The Gentlemen's Hour Page 0,108
all come apart now? And if so, can you rebuild it?
Has your life always been based on shaky foundations? Everything you believed been false?
He keeps rowing and only turns around when he has just enough strength to make it back to shore.
By that time, the Dawn Patrol has ended.
It’s the Gentlemen’s Hour.
158
He waits on the beach for Dan Nichols to come in.
Dan looks good, strong and refreshed, and a little out of breath as he picks his board up from the water, walks onto the sand, and gives Boone a big wave.
“Boone!” he says. “I thought you were coming out.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Have you had a chance to think about my offer?”
“Yeah?”
“And?”
“You set me up, Dan.”
Boone lays it out.
How Dan was a silent partner in Paradise Homes, partners with Cruz Iglesias and his Baja Cartel. When the homes fell into the sinkhole, Dan told Blasingame to fix it, gin up the geo reports, but he couldn’t get it done.
“So you sent your wife,” Boone says now, “you pimped her out to seduce Schering and get him to change his reports, but he wouldn’t do it. Then Blasingame’s son was arrested for killing Kelly Kuhio and it’s all over the papers and people are digging into Blasingame’s life and you got really scared the connection would come out.”
So Dan hired Boone to “follow” Donna, knowing where it would lead, knowing it would provide a motive for Schering’s murder that would point an inquiry away from Paradise Homes. Dan and Donna were so desperate, so afraid of losing their money—or worse, if Iglesias found out how they’d put him in jeopardy—that they were willing for Dan to become a murder suspect.
“Boone—”
“Shut up,” Boone says. “You sent your wife to lay her body out, then you tried a bribe, and when that didn’t work, you had your cartel partners kill him before he could talk.”
“That’s outrageous!”
“Yeah, it is,” Boone says. “And then you set me up. Used me to set a false trail so it would look like an act of jealousy. You knew you had an alibi, and you were willing to take the risk because you were that desperate. Otherwise, your partners down in TJ would do to you what they did to Bill Blasingame.”
“Boone, we can talk about this,” Dan says. “There’s no need for this to go any further, we can settle this like gentlemen—”
“When I told you I had Nicole’s records, you knew you were in trouble,” Boone says, “so you sent your financial backers to get them back, whatever it took. Blasingame’s life, Petra’s . . . you didn’t care.”
“You can’t prove this,” Dan says. “I’ll destroy you in court. I’ll tell them you were having the affair with Donna, that you killed Schering out of jealousy. She’ll back me, Boone, you know she will.”
“Probably,” Boone says.
Dan smiles a little. “It doesn’t have to go there. How much do you want? Give me a figure, it will be in a numbered account end of business today.”
Boone takes the tape cassette player out of his pocket and hits “Play.”
“We came to you, didn’t we? We came to you.”
“But what if this scandal reaches you? How long before it reaches the rest of us?”
“It won’t. Please, por favor, please. I beg you. What can I do?”
“It’s a copy,” Boone says. “John Kodani has the original. He’s waiting up on the boardwalk now.”
“You’re making a mistake, Daniels.”
“I met some of your partners,” Boone says. “I’m betting the legal process is the least of your worries. Have a good life, Dan.”
Boone walks away.
Passes Johnny Banzai on the way in.
159
Later that morning, Petra watches Alan Burke peruse the flow chart that she created on her computer.
He’s dead silent for a good, long minute, then asks, “You have documentation of all this?”
“Yes.”
Alan walks over to the window and looks out at the city. “Do you have any idea how many friends, colleagues, and business associates of mine could be implicated by this?”
“I would expect quite a few,” she says.
She is, as usual, polite and proper, but he notices that the deferential tone that she normally adopts is missing. Its absence is simultaneously alarming and promising. “Well, you expect correctly.”
Petra hears the gentle mockery and wonders what it means. Is its import that Alan will fire her, run for cover, and pull the lid down over his head? That would be the smart thing to do, and Alan has built his career on doing the smart thing.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“That must