roller boards and put it in the office.
“A whore?” Boone asks.
“A geo-whore,” Alan says cheerfully. “Listen, I cut my teeth on all those dirt cases back in the eighties and nineties, and there was a geo-whore on every corner. They knew what opinion you wanted without you having to tell them, and they delivered it. You got to court, it was pretty much a battle between your geo-whore and their geo-whore. You get a whore who gives good testimony, you usually win.”
“Did you know Schering?”
“No,” Burke says. “He’s newer to the game. But I’ll have Petra run a search and grab his testimony transcripts, and that should give us an idea of what his shtick was. So you don’t think Dan Nichols did it?”
“No. Do you?”
“I don’t,” Alan says. “It’s too retro. People don’t kill over adultery anymore, they just divorce. Did you know they had a prenup?”
“Nope.”
“Yup,” Alan says. “So Dan loses a little money and goes out shopping for the next trophy wife. Big deal. She’s done him a favor by leaving on her own before her sell-by date.”
“Cynical.”
“SoCal.” Alan shrugs. “So Boone . . .”
“So Alan.”
“Look,” Alan says, “a good investigator is hard to find, so much as I’d hate to lose one . . . you don’t want to do this the rest of your life. It’s a living, but there’s no upside. So here’s my offer: I’ll finance your way through law school; you have a job in my firm when you pass the exam.”
Whoa.
Speaking of SoCal, in other places offers like this are made on the golf course; here it’s out in the surf, or absence thereof.
“Alan, I don’t know—”
“Don’t answer now,” Alan says. “Think about it. But really
about it, Boone. It would be a big change for you, but change can be a good thing.”
“Sure.”
“Let me know.”
“Okay.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
Alan points. “A wave.”
Boone looks. Sure enough, a ripple about a hundred yards out breaks the otherwise flat surface of the sea. Then it appears as a small ridge, then it builds into an actually rideable wave. Nothing to make the cover of
, to be sure, but definitely a wave.
“It’s yours,” Alan says.
“No, you take it.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“You’re a gentleman.”
Alan starts paddling. Boone watches him catch the wave, then gets up, and feels the wave pass beneath him.
I’m a gentleman, he thinks.
Dave is waiting for him on the beach.
111
“What’s up?” Boone asks.
“I heard.”
From the steely look on Dave’s face, Boone knows what he’s talking about. “You have a problem with it?”
“You don’t?”
“Of course I do,” Boone says. He hesitates, then adds, “Look, weird as this sounds, I think it’s what Kelly would have wanted.”
“What are you
?”
“Anyway, I’m not convinced that Corey did it.”
“Johnny’s pretty convinced,” Dave says. “He took the confession. You’re going to jam him up, B?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t.” Because you don’t fuck a friend. They both know this. You just don’t do it. “How many times has JB stood up for you?”
“A lot.”
“So? That doesn’t mean anything?”
“He’s wrong on this one,” Boone says.
“And you’re right,” Dave says.
“I think I am.”
Dave shakes his head. “Dude, I don’t even know if I know you anymore. Maybe you should just climb into a suit and tie and become one of them.”
“One of them?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do,” Boone says, starting to get mad. “And yeah, maybe I should. Maybe I don’t want to be a surf bum all my life.”
Dave nods. Looks way out toward the water and then back again at Boone. “You go ahead, bro. Us bums will try to get by without you.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Sure you did,” Dave says. “At least stand by your words, leave me with some respect for you. It’s been a ride, B. Late.”
He walks away.
Late, Boone thinks.
112
Winners and losers.
Start with the potential losers, Boone tells himself as he walks over to The Sundowner. Potential losers are more likely to kill out of desperation than potential winners are for profit. People tend to dread their losses more than they hope for their wins.
So list the losers.
Hefley Insurance.
Could be a big loser. What if Schering wasn’t giving them the answer they wanted, or was holding them up for more money? But, as Cheerful says, insurance companies don’t actually, physically kill people . . . do they?
Keep them on the list, but unlikely.
