The Gentlemen's Hour

151

Boone stands beside the van.

Three bodies inside—two Crazy Boys and Jones.

Rabbit tosses Boone a set of sweats. “You should get out of those wet clothes, bruddah.”

“Wet clothes.”

“Eddie wouldn’t want you catching cold, da kine,” Rabbit says.

“Da kine.”

Boone peels off the wet clothes and crawls into the sweatsuit. It fits—Red Eddie is a big-on-the-details, Triple-A-personality, micromanager kind of guy. Which is all the more impressive given the quantities of dope he smokes.

“You’re slipping, Boone,” Rabbit says, “walking easy into your crib like that.”

“Slipping,” Echo agrees. “Advancing age.”

They’re both pretty casual about the corpses in the van. Why not? Boone thinks. With the warfare going on for control of the cartels, three bodies in a van is a subaverage day on the body count.

“I didn’t know they were looking for me,” he says, knowing how weak it sounds.

But a good thing that Red Eddie did.

Rabbit explains that Iglesias asked his permission to pick up Boone, knowing that Eddie had an interest and it was on his turf. Eddie didn’t give his good, his word was “hands off Boone.” But Iglesias did it anyway, which put Eddie in a bad position. He couldn’t let himself be disrespected like that.

So Eddie sent his boys to keep an eye out. They were surprised when Boone went out the window, and the boat was a little hard to track, but as soon as it pulled into the little marina in National City, they knew just where the van was headed.

“They used this place before.”

“Used it before. Habits kill.”

“Speed kills.”

“Speed kills,” Echo says. “Then habits.”

Boone hears yelling from inside the steel building. He opens the door and sees Monkey, hog-tied on the floor.

He looks in pretty tough shape, badly beaten.

“Monkey,” Boone says. “Oh, shit, Marvin, are you—”

“Fuck you, asswipe.”

Boone thinks Monkey’s probably going to make it.