Cheerful had bought the Crystal Pier back in the day when it was pretty run-down. He renovated it and flipped it, with the proviso that he retain the last cottage on the north side of the pier.
He gave the cottage to Boone.
Boone didn't want to take it.
“It's too much, Cheerful,” he said. “Way too much.”
“You saved me millions from that gold-digging little bitch,” Cheerful responded. “Take the cottage. Then you'll always have a place to live.”
Boone didn't take the cottage, not ownership anyway. What he took was a long-term lease at a lower-than-market rent.
So Boone became a permanent resident of the Crystal Pier Hotel. He lives literally over the ocean. He can, and does, hang a fishing pole outside his bedroom window, right into the water. The cottage itself is made up of a small living room with a kitchenette, a bedroom off to one side, and a bathroom off to the other.
Now High Tide drives up to the gate at the base of the pier, kills his headlights, and punches in the code he knows by heart. The gate slides open and High Tide drives the van down the pier all the way to the end, and into a little parking spot, now vacated by the late Boonemobile, next to Boone's cottage.
Boone has been lying down in the back. He gets up, quickly slips over the side, and walks around to the driver's door as the women slide out the passenger side.
“Thanks, bro.”
Tide shakes his head and touches his fist to Boone's.
“Dawn Patrol.”
Tide turns the truck around and drives off the pier. Turns left and parks the truck just behind the new lifeguard station that Dave rules like a feudal warlord. He sits and juggles the phone in his hand, thinking about what he needs to do.
Then he does it.
“Boone wasn't in the van,” he says into the phone. “He's at his place.”
Then Josiah Pamavatuu-former gang banger, football star, surfing stud-lays his head on the steering wheel and sobs.