Tide would come home from practice to stacks of letters from colleges, but he was interested only in San Diego State. He wasn't going to go far from home-to some cold state without an ocean to surf in. And he wasn't going far from aiga, from family, because for a Samoan, family is everything.
So Tide started for four years at State. When he wasn't slaughtering I-Backs, he was out surfing with his new friends: Boone Daniels, Johnny Banzai, Dave the Love God, and Sunny Day. He gave up the gang banging-it was just old, tired, dead-end shit. He'd still go have a beer with the boys sometimes, but that was about it. He was too busy playing ball and riding waves, and became sort of a matai emeritus in the gang- highly respected, listened to and obeyed, but above it all.
He went early third round in the NFL draft.
Played one promising season, second string for the Steelers, until he got locked up with a Bengals center and the pulling guard came around and low-jacked him.
Tide heard the knee pop.
Sounded like a gunshot.
He came home to O'side depressed as hell, his life over. Sat around his parents' house on Arthur Avenue, indulging himself in beer, weed, and self-pity, until Boone swung by and basically told him to knock that shit off. Boone practically dragged him back down to the beach and pushed him out into the break.
First ride in, he decided he was going to live.
Used his SDSU glory days to get a gig with the city. Found himself a Samoan woman, got married, had three kids.
Life is good.
Now he explains to Boone some of the intricacies of Oceania business protocol.
“That's why Eddie only deals with the ohana, bro,” Tide says. “He knows if he goes to a haole family with a debt, they say, ‘What's it got to do with us?’ Family's a different concept on this side of the pond, Boone.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Yes, it is.”
Boone eyes Sunny, who's very deliberately not eyeing him back.
“What's her problem?” he asks Tide.
Tide has heard all about the British betty from Dave. He slides off his stool, shoves the last bite of the sandwich into his mouth, and pats Boone on the shoulder. “I got work to do. For a smart man, Boone, you're a fucking idiot. You need any more anthropological insights, give me a ring.”
He pulls his brown wool beanie onto his head, slips on his gloves, and goes out the door.
Boone looks at Sunny. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What's up?”
“Not much,” Sunny says, not looking at him. “What's up with you?”
“Come on, Sunny.”
She walks over to him. “Okay, are you sleeping with her?”
“Who?”
“Bye, Boone.” She turns away.
“No, she's a client, that's all.”
“All of a sudden you know who I'm talking about,” Sunny says, turning toward him again.
“I guess it's obvious.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“She's a client,” Boone repeats. Then he starts getting a little pissed that he has to explain. “And, by the way, what's it to you? It's not like we're…”
“No, it's not like we're anything,” Sunny says.
“You see other guys,” Boone says.
“You bet I do,” Sunny shot back. And she has, but nobody even close to serious since she and Boone split up.
“So?”
“So nothing,” Sunny says. “I just think that, as friends, we should be honest with each other.”
“I'm being honest.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She walks away and goes back to wiping glasses.
Boone doesn't finish his coffee.
27
Dan Silver and Red Eddie are also having an unhappy conversation.
“What did you do, Danny?” Eddie asks.
“Nothing.”
“Killing a woman is ‘nothing’?”
Well, apparently.
Danny drops his head, which is a mistake because Eddie shoots a wicked slap across his cheek. “Did you think I wouldn't find out? I have to hear this from Boone when I go to him with an ask for you? You let me do that, not tell me you went ahead like some kind of cowboy you dress up like?”
“She was going to talk, Eddie.” Dan can still feel the burn on his cheek, and for a nanosecond he considers doing something about it-he's about twice Eddie's size and could toss him against the wall like a Ping-Pong ball- then decides against it because Eddie's hui boys linger on the edge of the conversation like sharks.
“That's why you were going to take her out of town, wasn't it?” Eddie asks. “Nobody ever said nothin' 'bout killing nobody.”
“Things got a little out of hand,” Dan says.
Eddie looks at him incredulously. “They hook her to you, they hook you to me, I'm gonna cut you loose like tangled fish line, Danny boy.”
Dan's getting a little tired of Eddie's superior shit. So the tattooed little freak went to Harvard, so fucking what? There's a lot of things you can't learn at Harvard. So he decides to educate Eddie a little. “A stripper takes a walk off a motel balcony. How long you think that's going to occupy the cops? An hour? Hour and a half? Nobody gives a crap, Eddie.”
“Daniels does.”
“Is he going to back off?”
“Probably not,” Eddie says. “Backing off ain't Boone's best thing.”
Dan shrugs. “Daniels is a low-rent surf bum who couldn't cut it with the real cops. He's fine for a skip trace or throwing a drunk out of The Sundowner, but he's in over his head here. I wouldn't worry about it, I were you.”
“Well, you ain't me,” Eddie says. “You're you, and you better fucking worry about it. Let me tell you something about that surf bum-”
Dan's cell phone rings.
“What?”
He listens. It's a cop from downtown, a sergeant who drinks free at Silver Dan's and gets a lap dance comped every once in a while. He wants to let Dan know that one of his girls has been positively ID'd, DOA from a jump at a Pacific Beach motel.
Her name is Angela Hart.
Dan thanks the guy and clicks off.
“What was that?” Eddie asks.
“Nothing.”
But it's a big freaking nothing. Dan's head is whirling, his stomach doing trampoline routines.
Tweety killed the wrong piece of ass.
