The Gentlemen's Hour Page 0,80

and Trev was slapping him on the back, yelling, “You got him good, man. You took him out! Did you guys see our boy Corey hit him with that Superman?” And then Billy and Dean were saying, like, “Yeah, we saw you, Corey. We saw you do him.”

And Corey was like . . .

Proud.

Like, proud that he’d defended his turf, you know? Stood up and fought like a warrior for his tribe.

They drove around some more, and then the cops found them. Put them in cuffs and took them down to the station, and that’s when Corey confessed.

“I hit him with a Superman Punch.”

102

“Come on, Mary Lou!” Alan says in her office.

“I don’t,” she says. “I don’t see how this really changes things. Except that your client has now confessed to a hate crime.”

Alan tries to blow right through that little problem. “He hasn’t confessed to anything. This wipes out his prior so-called confession.”

“Not necessarily,” she says. “It’s a new story he tells now that he’s closer to the reality of prison, but the original confession has immediacy.”

“I’ll put him on the stand,” Alan says, “and the jury will believe him.”

Yes, they will, she tells herself. Because even you think you believe him. Face it, you like Trevor Bodin for the killing now. It’s like Alan’s living in her head because he says, “Reduce Corey to manslaughter, rip up Bodin’s deal on the basis that he lied to you, and raise the charge on him.”

Right, she can hear the defense attorney cross-examine her already. “You originally charged Corey Blasingame with the killing, didn’t you? And you charged him because you were confident that he did it. Just as you say you’re confident now that my client did it?” She looks at Alan and says, “You know I can’t do that.”

“I know you can’t hold this charge on a kid you know is not guilty,” Alan says softly. “Isn’t in you, Mary Lou.”

“Don’t push it,” she snaps. “Your kid isn’t exactly a martyred innocent, is he? He went out looking for a fight, he found one, he went over in a gang, and they beat a man to death because the man wasn’t white. He has to do some time for that, Alan.”

“I agree,” Alan says. “But not life without parole.”

“Let me think about it.”

“Hours,” Alan says. “Not days.”

When he leaves, Mary Lou stands in the window and looks out at downtown San Diego, a city that will not react well to a reduction of the charges against Corey Blasingame. She’s already heard the refrains in reference to the other three: “Rich white kids get slapped on the wrist.” “If it had been Mexicans or Samoans who did this, they’d be under the jail.” Maybe they’re right, she thinks. And maybe Alan’s right when he implies that we’re making a scapegoat of Corey Blasingame.

But explaining the reduction to the powers will be brutal. She has to tell them something, give them some reason, and the only one she can give is that the confession was bogus, the witness statements hinky, and the investigation botched. Rush to judgment and all that. It’s Harrington and Kodani who’ll take the fall.

She couldn’t give a shit about Harrington, a loose cannon who has it coming, but John Kodani is a good detective, smart, ethical, hardworking. He had a suspect who confessed and he believed the confession, that’s all. Now it could cost him an otherwise brilliant career.

It’s a shame.

Then again, it’s all a shame, isn’t it?

Her intercom buzzes.

“Yes?”

“There’s a George Poptanich to see you?”

103

Dave the Love God climbs down from the tower.

Another uneventful day of watching tourists not drown. And tourists not drowning, as has been amply explained to him by the Chamber of Commerce, is a very good thing. Earlier in the year, a swimmer had been killed by a great white, which is a very bad thing—obviously for the swimmer but also for business, and also explained to the lifeguards by the Chamber.

Short of getting Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss and heading out in a boat, Dave’s not sure what he’s supposed to do about shark attacks, although he did actually foil a great white one time by kicking it in the nose. The fact is that the ocean does have sharks—and riptides and big waves—and people are going to be attacked, just as they’re going to drown; but statistically the most dangerous activity by far that people do in connection with the beach is to drive to it.

Anyway, he decides to grab