The Gentlemen's Hour by Don Winslow Page A

oldest friends to save garbage like Corey Blasingame.
    And classic Johnny to catch the biggest case in San Dog and not mention it. Then again, JB usually keeps his cards pretty close to his chest where his cases are concerned, especially after Boone left the police force. They can talk shit out on the lineup, but there’s a lot of shit they can’t talk anymore.
    The Deuce is a used Dodge van, the replacement for the legendary Boonemobile, which went out in a Viking funeral last April.
    â€œThis is your chance, you know,” Petra had pointed out to him, “to own a real, grown-up sort of car.”
    Not really—the insurance payment on the Boonemobile had been exactly zero, Boone having been honest about the fact that he set the van on fire himself and also pushed it off the edge of a cliff. So there wasn’t a lot of cash to go out and buy “a real, grown-up sort of car,” not that Boone wanted one. He wanted, and bought, another old van that he could fit his stuff in. A vehicle that cannot carry a surfboard is a sculpture.
    â€œThen,” Petra said, graciously yielding to the inevitable, “this is your chance to own a vehicle that does not have a sophomoric name.”
    â€œI didn’t name the Boonemobile,” Boone said a little defensively. “Other people did.”
    The other people—Dave, Tide, Hang, Johnny, and most of the Greater San Diego surfing community—inevitably called the “new” van Boonemobile II, after its iconic predecessor. The really annoying thing for Petra was that the replacement van acquired not one, but two monikers, because Boonemobile II was too long; so the nickname got a nickname of its own: “Deuce.”
    â€œYou know,” Johnny said, “guys who are ‘the third’ get tagged ‘Trey.’ Let’s call Boone’s second van ‘Deuce.’ ”
    So Deuce it was.
    She’s waiting in the parking lot when he gets there.
    â€œYour boy is driftwood,” Boone says.
    Washed up on the beach.
    â€œI can’t allow myself to think that way,” Petra answers.
    â€œHow are you going to get around the confession?” Boone asks. Some waves you don’t get around, over, or under. They just crush you. Out.
    Petra shrugs. “Confusion? Coercion? A cop putting ideas into his head? That sort of thing does happen.”
    â€œNot with John Kodani,” Boone says.
    JB will definitely play hardball and he doesn’t always throw straight down the middle. No, Johnny hurls some filthy junk—curveball, slider, even the occasional knuckleball—but he’s always going to catch the edge of the plate. Banzai wouldn’t just rear back and throw a spitter at someone’s head—convince some stupid kid that he did something he didn’t.
    â€œThe first thing we have to do,” she says, ignoring the five-hundred-pound gorilla, “is to demonstrate that the Rockpile Crew isn’t a ‘gang.’ The ‘special circumstances’ on the first-degree charge hinge on the allegation of gang activity.”
    â€œThe Rockpile Crew is a gang,” Boone says.
    â€œMere association and group self-identification do not meet the legal threshold required of a ‘gang,’ ” she answers. “For instance, is the Dawn Patrol a gang?”
    â€œSort of.”
    â€œThe ‘gang’ has to exist for the furtherance of criminal activity,” she says. “I don’t think that the Dawn Patrol engages in organized criminal activity.”
    Clearly, Boone thinks, she’s never seen the Dawn Patrol hit a lunch buffet. Okay, the ‘organized’ thing is a stretch.
    â€œLike murder?” he asks.
    â€œOnly,” she insists, “if the murder is a direct consequence of, and/or in furtherance of, the stated criminal activity. It can’t be merely coincidental.”
    Boone wonders how Kelly’s loved ones might feel about his