“I thought you’d be happier,” Cheerful says.
“The surf sucks,” Boone says, “and I have some bad news for a friend.”
“The Nichols thing?”
Boone nods.
“She cheating on him?”
“Yup.”
“But that’s not all that’s bugging you,” Cheerful says.
“Nope.”
“Spill.”
“I think I got it wrong on the Blasingame case.”
He walks Cheerful through it, then the old man says, “So maybe you were a little blinded by your anger. It happens. But you have to remember that the kid confessed in the station, he confessed to you, and you still have another objective eyewitness.”
George Poptanich, Boone thinks.
The cabdriver.
There’s something about him skitting around the edge of Boone’s consciousness. He yells down to Hang, “Yo! Is the
still down there?”
“The what?!”
“Never mind,” Boone says. “You got a minute to do some work for me?”
“Dude.”
“Run a criminal check on a George Poptanich?” He spells the name and hears Hang slapping the keyboard even before he finishes.
The phone rings. It’s Dan Nichols.
“Dan, maybe it would be better to talk about this in person,” Boone says.
Pause.
“No,” Boone says.
Dan says.
“Sounds good.”
As good as that conversation can be, which is, like,
Hang comes bounding up the stairs. “Dude.”
“Dude.”
“Yabba-dabba-doo!” He hands Boone a printout.
Georgie has a sheet.
69
George Poptanich lives in PB.
Boone rings the doorbell of his little bungalow. They must have built a thousand of these places on the PB flats back during World War II to house the aircraft workers. They mostly look alike—the living rooms are in the front, the kitchens in back on the left, two bedrooms in back on the other side. They have small front yards and a small rectangular yard in the back.
George looks like the doorbell woke him up—his gray hair is tousled, he’s wearing a wife-beater, plaid Bermuda shorts, and sandals. He’s in his midfifties—fifty-three, Boone knows from his sheet—heavy, sloped shoulders, and a potbelly.
He looks real happy to see Boone.
“Georgie Pop,” Boone says. “Do you remember me?”
“No. Should I?”
“About five years ago,” Boone says. “I arrested you.”
“That don’t exactly make you special,” Georgie says, that tired look in his eyes that comes from a life of being hassled by cops.
“You going to invite me in,” Boone asks, “or should we do this on the street in front of the neighbors?”
Georgie lets him in.
The place is a dump, which is too bad, Boone thinks, because the other people in this neighborhood took pride in keeping their places up. Georgie points to an old sofa, disappears into the kitchen, and comes out with a bottle of beer.
One bottle of beer.
He plops down in an easy chair and asks, “Who are you and what do you want? You don’t look like a cop.”
“I used to be.”
“We all used to be something.”
“True that,” Boone says. He identifies himself and tells Poptanich that he’s working on the Corey Blasingame case. “I read your statement.”
“So?”
Georgie’s sheet is for B&E. He did two stretches, walked on two other charges. It’s not uncommon for burglars to moonlight as cabdrivers. What they really love are bookings to the airport. Chat with the fare: “So where are you off to?” “Long trip?” “Give me a call when you get back—I’ll pick you up.” Sometimes the fare comes back to a house that has been denuded of stereo equipment, televisions, cash, and jewelry. Or they pick up a drunk from a bar—drunks are notoriously chatty, they’ll tell you anything. Who they live with, where they work, what their hours are, all the great stuff they own . . .
“So,” Boone says, “what do you want to bet that you don’t have a cab license?”
Because a two-time felon isn’t going to get one. The idea is to put them in the hole for a while, let them out, and then make sure they can’t make honest livings.
“I gotta make a living,” Georgie says. “So I moonlight for a buddy. He keeps his cab busy, I make a buck. You wanna bust my balls for that, go ahead.”
No, Boone thinks, but I’ll bet Steve Harrington did. I’ll bet he took one look at Poptanich, one look at the photo on the taxi license, and knew that he had a live one. A major fine at least, and the buddy loses his card and his living.
Harrington has a memory like a beefed-up Mac. He probably made Poptanich right away. And maybe . . .
“Steve Harrington looking at you for a job?”
“Harrington don’t do B&E.”
“No shit,” Boone says. “But he talks to the guys who do. Maybe he mentions to them that he found Georgie Pop out on the prowl again so they might want to come around and ask you your whereabouts on certain nights, or take a look at cab bookings, unless—”
“You fuckin’ guys are all the same,” Georgie says. “Always twisting the arm.”
“Yeah, boo-hoo, Georgie.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“I dunno, the truth?”
“Already told it.”
There’s that look in his eye that Boone’s seen a thousand times from skells. That little glint of feral cunning that they just can’t help from flashing when they think they’ve done something cute.
