Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online

pronounces, “you damage this rare vintage automobile by as much as a scratch, I’ll keep you in litigation until you are no longer capable of recalling exactly why your personal and professional life is in such a shambles.”
    “ ‘Rare vintage automobile’?” Tow Truck Guy laughs. “It’s a piece of shit.”
    “In which case, it is a rare vintage piece of shit,” Petra says, “and unless you are in possession of the appropriate seizure orders, I shall have you arrested for grand theft auto.”
    “The papers are in my truck.”
    “Kindly go fetch them?”
    Tow Truck Guy kindly goes and fetches them. He hands them to Petra and stands there nervously while she peruses them.
    “They seem to be in order,” she says. She pulls her checkbook out of her purse and asks, “How much is owed?”
    Tow Truck Guy shakes his head. “No checks.
He
writes checks.”
    “Mine don’t bounce,” Petra says.
    “Says you.”
    She gives him the full benefit of the withering glare to which Boone has become so quickly accustomed. “Don’t get cheeky with me,” she says. “Simply enlighten me as to the required amount and we shall all be on our separate ways.”
    Tow Truck Guy is tough. “My boss told me, ‘Don’t take a check.’ ”
    Petra sighs. “Credit card?”
    “His?”
This strikes Tow Truck Guy as pretty funny.
    “Mine.”
    “I’ll have to call it in.”
    She hands him her cell phone. Five minutes later, Tow Truck Guy has driven off and the cold sweat of terror has evaporated from Boone’s face.
    “I must say, I’m shocked,” Petra says.
    “That I’m behind in the payments?”
    “That you have
payments
.”
    “Thanks for what you did,” Boone says.
    “It’s coming out of your fee.”
    “I’ll write you a receipt,” Boone says as he settles himself into the comforting familiarity of the well-worn driver’s seat, the upholstery of which is held together by strips of duct tape. “So you think this is a rare vintage automobile?”
    “It’s a piece of shit,” Petra says. “Now may we
please
go and collect Ms. Roddick?”
    That would be good, Boone thinks.
    “Collecting” Tammy Roddick would be really good.
    Epic macking good.
16
    Two minutes later, Boone’s still trying to get the engine to turn over while he balances a Styrofoam go-plate on his lap and tries to eat eggs
machaca
with a plastic fork.
    He turns the ignition key again. The engine moans, then grudgingly starts, like a guy with a hangover getting up for work.
    Petra sweeps some Rubio’s and In-N-Out wrappers off the seat, takes a handkerchief from her purse, wipes the cushion, then delicately sits down as she considers how this might fit into her dry-cleaning schedule.
    “Stakeouts,” Boone says.
    Petra looks behind her. “This is a hovel on wheels.”
    “Hovel” is a little harsh, Boone thinks. He prefers “randomly ordered.”
    The van contains North Shore board trunks, a couple of sweatshirts, a dozen or so empty go-cups from various fast-food establishments, a pair of Duck Feet fins, a mask and a snorkel, an assortment of sandals and flipflops, several plaid wool shirts, a blanket, a lobster pot, a stick of deodorant, several tubes of sunblock, a six-pack of empty beer bottles, a sleeping bag, a tire iron, a sledgehammer, a crowbar, an aluminum baseball bat,a bunch of CDs—Common Sense, Switchfoot, and the Ka’au Crater Boys—numerous empty coffee cups, several containers of board wax, and a torn paperback copy of
Crime and Punishment
.
    “Doubtless you thought it was an S and M novel,” Petra says.
    “I read it in college.”
    “You went to college?”
    “Almost a whole semester.”
    Which is a lie.
    Boone got his B.S. in criminology from San Diego State, but he lets her think what she wants. He doesn’t inform her that when he goes home (which doesn’t contain a television set) pleasantly tired from a day of surfing, his idea of bliss is to sit with a cup of coffee and read to the accompaniment of the sound