Don Winslow: Dawn Patrol

Tow Truck Guy shrugs, like, Not so far you ain't good for it. Boone looks like he's going to cry as Tow Truck Guy starts to tighten the chain. You put the hook on the Boonemobile, he thinks, it might not be able to take the strain.

“Stop!”

Petra's voice freezes Tow Truck Guy in his tracks. Then again, Petra's voice could freeze a polar bear in its tracks.

“If,” she pronounces, “you damage this rare vintage automobile by as much as a scratch, I'll keep you in litigation until you are no longer capable of recalling exactly why your personal and professional life is in such a shambles.”

“‘Rare vintage automobile’?” Tow Truck Guy laughs. “It's a piece of shit.”

“In which case, it is a rare vintage piece of shit,” Petra says, “and unless you are in possession of the appropriate seizure orders, I shall have you arrested for grand theft auto.”

“The papers are in my truck.”

“Kindly go fetch them?”

Tow Truck Guy kindly goes and fetches them. He hands them to Petra and stands there nervously while she peruses them.

“They seem to be in order,” she says. She pulls her checkbook out of her purse and asks, “How much is owed?”

Tow Truck Guy shakes his head. “No checks. He writes checks.”

“Mine don't bounce,” Petra says.

“Says you.”

She gives him the full benefit of the withering glare to which Boone has become so quickly accustomed. “Don't get cheeky with me,” she says. “Simply enlighten me as to the required amount and we shall all be on our separate ways.”

Tow Truck Guy is tough. “My boss told me, ‘Don't take a check.’”

Petra sighs. “Credit card?”

“His?”This strikes Tow Truck Guy as pretty funny.

“Mine.”

“I'll have to call it in.”

She hands him her cell phone. Five minutes later, Tow Truck Guy has driven off and the cold sweat of terror has evaporated from Boone's face.

“I must say, I'm shocked,” Petra says.

“That I'm behind in the payments?”

“That you have payments. ”

“Thanks for what you did,” Boone says.

“It's coming out of your fee.”

“I'll write you a receipt,” Boone says as he settles himself into the comforting familiarity of the well-worn driver's seat, the upholstery of which is held together by strips of duct tape. “So you think this is a rare vintage automobile?”

“It's a piece of shit,” Petra says. “Now may we please go and collect Ms. Roddick?”

That would be good, Boone thinks.

“Collecting” Tammy Roddick would be really good.

Epic macking good.

Two minutes later, Boone's still trying to get the engine to turn over while he balances a Styrofoam go-plate on his lap and tries to eat eggs machaca with a plastic fork.

He turns the ignition key again. The engine moans, then grudgingly starts, like a guy with a hangover getting up for work.

Petra sweeps some Rubio's and In-N-Out wrappers off the seat, takes a handkerchief from her purse, wipes the cushion, then delicately sits down as she considers how this might fit into her dry-cleaning schedule.

“Stakeouts,” Boone says.

Petra looks behind her. “This is a hovel on wheels.”

“Hovel” is a little harsh, Boone thinks. He prefers “randomly ordered.”

The van contains North Shore board trunks, a couple of sweatshirts, a dozen or so empty go-cups from various fast-food establishments, a pair of Duck Feet fins, a mask and a snorkel, an assortment of sandals and flip-flops, several plaid wool shirts, a blanket, a lobster pot, a stick of deodorant, several tubes of sunblock, a six-pack of empty beer bottles, a sleeping bag, a tire iron, a sledgehammer, a crowbar, an aluminum baseball bat, a bunch of CDs-Common Sense, Switchfoot, and the Ka'au Crater Boys-numerous empty coffee cups, several containers of board wax, and a torn paperback copy of Crime and Punishment.

“Doubtless you thought it was an S and M novel,” Petra says.

“I read it in college.”

“You went to college?”

“Almost a whole semester.”

Which is a lie.

Boone got his B.S. in criminology from San Diego State, but he lets her think what she wants. He doesn't inform her that when he goes home (which doesn't contain a television set) pleasantly tired from a day of surfing, his idea of bliss is to sit with a cup of coffee and read to the accompaniment of the sound of the surf.

But it's the sort of thing you keep to yourself. You don't trot this out for The Dawn Patrol or anyone else in the greater Southern California surfing community who would consider any overt displays of intellectuality to be a serious social faux pas, not that any of them would admit to knowing the term faux pas, or anything else in French, for that matter. It's all right to know that stuff; you just aren't supposed to talk about it. In fact, having someone find a skanky porn book in the back of your van would be less embarrassing than a volume of Dostoyevsky. Johnny Banzai or Dave the Love God would give him endless shit about it, even though Boone knows that Johnny is at least as well read as he is, and that Dave has an almost encyclopedic and very sophisticated knowledge of early Western films.

But, Boone thinks, let the Brit chick indulge in stereotypes.

Speaking of which “Is this actually your vehicle,” Petra asks, “or the primary residence for an entire family of hygienically challenged amphibians?”

“Leave the Boonemobile alone,” Boone says. “You may be old, rusty, and need Bondo yourself someday.”

Although he doubts it.

“You named your car?” Petra asks.

“Well, Johnny Banzai did,” Boone says, feeling about as adolescent as he sounds.

“Your development isn't just arrested,” Petra says. “It's been arrested, tried, and summarily executed.”

“Get out of here.”

“No, I'm serious.”

“So am I,” Boone says. “Get out.”

She digs in. “I'm coming with you.”

“No, you're not,” Boone says.

“Why not?”

He doesn't have a good answer for this. She is the client, after all, and it's not like finding some wayward stripper is exactly dangerous. The best he can come up with is, “Look, just get out, okay?”

“You can't make me,” Petra says.

Boone has the feeling that she's uttered these words many times, and that she's usually been right. He glares at her.

“I have pepper spray in my bag,” she says.

“You don't need pepper spray, Pete,” says Boone. “Some dude attacks you? Just talk at him for a minute and he'll take him selfout.”

“Perhaps we should take my car,” Petra says.

“Let me ask you something, Pete,” says Boone. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“I don't see how that is-”

“Just answer the question,” Boone says.

“I'm seeing someone, yes.”

“Is he, like, miserable?”

Petra's a little surprised that this remark actually hurts her feelings. Boone sees the little flinch in her eyes and the slight flush of color on her cheeks, and he's as surprised as she is that she's capable of hurt.

He feels a little bad about it.

“I'll try one more time,” he says; “then we'll take your car.”

He cranks the key again and this time the engine starts. It's not happy-it coughs, gags, and sputters-but it starts.

“You should have your mechanic check the gaskets,” Petra says as Boone pulls out onto Garnet Avenue.

“Petra?”

“Yes?”

“ Pleaseshut up.”

“Where are we going?” Petra asks.

“The Triple A cab office.”

“Why?”

“Because Roddick now dances at TNG, and that's the cab service the TNG girls always use,” Boone replies.

“How do you know?”