. He's already waiting with a warrant. You're looking at thirty to life. Or you go back in the water, and this time you don't come back up. And we'll throw a hell of a fucking party.”

He starts to press down on the leash again. “Personally? I hope you take door number two.”

But Eddie says, “Take me in.”

Boone lets up on the leash and hauls the exhausted Eddie onto his board, then tows him to shore. Johnny's standing on the beach. Slaps the cuffs on Eddie, does the ritual reading of the rights, and shoves him into his car.

Eddie doesn't have one fucking thing to say.

“Are we good?” Dave asks Boone.

“We're good.”

It's over.