The Gentlemen's Hour

Shut it down.

What Johnny’s lieutenant told him.

His shift commander listened patiently to Johnny’s rendition of Boone’s Paradise Homes story, nodded vigorously at the salient points, whistled appreciatively when Johnny mentioned some of the names allegedly involved, then told him . . .

Shut it down.

Actually, shut it the fuck down.

“You came in here,” Lieutenant Romero said, “and we talked about baseball. The Pads have no middle relief, I’m glad we agree on that. You left.”

“But—”

“But fucking nothing, Kodani,” Romero said. “You push on that, you know what pushes back? Weight comes from above, my ambitious friend, and do you know who’s between you and the above? That would be me. Shut it the fuck down.”

“Burke will pursue it,” Johnny argued, “even if we don’t. One way or the other.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” the lieutenant said. “Far as I’m concerned, this is one multimillionaire against another. Let them rip each other to shreds and we’ll pick up the pieces. But you don’t, repeat for emphasis, you do not go anywhere near Bill Blasingame. People are going to think you have some kind of hard-on for that family, John.”

So now Johnny is on his way to roust Bill Blasingame.

He finds him at home.

With dirt in his mouth.

134

“We found the bitch.”

Jones sighs. The young gangsters his client provided—what is their collective moniker? the Crazy Boys—are efficient and suitably cold-blooded, but must they always be so vulgar? And vague.

“Which bitch?” he asks into the phone, “given that we are looking for not one, but two, women.”

“The British bitch, no se, Petra.”

“Pick her up,” Jones says. “Bring her to me.”

A woman, he thinks.

And a man.

Conceivably a couple?

The possibilities are tantalizing.

135

Boone feels the water embrace him.

Not scary, not scary at all.

He doesn’t struggle but lets himself sink until he feels the bottom, then uses it to push off. Then he “seals” it, flaps his bound legs back and forth, propelling himself up until he breaks the surface and gets a breath of air.

He kicks gently to keep himself from sinking and listens.

The shore break is behind him.

If anyone could make it to shore blind, with his arms and legs tied, it’s Boone freaking Daniels.

Except . . .

There’s a boat right there where he comes up.

He hears the water hit the hull.

Then he feels a hand grab him by the hair, hold him, and push him back under. But not before he hears the guy say, “Let’s see how long you can hold your breath.”

136

A long time, as it turns out.

A long time, over and over again, as the hand holds Boone down until his lungs are about to explode, then lifts him above the water while Boone gets as much air as he can through his nose, then pushes him down again.

They do several cycles of this before the guy asks, “Where are they?”

Doesn’t wait for an answer before shoving him down again.

When he pulls Boone back up, he asks again, “Where are the records that she gave to you?”

He leans down and rips the tape off Boone’s mouth. “Tell me, and we can stop all this.”

As soon as I do tell, Boone thinks, I’m a dead man, so he shakes his head and opens his mouth to swallow a lungful of air before the guy pushes him down again. Boone struggles and thrashes to shake himself loose of the grip but can’t do it, and then stops, knowing that he’s burning up precious air. So he stays still and tries to relax, knowing that they’ll pull him up before he actually drowns.

They can’t get what they want if I’m dead, he tells himself.

And they don’t know who they’re playing with here.

The Breath-Holding Champion of the Dawn Patrol, that’s who.

We practice for this, asshole. We go to the bottom, pick up heavy rocks, and walk.

I beat Johnny Banzai . . .

High Tide . . .

Dave the Goddamn Love God . . .

Even Sunny Day . . .

Then his body overrules his mind and his feet start jerking like a hanged man’s and they lift him up again. He gasps for air as Jones says, “You’re being very foolish.”

And pushes him down again.

They say that drowning is a peaceful death.

137

They’d tortured him.

Blasingame is duct-taped to a chair by the wrists and ankles. The fingers of his neatly severed hands, laying on the floor, are all broken. So are the bones in his feet.

His dead eyes are wide with horror and pain.

Johnny can’t tell if they’d stuffed the dirt in his mouth before or after planting the two bullets in his forehead, but maybe the ME will be able to establish that.

Two victims shot in the forehead, he thinks. Unusual for a pro, who would usually shoot his marks in the back of the head. But this one was no crime of passion, it was a professional job. So maybe this pro is a sicko—likes to see the look on the victim’s face before he dies.

The dirt is odd, though. He’s seen the severed-hands bit before—a Mexican drug cartel punishment for someone who got greedy and put his hands where they shouldn’t be. They broke his fingers first to get information,