Don Winslow - Dawn Patrol

“I'm not supposed to do that,” the dispatcher says. “Unless you're the police.”

“Bro,” Boone says, pointing out the window, “I ain't nailing that again until I get that watch back. I mean, check her out.”

The dispatcher does. “She's hot.”

“She's filthy. ”

“You shouldn't have gone with that other girl,” the dispatcher says, looking indignantly outraged for the pretty girl in the van.

“I was hammered,” Boone says. “But you are right, brother. So you think you can toss a drowning man a rope here? See if you sent a cab to 533 Del Vista Mar, chick named Tammy? Where you took her? I'll do a solid for you sometime.”

“Like what?”

Nice to see that the Ethiopians have adapted to the American way of life, Boone thinks. MTV, fast food, capitalism. Cash on the barrelhead. He takes his wallet out of his pants and holds out a twenty. “It's all I have, bro.”

Which is pretty much the truth.

The dispatcher takes the twenty, goes into his log, and comes back with “You say her name was Tammy?”

“Yeah, Gilooley… Gilbert…”

“Roddick?”

“That's it,” Boone says.

“One of our drivers took her to the Crest Motel.”

Well, I'll be damned, Boone thinks. He says, “Right here in PB.”

“Five o'clock this morning.”

A stripper on the move at five a.m.? Boone thinks. Strippers aren't up at five, unless they're still up at five. He says, “Hey, thanks, brah.”

“Your girlfriend…”

“Yeah?”

“She's beautiful.”

Boone looks out the window to where the dispatcher is staring. Petra's sitting erect in the seat, looking into the mirror as she carefully applies fresh lipstick.

Yeah, Boone thinks, she is.

He walks back to the van and gets in.

“Six minutes and thirty-eight seconds,” she says, consulting the watch.

“What?”

“You wanted me to time you,” she says. “It took rather longer than I would have expected from a professional of your reputation.”

“Tammy went to the Crest Motel,” Boone says, “right here in Pacific Beach. You owe me twenty bucks.”

“I'll need a receipt.”

“You want a bribe receipt?”

She considers this. “Just get me any kind of receipt, Boone.”

“Cool.” In fact, it's the first cool thing he's heard her say. “Let's go pick up your witness.”

Then I can shed you, Boone thinks, get my big-wave gear rigged out, and be in the water in plenty of time for the big swell.

The first thing he sees when he pulls the van into the Crest parking lot is an alarming band of yellow caution tape.

Police tape.

With police behind it.

Including Johnny Banzai of the SDPD Homicide Squad.

This can't be good, Boone thinks.

That's what Johnny Banzai thinks, too.

When he sees Boone.

Normally, Johnny likes to see Boone. Normally, most people do. But not here, not now. Not when there's a dead woman who dived off a third-floor balcony and missed, her body now sprawled a scant two feet from the swimming pool, her red hair splayed on her outstretched arm, her blood forming a shallow, inadequate pool of its own.

A tiny angel is tattooed on her left wrist.

Behind the pool are the four floors of the Crest Motel, built in two angular wings, one of a dozen ugly, indistinct hotels thrown up in the early eighties, catering to budget-minded tourists, economy-priced hookers, and anonymity-seeking adulterers. Each room has a tiny “balcony” overlooking the “pool complex,” with its small rectangular swimming pool and requisite Jacuzzi, which Johnny thinks of as basically a swirling, bubbling mass of potential herpes infections.

Now he ducks under the tape and steps into Boone's way. “Get out of here before the lieutenant sees you,” Johnny says.

Boone looks over his shoulder at the body. “Who is she?”

“What are you doing here anyway?”

“Matrimonial.”

Johnny sees the woman in Boone's van. “With the wife in tow?”

“Some people have to see for themselves,” Boone says. He juts his chin at the crime scene, where the ME is squatting by the body, doing his voodoo. Lieutenant Harrington squats beside him, his back to Boone. “Who's the jumper?”

In his gut he already knows the answer, but being an optimist, he hopes his gut is wrong.

“One Tammy Roddick,” Johnny says.

Gut one, optimism zero, Boone thinks.

“She checked in early this morning,” Johnny says. “Checked out a little while later.”

“You calling it a suicide.”

“I'm not calling it anything,” Johnny says, “until we get the blood work back.”

Sure, Boone thinks, to see what drugs are running through her system. Happens all the time in a party town like San Diego-a girl starts thinking the drugs are Peter Pan and she's Wendy, and Neverland starts looking not only good but reachable. The problem is… well, one of the problems is that the second she jumps she already knows it's a mistake, and she has those long seconds to regret her impulse and know she can't take it back.

Gravity being gravity.

Every surfer knows the sensation.

That big wave you get in, and get in wrong, but then it's too late and you're just up there knowing you're about to go down and there's nothing you can do about it but take the fall. And you just have to hope that the water's deep enough to slow you down before you hit the bottom.

Like maybe Tammy was hoping she'd make it to the pool.

“Now get out of here before Harrington scopes you,” Johnny is saying.

Too late.

Harrington straightens up, turns around to look for Johnny Banzai, and sees him talking to Boone Daniels.

A cat and a dog, a Hatfield and a McCoy, Steve Harrington and Boone Daniels. Harrington comes across the tape, looks at Boone, and says, “If you're looking for cans and bottles, sorry, the trash guys already came.”

Harrington's got a face like barbed wire-his bones are so sharp, you think you could cut yourself on them. Even his blond hair is sharp, cut short and gelled wiry, and his mouth looks like it was slashed with a knife between his thin lips. He wears a gray herringbone jacket, a white shirt with a brown tie, black trousers, and highly shined black shoes.

Harrington is hard-core.

Always has been.

“What are you doing at my scene, surf bum?” Harrington asks him. “I thought you'd be too busy getting little girls killed.”

Boone goes for him.

Johnny Banzai grabs Boone.

“Let him go,” Harrington tells him. “Please, John, do me a favor, let him go.”

“Do me a favor,” Johnny says to Boone. “Back-paddle.”

Boone backs off.

“Good choice,” Harrington says, then adds, “Pussy.”

Boone's head clears enough for him to see Petra breezing past all of them, striding right toward the scene.

“Hey!” Harrington yells, but it's too late. Petra is standing over the body. Boone sees her look down, then straighten up and walk real fast back to the van. She lays both hands on the car as if she's being frisked. Her head is down.

Boone walks over to her. “Go ahead and throw up,” he says. “Everyone does, the first time.”

She shakes her head.

“Go on,” he says. “You can be human; it's all right.”

But she shakes her head again and says something, although he can't quite make it out.

“What?” he asks.

She speaks a little louder.

“That's not Tammy Roddick,” she says.

Boone hustles Petra into the van.

The thing starts up first try and he drives for two blocks before he pulls over and asks, “What?”

“That's not Tammy Roddick,” Petra repeats.

“Are you sure?”