The Gentlemen's Hour

73

“Take the deal,” Bill Blasingame says.

Boone sits at the table in the main conference room at Burke, Spitz, and Culver. The door is shut, but the picture windows provide a view of the harbor where an aircraft carrier is currently docked, dominating the scene, looking impossibly large and lethal.

“Don’t we want to ask Corey about it?” Petra asks. “It’s his life.”

Boone sees Alan shoot her a don’t-speak-unless-spoken-to look but she stares right back at him. Good for you, Pete, Boone thinks.

“Corey will do what I tell him to do,” Bill says. “I think we’ve seen what happens when Corey takes charge of his own life.”

Keep your mouth shut, Boone thinks. Sit there, look at the nice harbor, and keep your stupid surf-bum mouth shut. Let this go the way everyone wants it to go.

“Still,” Alan says, “I’m obligated to consult Corey. He’s the defendant. He has to explicitly agree to any deal.”

“He’ll agree,” Bill says. “It’s best for him, best for everyone, to get this over with.”

And off the front pages of the papers, Boone thinks. With real-estate prices already crashing, it’s tough enough, right, Bill? And how many players want to tee off with the murderer’s father? Sweep it under the rug, sweep Corey into the hole.

“He’ll have to serve at least ten years,” Alan warns, “on the sixteen to twenty.”

Bill says, “He’ll be twenty-nine when he gets out, still a young man with his whole life in front of him.”

Right, Boone thinks. A weak unit like Corey in the state pen for ten years? What’s he going to be like when he gets out . . .

if

he gets out . . .

if

someone doesn’t pick up Red Eddie’s contract first? And suppose he does make it through. What kind of life is he going to have as a convicted killer?

But let it slide, Boone thinks. Keep your piehole closed. Bill’s right—it’d be better for everyone. Corey gets his cheap manhood, Johnny gets to keep his rep and his career, you get to go back to the Dawn Patrol.

Forgotten and forgiven.

Over.

Out.

Alan stands up. “Okay, I guess that’s it,” he says. “I’ll go talk to Corey and we’ll get this done. Given the facts, I really don’t think it’s a bad result.”

“Turn it down,” Boone says.