The Gentlemen's Hour Page 0,65

shooter.

“Stop ’n’ Pop,” Harrington says.

Sure looks like it, Johnny speculates from the placement of the body. The victim opened the door, the shooter pulled the gun, walked the victim back a few steps, then shot him. Not your hot August night sudden flaring of violence, but a premeditated, cold-blooded murder.

Still, it doesn’t have the look or feel of a professional hit. Contract killers don’t normally do the job at the target’s home—more often at their place of business or on the way to or from it. And they usually take the body, dump it somewhere, or destroy it.

So what you have here is probably an amateur, most likely a first-time killer angry enough to make a decision and then act on it.

The crime scene boys arrive so Johnny gets out of their way and goes out on the street to help Harrington with the canvas. There are certainly plenty of neighbors standing around to interview, but most of them have nothing useful to offer.

Some heard the shot and called 911.

No one saw anybody come to the door or leave.

One older guy, from across the street one door down, says that he’s noticed a “weird” vehicle hanging around the neighborhood lately.

An old Dodge van.

Wary of burglars, he even jotted down the license plate.

Johnny recognizes it.

Boonemobile II.

Aka the Deuce.

81

“Sunny! Hey!”

“Hey yourself! S’up?”

“Nuch,” Boone says. “Where are you?”

“Bondi Beach, Oz,” she says. “Thought I’d give you a shout.”

It’s great to hear her voice. “What time is it there?”

“I dunno,” Sunny says. “Listen, did I catch you at a bad time? You going out or something?”

Women are amazing, Boone thinks. Talk about high-tech spy stuff—she’s on the other side of the freaking world and can smell over the phone that I have a date. He’d tell her no, but they have a long-standing deal never to lie to each other, so he doesn’t say anything.

“You do, don’t you?” she asks. “At . . . ten at night? Boone, baby, that’s a booty call.”

“I don’t know.”

“Who is it?” she asks. “Is it the British betty? What’s her name?”

Boone knows that Sunny knows her name. But he says, “Petra.”

“You charmingly call her ‘Pete.’” Sunny laughs. “I’ll bet she loves that. Makes her feel all girlie and stuff. It’s her, right?”

“Look, this must be costing you a—”

“It is, isn’t it?” Sunny says. “It’s cool, my Boone. She’s a good chick. I like her. Kinda tightly wound, but . . . okay, what are you going to wear?”

“Jesus, Sunny.”

“I know you, Boone,” she says. “I don’t want you to blow this. So what are you wearing?”

This is both sick and wrong, Boone thinks. But he says, “White dress shirt, jeans.”

“Tennis or dress shoes?”

“I dunno. What do you think?”

“Where are you meeting her?” Sunny asks. “Bar or club?”

“Her place,” Boone says.

Sunny laughs. “If you’re meeting a woman at ten p.m. at her place, it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing.” Her implication being that, whatever you’re wearing, you won’t be wearing it for long. Then she adds, “By the way, congratulations.”

“Tennis or dress?” Boone insists.

“Black or brown?”

“Black.”

“Dress.”

“Thanks.”

“De nada.”

“The shirt. In or out?”

“Jeans?”

“Yeah.”

“Is this the, uhhh, first . . .”

“Yes.”

“Aww, he’s shy,” she says. “In.”

“Thanks.”

“No worries.”

They talk about her surf tour, how well it’s going, how she’s getting in shape for the big wave season in Hawaii, Pipeline, and all that. Boone fills her in a little on what he’s been up to, skipping the Blasingame case, and tells her that the gang is doing well.

“Tell them I miss them,” Sunny says. “I miss you, too, Boone.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Love you, B.”

“Love you, Sunny.”

Boone hangs up. Five seconds later the phone rings and Sunny asks, “Do you have any cologne or after-shave?”

“No.”

“Good.”

She hangs up.

Feeling weirder than weird—he will never understand women and neither will anyone else, even Dave—Boone goes to his closet, takes out the black dress shoes, then finds a pair of white gym socks and wipes the dust off them. This leads him to the unhappy quandary of what color socks to wear, and again, he has limited choices.

White or white.

He decides on white and then checks his watch: nine twenty-five. Almost time to leave if he wants to be at Petra’s apartment downtown by ten. But the date isn’t for ten, it’s for “tennish,” so he sits and debates with himself about when to actually arrive. Ten? Five past? Ten past? What’s “ish,” anyway? And is “ish” different in England than in the United States?

He heads out the door at nine-forty, to get there around ten-ten.

When he opens his