The Gentlemen's Hour Page 0,76

he had nothing to do with Schering’s murder. There’s always that possibility. But if Dan didn’t, who did?

If Schering was fucking around with another’s guy wife, maybe Donna Nichols wasn’t the only one. Maybe there was another jealous husband or boyfriend out there. Maybe Schering was a real player, and someone else wanted him off the field.

Doubtful, but possible.

So worth checking out.

For several reasons, Boone thinks as he walks to the office. If Dan goes down, he takes me with him. I’m the guy who fingered the guy he killed. Worse, the suspicion that I did it, or helped, will always be out there. And fuck the suspicion—if I had anything to do with Schering’s murder, I want to know about it.

Hang is behind the counter.

“Hey, Hang.”

Hang doesn’t answer.

“Hey, Hang. S’up?”

Hang just looks at him. With a baleful expression.

“What?” Boone asks. “They stop making Pop-Tarts or something?”

“I heard something,” Hang says.

Boone has a sneaking suspicion what he heard, but he asks, “What?”

“That you’re helping get Corey Blasingame off.”

“I’m working on his defense team, yes.”

Hang looks dumbstruck. Shakes his head like he just bottom-smacked and is trying to clear the wuzzies out. Looks at Boone like Boone just shot his puppy and ate it in front of him.

“You have something to say,” Boone says, “say it.”

“You’re wrong.”

No Surfbonics now. Just plain English.

“What do you know about it?” Boone says, more sharply than he’d intended. “Seriously, Hang, the fuck you know about anything?”

Hang turns away.

“Cool with me,” Boone says. He feels a little bad as he goes up the stairs, but his anger washes it away. Screw it, Boone thinks, I don’t need his hero worship. It’s a drag anyway. I’m not who he thinks I am? Cool. I’m not who he thinks I am.

Maybe I’m not what anyone thinks I am. Or what they want me to be.

Cheerful is hunched over the adding machine as usual. He doesn’t look up but waves his hand and says, “Up bright and early, I see.”

“I was up most of the night,” Boone says. He walks through the office and gets into the shower. He comes out, wraps a towel around his waist, and tells Cheerful all about the events of the night—the cops picking him up, Dan Nichols being a (probably worthy) murder suspect.

“Send his check back,” Boone says.

“I already deposited it.”

“Then send him a refund,” Boone says. “I don’t want blood money.”

“You’re so sure he did it?”

“I have some doubts.”

Cheerful gets up from his chair and stands over Boone. No, he looms over Boone, and asks, “So are you going to sit there on your ass being pissy and feeling sorry for yourself, or are you going to do something about it?”

“I’ve already done—”

“Bullshit,” Cheerful says. “You’re an investigator, right? You think Nichols might not be the real killer? Then go out and find the real killer. Investigate.”

Yup.

Boone throws some clothes on and heads out.

Refund, Cheerful thinks.

No wonder he’s always broke.

97

Boone hops into the Deuce and drives up to Del Mar. If Schering picked up one woman at Jake’s, maybe he picked up others. Maybe it was his happy hunting ground.

Jake’s is an icon.

The restaurant, just across the street from the old Del Mar train station, sits on the beach. Actually on the beach. You get one of the front tables at Jake’s during high tide, you’re practically in the water. You sit there and watch kids play out in front of you, and just to the south there’s a tasty little break below the bluffs where the surfers hang. You ever get tired of living in San Diego—the traffic, the prices—you go to Jake’s for lunch and you aren’t tired of living in San Dog anymore.

You wouldn’t live anywhere else.

Boone doesn’t go to one of the front tables today, he goes to the bar. Orders himself a beer, sits and checks out the surf, then strikes up a conversation with the bartender. Lauren’s a pretty young woman, tanned with sun-bleached hair, who took the job because it keeps her on the beach. It takes two slow beers to get around to the subject of Phil Schering.

“I knew him,” she says.

“No kidding?”

“He used to hang out here a lot,” she says. “It was sort of his place. His out-of-office office. He did a lot of business lunches here.”

“What kind of business was he in?”

“Some kind of engineer?”

With that upward, Southern California inflection that turns every sentence into a question. Boone’s always thought it was a reaction to the transience of California life, like—it