surf. London talked Freeth into coming to California.
Around the same time, Henry Huntington built a pier at his eponymous beach and was trying to promote it, so he hired Freeth to come give surfing demonstrations. He billed Freeth as “The Man Who Can Walk On Water.” Thousands of people went down to the pier to see him do just that. It was a smash, and pretty soon Freeth was going up and down the coast, teaching young guys how to ride a wave.
He was a prophet, a missionary, making the reverse journey from Hawaii.
The Man Who Could Walk On Water.
Hell, Freeth could do anything in or on the water. One day in 1908, a Japanese fishing skiff capsized in heavy surf off Santa Monica Bay. Freeth swam out there, righted the skiff, and, standing up in it, surfed it back to shore, saving the seven Japanese on board. Congress gave him a Medal of Honor.
It was the only gold medal he'd receive, though. He tried to get into the Olympics but couldn't because he had taken Huntington's money to walk on water. Buster Crabbe went, became a movie star, and got rich. Not George Freeth. He was quiet, shy, unassuming. He just did his thing and kept his mouth shut about it.
People in California were really starting to get into the ocean. But there was a problem with that: They were also starting to drown in the ocean. Freeth had some of the answers. He created the crawl stroke, which lifeguards still use; he invented the torpedo-shaped life float that they still use.
Eventually, he migrated down to San Diego and became the swim coach of the San Diego Rowing Club. Then, one day in May of 1918, thirteen swimmers drowned in a single riptide off Ocean Beach. Freeth started the San Diego lifeguard corps.
He lived less than a year after that. In April of 1919, after rescuing another group off Ocean Beach, Freeth got a respiratory infection and died in a flophouse in the Gaslamp District.
Broke.
He had saved seventy-eight people from drowning.
So now Dave's thinking about George Freeth. In his thirties now, Dave is wondering if he's headed for the same fate.
Alone and broke.
It's all good when you're in your twenties-hanging out, picking up tourist chicks, slamming beers at The Sundowner, jerking people out of the soup. The summer days are long and you think you're going to live forever.
Then suddenly you're in your thirties and you realize that you aren't immortal, and you also realize that you have nothing. No money in the bank, no house, no wife, no real girlfriend, no family.
And every day, you're out there rescuing people who have all that.
So that time back at Red Eddie's hilarious housewarming party, Eddie made the offer. A little night work. “Use your skills,” Eddie said, “to make yourself some money, some real money, brah.”
Easy money, easy work. Just drive a Zodiac out there, pick up the product, bring it in. Or go down to Rosarito, bring a boat back up. Where's the harm? What's the bad? Not like it's heroin, or meth, or coke.
“I dunno, Eddie,” Dave said.
“Nothin' to know or not to know,” Eddie replied. “When you're ready, just say the word.”
Just say the word.
Later that same week, he went out into a riptide to pull in a turista who'd let herself get sucked out. The woman, not small, was so hysterical that she damned near pulled Dave under with her. She grabbed on to his neck and wouldn't let go, and he damned near had to knock her out to get her under control and onto the sled.
When he got her back to the beach, all she could say was, “He hit me.”
He watched her and her indignant hubby get into their Mercedes and drive away. No thank you, just “He hit me.”
Dave thought about George Freeth.
Brought surfing to California.
Saved seventy-eight lives.
Died broke at thirty-five.
Dave called Eddie and said the word.
37
There are thousands of Mick Penners.
A stripper's boyfriend who hangs around strip clubs is not exactly a unique profile. He's a definite type, this guy, and you can see him everywhere. He's that weird dude who gets his rocks off watching his girlfriend take her clothes off for a roomful of guys, and he's alternately turned on and repulsed by it. On the one hand, he thinks he's a stud because he has a hot chick that other guys want; on the other hand, he's jealous that other guys want her. So when the girl comes home-and a Mick Penner usually lives with her while she pays the rent-he works out his ambivalence by slapping her around and then taking her to bed.
You can see a Mick Penner hovering in the back of any strip club, keeping an eye on his girl, chatting up the other dancers, bothering the bartender, generally being a pain in the ass. The more benign Mick Penners leave it at that; the worse ones mooch off the girl, taking her tip money as soon as she makes it. The worse ones yet use her to get to other girls. The very worst pimp her out.
The Mick Penners of the world always have something cooking, always have something on the stove, always are running some scam or the other. And it's always the next big thing, financed by the stripper girlfriend until the ship comes in. A real estate investment, a start-up tech company waiting for the bust-out IPO, a screenplay that Spielberg's people have expressed interest in, a Web site. It's always going to bring in a million bucks and it never does. Something always happens somewhere along the way to the big payoff, but no worries-by that time, a Mick Penner is on to the next big thing.
“How do we find this Mick Penner?” Petra asks.
“You're in luck,” Boone says. “I know the dude.”
“You do?”
“Yup,” Boone says.
On the way to the Hotel Milano, he tells her how he knows Mick Penner.
38
Mick Penner parks cars.
This is how Boone knows him. If you're a private investigator in a resort town like San Diego, you know the parking valets at the major hotels and restaurants. If you're a more financially successful private investigator than Boone Daniels, you go around at Christmastime handing out twenty-dollar bills to the parking valets at the major hotels and restaurants.
Not that Boone hasn't handed out a few bills in his day. He has, lots of times, and more than once to Mick Penner, who is a daytime valet at the Hotel Milano in La Jolla.
You do this because nobody in California goes anywhere except in their cars. You want to track somebody in Cali, you track their vehicle, and vehicles have to park somewhere. And when they park at a hotel, you have a good idea about what they're doing there.
You want to know who's having lunch with whom, who's laying out big bucks for a dinner party to make a deal, who's banging somebody they shouldn't be, you stroke the parking valet. You want to stake out someone at a hotel and you don't want to be seen, you lay off a couple of blocks and let the valet call you when the person rings for his car. You need video of a husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend getting in or out of a car in a hotel parking lot, you pay one of the valets to let you park in there. You're looking for some high-rolling scam artist, you want a parking valet to give you a jingle when your guy checks into his hotel.
Parking valets, concierges, desk clerks, room-service waiters-their base salaries are just that, a base; the
