Twenty large, growing every day.
So Tammy and Angela ramped it up. They worked extra shifts. They used every trick they knew to manipulate men into taking them into the VIP Room. Once inside, they turned on all their charms to make the men fork over big tips.
Every dance, every slide down the pole, every lap they ground themselves on went into the purchase price for Luce.
It wasn't enough.
Teddy gave them the rest of the money.
Tammy went to Danny and bought Luce.
Cash on the barrel.
It was good, it was done, and then “The lawyers came knocking,” Boone says.
Teddy nods.
Danny went ballistic; he was terrified about what might come out in court, never mind just the arson suit; he made all kinds of threats. He told Tammy she could forget about Luce. The women decided to run and take the girl with them. They left their apartments and checked into the Crest Motel, intending to get a train out of town the next morning.
They never made it.
Luce had an sick stomach-she was upset and nervous. The vending machine at the motel was broken, so Tammy walked down to a convenience store to get a soda to try to settle Luce's stomach.
When she got back, Angela was dead and Luce was gone.
Tammy panicked. She was afraid to go to her place, so she went to Angela's, got scared there, too, and called Teddy. He picked her up and took her to Shrink's, then volunteered to go and try to find Luce.
Which he did.
The girl had gone back to the only familiar place she could find.
The strawberry fields.
Where Boone found them.
The rest of the story he knows.
Boone saved Tammy from Dan at the beach below Shrink's and then took her home. He made his deal with Red Eddie that she wouldn't be touched. But Dan figured out something that was worth more to her than her own life, worth more than revenge or even justice for Angela's killing.
Luce.
122
“Do you have her now?” Boone asks.
Thinking, you're a total fucking idiot, Daniels. You read both these people so wrong, it's pathetic. You're not looking at a dumb, dishonest stripper and a pervert plastic surgeon. You're looking at two heroes. And the late Angela Hart was a third.
Tammy drops her face into her hands and starts to cry.
Teddy says, “No, they said if everything went well, they'd call late tonight or early tomorrow morning and turn Luce over to us. The deal is that Tammy takes Luce and never comes back.”
Dan gets away with having Angela killed, but what's more important? Justice, or a girl's life? If we could talk to Angela, she'd tell us to make that trade. We can't save them all-hell, we can't save most of them. But we can save one. One girl gets a life.
What's the life of one little girl worth? Boone asks himself.
Alot.
Everything.
“I can call John Kodani,” Boone says. “He'll understand. He'll-”
“No cops,” Tammy says through splayed fingers.
“Silver said that if he as much as smells the police,” Teddy says, “he'll kill Luce.”
He'll kill the three of you anyway, Boone thinks. A man that evil won't keep his word, not to you, not even to Red Eddie. A man who sinks that far into darkness fears nothing, no one, not even God or eternity.
Tammy lifts her head and looks right at Boone. Her emerald eyes are wet with tears, swollen, and rimmed with red. She's been crying a lot since Boone last saw her. What I've seen. “I'm begging you,” she says. “I'm begging you. Leave it alone. Let the girl have a shot at a life.”
“He's going to kill you.”
“I'll take the chance,” Tammy says.
Boone says, “I'll go with you.”
“No,” Tammy says. “He said just me. Not even Teddy.”
“He's setting you up, Tammy.”
She shrugs. Then says, “Promise me.”
“Promise you what?” Boone asks.
“Promise me you won't call the police,” she says. “Promise me you won't interfere.”
“Okay.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
Boone starts to leave. He stops at the door, looks back, and says, “I'm sorry. For what I thought about you both. I was wrong and I'm sorry.”
Teddy lifts the martini glass and smiles.
Tammy nods.
Boone looks back through the window at them as he walks to the car. Teddy stands behind the chair with his hands on Tammy's shoulders. They look like worried parents in a hospital waiting room.
Below the house, the ocean smashes against the bluffs in a fit of rage.
123
Dave hears the breakers from about two hundred yards away.
He can't see them in the dark, but the sound is unmistakable.
Rhythmic, steady.
Real bombs.
“Esteban!” he yells. “Tell these kids to hold on!”
What was it Boone always said, Dave thinks, that I could surf these waters blindfolded? Well, I hope he was right. You feel surfing more than you see it, but that's on a board, not a glorified rubber raft overloaded with helpless kids.
Doesn't matter, he tells himself.
That's what you have to do.
Surf this boat in.
He guns the engine to get as much speed as he can and prays that it's going to be enough. The last thing he wants to do is get into one of the mackers late, because he'd go over the top for sure and flip the boat. And he has to keep the boat straight, its bow perpendicular to the wave, because if he gets it even a little sideways, it will roll.
So he has to get into the wave right, angle the boat into the left break, and keep it moving when it crashes on the bottom or it will get swamped in the white water.
He feels the wave swelling under the boat, picking it up, and pushing it forward.
It's just another fucking wave, he tells himself. Nothing to it.
