The Gentlemen's Hour by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online

smug, self-anointed elite that can’t see past our own zinc-oxide-covered noses?”
    Dave touches the bridge of his nose to check that the zinc oxide is still fresh. Then he says, “Sounds about right.”
    â€œWhat I thought,” Boone says, getting up.
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œYup.”
    â€œâ€™Bye.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œNada.”
    Boone walks up the beach.

15
    Boone only knows what happened that night from the newspaper accounts and the usual beach-bongo telegram system of rumors that went around PB.
    But here’s how it went.
    Kelly Kuhio walked out of The Sundowner a little after midnight, stone-cold sober, on his way to his car in a parking lot on the corner.
    He never made it.
    Corey Blasingame—drunk, stoned, high on whatever—stepped out of the alley, backed by his crew, walked up to Kelly, and punched him.
    Kelly fell backward and hit his head on the curb.
    He never regained consciousness.
    They unplugged him from life support three days later.

16
    Petra sits and sips her tea.
    Very unlike her, to sit and do nothing, but she’s sort of enjoying it, sitting and musing about Boone.
    An odd man, she thinks. Simplistic on the surface, but extraordinarily complicated below. A maelstrom of contradictions beneath a placid-seeming sea. A Tarzan-like surfer boy who reads Russian novels at night.A devoted glutton of junk food without an ounce of body fat who can grill fish to a turn over an open fire. A philistine who, when jollied into it, can talk quite intelligently about art. A disillusioned cynic with barely concealed idealism. A man who will desperately sprint away from anything that resembles emotion, but a deeply sensitive soul who might simply be the kindest and gentlest man you’ve ever met.
    And attractive, damn it, she thinks. And frustrating. They’ve been sort of dating for some three months now and he’s attempted nothing more than a quick, virtually chaste brush on the lips.
    No, he’s been terribly well behaved, a real gentleman. Just two nights ago she had dragged him to a charity event at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art and he showed up wearing a smart summer khaki suit, with a blue Perry Ellis shirt he certainly couldn’t afford, and had actually had his hair cut. He’d been wonderfully tolerant of all the chitchat, and even wandered around the gallery with her and made some sharp observations about some of the pieces, though none of them was a depiction of breaking waves or a wood-sided station wagon from the 1950s. And, in truth, he’d been absolutely charming to the other guests and the hosts, displaying a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the charity in question, and Petra had quite bristled at a colleague’s ladies’ room remark that her “boy toy cleaned up nicely.”
    But he stood at her doorway later that night as if his feet were planted in the concrete, gave her a polite hug and a perfunctory kiss, and that was it.
    Do I want more? she asks herself. Certainly in this day and age, and as a modern, liberated woman, if I wanted more I could go after it. I’m perfectly capable of making the first move.
    So why don’t you? she asks.
    Are you feeling the same ambivalence that he is? Because clearly he’s attracted to you, else why would he ask you out repeatedly, but he seems hesitant to take it to the next level. As are you, to be honest. Why isthat? Is it because we know that we’re so different and it would therefore never work? Or is it because we both know in our heart of hearts that he’s not yet over Sunny?
    Is that a “yet,” she wonders, or an “ever”?
    And do I want him or not?
    This attitude about Corey Blasingame certainly argues against it. How an intelligent person could take such a knee-jerk, “law and order,” vengeful, Dirty Harry, unenlightened stance . . .

17
    There were paddle-outs for Kelly Kuhio all over the