Dawn Patrol

44

Teddy Cole is a beautiful man.

Literally.

Teddy is a living testament to the reciprocal professional courtesy that exists among top-line plastic surgeons. Teddy's been chin-sculpted, Botoxed, nose-jobbed, skin-peeled, hair transplanted, eye-tightened, face-lifted, tummy-tucked, dental-worked, lasered, and tanned.

A walking advertisement of his own trade.

He's about five-ten, slim, his skin glowing with artificial health, the muscles under his black Calvin Klein silk shirt showing hours at the gym. His hair is blond with ash tips, his eyes blue, his teeth perfectly white.

Teddy has to be in his late fifties, but he looks like he's in his early thirties, except that his face has been lifted so tight and high that his eyes have a slightly Asian look to them. Boone's afraid that if Teddy smiles too wide, he might actually break. But no cause for concern right now, because the good doctor isn't smiling. His face is set in fierce concentration as he heads for his Mercedes.

“You're actually smarter than you look,” Petra says to Boone.

“Low bar to jump,” Boone says. He waits for Teddy to pull out of the lot, then starts the van and follows.

“Can you tail him without him seeing us?” Petra asks.

“‘Tail’ him?”

“Well, can you?”

“If I don't screw it up,” Boone says.

“Well, don't.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

It's one of your slower chases, as chases go. Lots of brake lights and waits at traffic signals as they follow Teddy up Prospect Avenue and then north on Torrey Pines Road. Teddy takes a left onto La Jolla Shores Road and they follow him through the beach community, then up the steep hill onto the campus of the University of California at San Diego, where they meander through the narrow, winding road past classroom buildings, dorms, and graduate-student apartments.

Boone drops a couple of cars back and follows Teddy up to Torrey Pines, past the Salk Institute and the whole complex of medical research buildings that define the area. Then it's through Torrey Pines State Reserve, up to the top of the hill, where there's this great, sudden view of the ocean stretching out in front of them, from Torrey Pines Beach all the way up to the bluffs at Del Mar.

Highway 101.