The Gentlemen's Hour Page 0,59

the ground.

Boone takes a card out his shirt pocket and offers it to her.

“Kelly Kuhio’s death was a tragedy,” he says. “A stupid, ugly, unforgivable thing that never should have happened. The only thing worse would be answering it with another stupid tragedy. Kelly would tell you the same thing.”

She takes the card.

68

Boone goes into Pacific Surf, where Hang Twelve is trying to cope with a busload of German tourists who are bustling around the shop, trying on anything that isn’t chained down, asking him a zillion questions about wet suits, fins, and boogie-board hydrodynamics.

“It doesn’t matter!” Hang is pleading. “There’s no surf anyway! No waves! Get it? No waves! Nein waves! Waves verboten! Can’t ride the Maxi-Pads. Boone. What’s German for ‘flat’?”

“Vlat,” Boone says, making it up.

“Vlat,” Hang is saying as Boone goes up the stairs to his office.

Cheerful looks up from the old-fashioned adding machine, one of those dinosaurs that still has the little loop of paper coming out of it, usually stained with red ink. The old man is actually smiling. Boone has to look twice to make sure it’s not a heart attack or something, but it sure looks like a smile.

Awkward, however, because Cheerful is way out of practice. Boone’s a little afraid he might pull a face muscle. Maybe he should warm up first, do some cheek stretches or something.

“This is a big day in your life,” Cheerful says.

“They’re bringing Baywatch back?” Boone asks.

Cheerful holds up a slip of adding-machine paper. “Boone Daniels Investigation Services is in the black.”

“Wow.”

“I thought you’d be happier,” Cheerful says.

“The surf sucks,” Boone says, “and I have some bad news for a friend.”

“The Nichols thing?”

Boone nods.

“She cheating on him?”

“Yup.”

“But that’s not all that’s bugging you,” Cheerful says.

“Nope.”

“Spill.”

“I think I got it wrong on the Blasingame case.”

He walks Cheerful through it, then the old man says, “So maybe you were a little blinded by your anger. It happens. But you have to remember that the kid confessed in the station, he confessed to you, and you still have another objective eyewitness.”

George Poptanich, Boone thinks.

The cabdriver.

There’s something about him skitting around the edge of Boone’s consciousness. He yells down to Hang, “Yo! Is the Kriegsmarine still down there?”

“The what?!”

“Never mind,” Boone says. “You got a minute to do some work for me?”

“Dude.”

“Run a criminal check on a George Poptanich?” He spells the name and hears Hang slapping the keyboard even before he finishes.

The phone rings. It’s Dan Nichols. “Anything?”

“Dan, maybe it would be better to talk about this in person,” Boone says.

Pause. “That’s not good, huh?”

“No,” Boone says.

“I’ll be back this afternoon,” Dan says. “We’ll talk.”

“Sounds good.”

As good as that conversation can be, which is, like, not.

Hang comes bounding up the stairs. “Dude.”

“Dude.”

“Yabba-dabba-doo!” He hands Boone a printout.

Georgie has a sheet.

69

George Poptanich lives in PB.

Boone rings the doorbell of his little bungalow. They must have built a thousand of these places on the PB flats back during World War II to house the aircraft workers. They mostly look alike—the living rooms are in the front, the kitchens in back on the left, two bedrooms in back on the other side. They have small front yards and a small rectangular yard in the back.

George looks like the doorbell woke him up—his gray hair is tousled, he’s wearing a wife-beater, plaid Bermuda shorts, and sandals. He’s in his midfifties—fifty-three, Boone knows from his sheet—heavy, sloped shoulders, and a potbelly.

He looks real happy to see Boone.

“Georgie Pop,” Boone says. “Do you remember me?”

“No. Should I?”

“About five years ago,” Boone says. “I arrested you.”

“That don’t exactly make you special,” Georgie says, that tired look in his eyes that comes from a life of being hassled by cops.

“You going to invite me in,” Boone asks, “or should we do this on the street in front of the neighbors?”

Georgie lets him in.

The place is a dump, which is too bad, Boone thinks, because the other people in this neighborhood took pride in keeping their places up. Georgie points to an old sofa, disappears into the kitchen, and comes out with a bottle of beer.

One bottle of beer.

He plops down in an easy chair and asks, “Who are you and what do you want? You don’t look like a cop.”

“I used to be.”

“We all used to be something.”

“True that,” Boone says. He identifies himself and tells Poptanich that he’s working on the Corey Blasingame case. “I read your statement.”

“So?”

Georgie’s sheet is for B&E. He did two stretches, walked on two other charges. It’s not uncommon for burglars to