Don Winslow: The Kings Of Cool

“That’s John,” she says.

“I have to go.”

His name was Halliday, Paqu says, and they called him “Doc.”

And when he found out I was pregnant with you he put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and ruined the interior of a very expensive car.

I don’t know if my pregnancy was the… causal factor… but there you are.

Happy now?

O runs out of the house.

Ben drives down the canyon and hits Chon’s number.

There’s no answer.

Where the fuck are you? Ben thinks.

Chon was following the line up from Crowe and Hennessy. If he’s succeeded, the line leads to his own father.

Ben can’t let him do it.

He lets the phone ring and ring.

Chon doesn’t answer.

Don Winslow

The Kings Of Cool

Chon’s gassed out.

Blood flows freely down his leg as he lumbers up the hill to John’s house.

He stops down the street to catch his breath and recon the scene.

There’s a car parked in the driveway, and he can make out three men inside-two in front, one in the back.

Chon takes three long breaths, drops to his stomach, and crawls across the neighbor’s yard to the back. Then he climbs the fence into John’s yard, tears another strip off his shirt, wraps it around his hand, and punches the bathroom window.

He reaches in, unlocks the window, slides it open, and climbs in.

Walks from the bathroom into the living room.

John is standing there.

Old denim shirt, jeans.

“Surprised to see me?” Chon asks.

“I thought you were in Iraq. Someplace like that.” John turns and walks into the step-down living room, walks behind the bar, and starts to make himself a drink. “You want something?”

Chon doesn’t.

“A joint?” John asks. “You want to smoke up?”

“Keep your hands above the bar.”

“You don’t trust your old man?”

“No,” Chon says. “You taught me that, remember? ‘Never trust anybody’?”

“And I was right.”

John takes a sip of his drink and sits heavily on the sofa. First time Chon notices that he has a gut.

“Sit down.”

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” He leans back into the cushions. “Who gave me up? Crowe?”

He looks almost amused.

“Crowe and Hennessy are both dead.”

“You did us a favor,” John says. “They had to go, anyway.”

“I thought you were out of the business.”

“And I didn’t know you were in it,” John says. He holds a hand up. “Swear to God, son. But I guess the apple don’t fall far from the tree, huh? Though I guess you’re some kind of war hero? Is that true?”

“No.”

John shrugs. “So what brings you here?”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to come here.”

“But here you are.”

Ben goes to Chon’s apartment.

He’s not there.

Ben drives the streets-the PCH, the Canyon, Bluebird, Glenneyre, Brooks-Chon is nowhere to be seen.

Of course he is, Ben thinks.

When Chon doesn’t want to be found, he’s not going to be found.

Ben hits his number again and again.

INT. JOHN’S HOUSE — NIGHT

SOUND OF CHON’S PHONE RINGING.

He doesn’t answer it.

CHON

I’ve never asked you for anything.

JOHN

But you’re going to now. What do you want?

CHON

A pass for Ben Leonard.

John shakes his head.

JOHN

Walk away from him.

CHON

I’m not that guy.

John laughs.

JOHN

You going to tell me who you are and who you’re not? I know who you are.

CHON

You don’t know a fucking thing about me.

JOHN

Your mother wanted to flush you down a sink. I know that.

CHON

Yeah, she told me.

JOHN

She would. (Beat) I wouldn’t let her do it. I dunno, I was feeling sentimental, I guess.

CHON

I’m supposed to, what, thank you?

JOHN

You’re the one asking for the favor.

CHON

You going to do it, or not?

JOHN

The fuck you owe this Leonard guy, anyway?

CHON

He’s family.

John takes this in-seems to hear the truth of it. He doesn’t have an answer.

CHON (CONT’D)

This isn’t about me and Ben-it’s about me and you. I’m asking you for something. You want to give it to me, great. You don’t…

JOHN

What?

CHON

We go a different route.

JOHN

I can’t do what you’re asking me to do. I don’t mean I “won’t,” I mean I can’t. I can do this for you-I can tell you walk away. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I wish I’d walked away twenty years ago. You still can.

CHON

You go after Ben, you have to come through me.

JOHN

Then we have a problem, kid.

John reaches under the sofa cushion and pulls out a pistol and points it at Chon.

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Chon says.

“You never were.”

“I can rip that gun out of your hand and shove it down your throat before you can blink.”

“Yeah, I forgot, you’re Superman,” John says. “You’re a cold enough little prick to kill your own father, I’ll give you that, but you think I’m the top of this thing? You think this is as high as it goes?”

Chon’s tiring. The world starts to dance a little in his eyes.

“Anything happens to me,” John says, “the order is already out. Your buddy Ben is dead.”

Leveling the pistol at Chon, he gets up. “Outside. We’re going someplace.”

He moves Chon out the door.

The gunmen come up from Mexico, but they aren’t Mexican.

Schneider and Perez are as American as apple pie, trained veterans of their country’s wars, underemployed and so working for the Berrajanos.

Now they’re on loan-out to John McAlister back at home.

Walking up the beach, hoodies over their heads, they look like druids in the mist.

They’ve come for Ben.

They get in the backseat with one of the gunmen.

He looks to Chon like a refrigerator.

Or a cop.

And he says to Chon, “I don’t care whose fucking kid you are. You try anything, I’ll put two in your head.”

“Easy, Boland,” John says.

“Just so he knows,” Boland says.

“Where are we going?” Chon asks. “A ball game? Chuck E. Cheese?”

“Mexico,” John answers.

Mexico, Chon thinks.

Because you can only dump so many bodies in South Orange County before the cops really get fed up and come after you.

The OC is very strict on littering.

Mexico?

Not so much.

Ben’s doorbell rings.

Please let it be Chon, he thinks.

He goes to the door.

Lado is walking across the gravel parking lot to his car when Magda steps out of the shadows and grabs his elbow.

“Lado,” she says, “do something for me, please?”

It’s O.

Standing in the rain.

Her hair wet, water running down her neck.

Tears in her blue eyes.

“Can I-”

“Come in,” Ben says.

“I don’t have anyplace,” O says.

“It’s okay.”

“I don’t have anyplace to go.”

“It’s all right,” Ben says. “You can be here.”

He pulls her into his arms and holds her.

They come to the border.

(Yeah, well, everyone does, sooner or later.)