The Gentlemen's Hour

30

Boone tells him that he didn’t find anything suspicious in the phone records or e-mail files.

Dan looks almost disappointed.

“Could she have a phone I don’t know about?” he asks.

Boone shrugs. “I dunno. Could she? Wouldn’t the billing come to you?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I’m going out of town tomorrow. That would be a good time to . . .”

He doesn’t say to what.

Boone’s always thought that if you don’t want to say something, it’s a pretty good indication that you shouldn’t do the something, so he says, “Dan, are you sure, man? Are you sure you shouldn’t just, like, talk to her? Upfront, ask her what’s up?”

“What if she says nothing is?”

“Good.”

“But what if she’s lying?”

That’s kind of that, Boone thinks. He knows now that he’s going to have to follow Donna Nichols and hope like hell the route doesn’t lead to some other man’s bed. It would be a very skippy result, to come back to Dan and tell him he’s a paranoid jerk, go buy some flowers, and stop being dumb and insecure.

“Okay,” Boone says. “I’m on it.”

“You’re a gentleman and a scholar.”

I’m neither, Boone thinks, but whatever. “I’ll have to pick up some equipment.”

“Whatever you need.”

What he’s going to need is a little unit that will fit under the bumper of Donna’s car.

“What does Donna usually drive?” Boone asks. “A white Lexus SUV,” Dan said. “Birthday present.”

Nice, Boone thinks. For his last birthday he got some sex wax from Hang, some two-fer coupons for Jeff’s Burger from Tide, and a card from Dave expressing the sentiment “Go Fuck Yourself.”

“Who’s the car registered to?” Boone asks.

“Me,” Dan answers. “Well, the corporation.”

“Natch.”

Tax stuff, Boone thinks. People with corporations don’t buy anything personally if they can help it. Anything that even tangentially touches the business is a write-off. But your wife’s birthday present?

Dan says, “Donna’s an officer.”

Doesn’t matter, Boone thinks—it would still be perfectly kosher for Dan to put a tracking device on a car his corporation owns, and he wouldn’t have to disclose it to Donna, even if she were an officer. Boone describes the little tracker device that’s attached to a small but powerful magnet. “You just put it under the rear bumper.”

“Without her seeing me,” Dan says.

“That would be better, yeah.”

And the tracking device would be better than following her because this could be a long job, and it would be too easy to get made.

“I’ll pick up the stuff and meet you somewhere to hand it over,” Boone says.

“Cool.”

No, uncool, Boone thinks, already feeling like a sleaze.

Very uncool.

They paddle in.

Boone skips The Sundowner because he’s in a hurry.

He now has one clear day to explore the life and times of Corey Blasingame.