Free The Gentlemen's Hour by Don Winslow Page A

there.
    â€œHow’s Dave?”
    â€œHe’s Dave, he’s good.”
    â€œHaven’t seen him for a while,” Boyd says. “You still hang with the PB Dawn Patrol?”
    â€œYeah, you know.”
    â€œYour crew is your crew.”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    â€œWhat brings you here?” Boyd asks. It’s friendly, not a challenge, but there’s a little edge to it. Boyd’s clearly the sheriff here, and he wants to know what’s going on at his beach.
    â€œChecking it out,” Boone says.
    â€œNothing on today.”
    â€œSame all over,” Boone says. They talk bullshit—the flat surf, the heat, the usual crap—then Boone asks, “Hey, you know this kid Corey Blasingame? The Rockpile Crew?”
    Boyd turns to the younger surfer and says, “Push off, all right?” When the kid is a few feet away, Boyd spits into the water, and then juts his chin toward the handful of surfers laying on the shoulder. “I’m a martial arts instructor. Brad’s a dry-waller. Jerry’s a roofing contractor. We don’t livehere but we’ve been surfing here forever. It’s our place. Some of the kids? Yeah, they’re local kids, some of them come from money, I guess. They live around, so it’s their place, too.”
    â€œCorey, Trevor Bodin, Billy and Dean Knowles,” says Boone, “they glossed themselves the Rockpile Crew.”
    â€œRich, spoiled La Jolla kids playing at being something they’re not,” Boyd says. “There’s no gang here, just a bunch of guys who surf.”
    â€œDid you know Corey? What can you tell me about him?”
    â€œCorey’s a strange kid,” Boyd says. “He just wanted to belong somewhere.”
    â€œAnd he didn’t?”
    â€œNot really,” Boyd says. “Just one of those kids who always seemed just one click behind the wheel, you know?”
    â€œGot it,” Boone says. “What about Bodin?”
    â€œTough boy.”
    â€œReal tough,” Boone asks, “or gym tough”?
    There’s a difference. Boone hasn’t seen a fighter yet who looks bad against a bag. And most look okay in sparring matches, where nobody is really trying to hurt anybody. But you put that same guy in a physical confrontation on the street, in a club, or a bar, and maybe he doesn’t look so good.
    â€œA little of both,” Boyd says, sounding kind of cagey.
    â€œYou’ve seen him in action?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    Maybe nothing, Boone thinks. Maybe Trevor had helped Boyd keep the fatherland pure—a little law enforcement on the beach or in the parking lot. “And?”
    â€œHe does okay for himself,” Boyd says. “He’s got an edge to him, you know?”
    No, I don’t know, Boone thinks. Bodin backed down pretty quicklyat The Sundowner that night, when he was four on three. Maybe his edge came out when the odds were a little better, like four on one.
    â€œI guess,” Boone says. “Hey, Mike, tell me something. If you’d paddled over here and I wasn’t a buddy of Dave’s and all that, what . . .”
    Because that kid didn’t paddle over here on his own. You sent him to check it out, chase away the interloper. Were you going to extort me, Mike? Make a profit? Further a criminal activity?
    â€œYou would have been politely asked to find another place to surf,” Boyd says.
    â€œWhat if I said no?”
    â€œYou would have been politely asked to find another place to surf,” Boyd repeats. “Why are you asking?”
    â€œCurious.”
    Boyd nods, looks around at the flat sea. Then he says, “So we’re the bad guys now, I guess, huh? We’re the Neanderthals, the animals who give surfing a bad name, just because this fucked-up kid connected with a punch?”
    â€œI didn’t say that.”
    â€œAll I ever wanted,” Boyd says, “all I want now , is