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The room is big and perched on a bluff overlooking the ocean.
Spotlights illuminate the beach and the breakers.
A foot trail runs from the compound down to the beach, and John sees a quiver of long-boards leaning against the wall of the deck.
Doc wears a Hawaiian shirt over an old pair of khaki shorts and huaraches. A ball cap even though it’s night.
He’s vain, John thinks, covering up the receding hairline.
“How’s life?” John asks.
“Life is the same,” Doc says. “Luxurious exile. I surf, I fish, I grill the fish, I watch shitty Mexican TV, I go to bed. I get up at least once in the night to piss. I’m not going to ask how life is with you.”
“Things have gotten a little out of hand.”
“No shit?” Doc asks.
Doc has a deep tan that looks darker against his snow-white hair. It hangs down to his shoulders, but it’s still white. Deep lines in his face, deep lines under his eyes from squinting into the sun. He looks like an old surf bum.
“I’ve got enough fucking agita down here right now,” Doc says. “This whole thing with the cartel.”
“I still think siding with the Berrajanos was a mistake.”
“They’re going to win,” Doc says, “and I have to live down here, whoever’s on the fucking throne. You want a soda? I got Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke.”
“I’m good.”
“When did people start saying that?” Doc asks, going to the refrigerator and taking out a Diet Coke.” ‘I’m good,’ instead of ‘No, thanks.’”
John doesn’t know. He doesn’t care.
Doc pops open the can and takes a long drink. Then he sits down on the couch and says, “We had us some times, didn’t we, Johnny?”
“Yeah, we did, Doc.”
“Those were some days,” Doc says, shaking his head, smiling. “ Good times. Your kid, what do they call him…”
Chon.
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“‘John’ wasn’t good enough for him?” Doc asks.
“You remember the sixties?” John asks. “Everybody was ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Moonbeam.’”
“This ain’t the sixties,” Doc snaps. “It’s two-thousand-and-fucking-five, and whatever the hell your kid’s name is, he’s a problem. Let me tell you something-I’m spending my last years sipping a drink on the beach and watching the sun go down, not in some cell in Pelican Bay.”
“I told him to back off.”
“He killed two of our guys tonight,” Doc says. “That sound like backing off?”
“He saved us the trouble.”
“They were still our guys,” Doc says. “We can’t let people think it’s okay to do that.”
He finishes his soda, crumples up the can in his big hand, and tosses it into a little blue plastic wastebasket with the recycling logo on it. “You know what has to happen here.”
“We’re talking about my kid, Doc.”
“Why I wanted to talk with you,” Doc says. “Get a sense of, you know, where you are with this.”
“What do you want, my permission?”
“I don’t need your permission, Johnny,” Doc says, fixing him with a stare. “It’s going to happen. The only question is whether it happens to just him and his buddy, or to you, too.”
John just looks at him.
“We’re not asking you to pull the trigger,” Doc says.
John stares at him for a few seconds, then he gets up. “I’m not even that sure he’s my kid.”
He walks out the door.
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Of all the corkers God pulled off in the Old Testament, the real howler was Abraham and Isaac.
Had the angels rolling on the floor
Moaning
Stop. My ribs. Stop.
283
John opens the passenger door and says, “Someone wants to talk to you, see if we can work something out.”
He takes Chon into the house.
Boland goes in with them.
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To Chon, Doc Halliday looks like any middle-aged geezer hanging around the beach hoping against hope to pick up a young chick.
“I thought you were dead,” Chon says.
Doc grins, looks at John, says, “He’s so much your fucking kid.”
John nods.
“I want my friend left alone,” Chon says. “He can’t hurt you.”
Doc walks up close to Chon. Looks for a long time into his eyes and then says
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INT. DOC’S MEXICAN HOUSE — NIGHT
DOC
Look, kid, I brought you down here to try to talk some sense into you because I love your father. When he hurts, I hurt, do you understand that?
Chon doesn’t answer.
DOC (CONT’D)
