Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [124]
Boone arches his back and tries to buck Dan off him, but he can’t do it. He feels weak, and tired, and then very sleepy. His lungs scream at him to open his mouth and gasp. Take a nice deep breath of anything, even if it’s water.
His brain tells him to give up. Go to sleep, end the pain.
In his mind, he’s in the ocean.
A giant wave, a mountain, curls over his head.
Suspends in time for a second.
Hangs there, as if deciding.
Then it breaks on him.
Ka-boom.
143
Johnny Banzai charges into the clearing.
His badge is clipped to his jacket, his service revolver in his hand.
Harrington and the county people are right behind him, but Johnny has demanded he go in first.
Family fucking honor.
He goes in hard and fast, unconcerned with safety. He heard a gunshot in the distance and doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but he hits the clearing ready for whatever it is.
Some of the men are already running. Others stand there looking startled and confused. Johnny doesn’t care about the mojados—he sees three younger guys, better dressed, running away toward a line of trees, and young girls, looking around, milling in confusion.
Then he hears another gunshot.
It sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the reeds, down along the river.
Johnny calls for an ambulance and sprints toward the sound.
144
Boone feels Dan’s grip loosen, then let go; then Dan’s body slides off him into the water. A slough of blood pillows around Boone’s face. He pushes to the surface and sees, like a weird dream, an old Japanese man standing at the edge of the river.
A shotgun in his trembling hands.
In the distance, Boone hears yelling, sirens … but maybe it’s his head playing games with him.
He crawls to the riverbank and pulls himself up.
Then he hears something else.
A woman crying.
A howl of ineffable pain.
145
Sunny looks up and sees that she’s going to have to take another wave or two on her head, but it’s okay, because she’s in a good spot, close to the base of the waves, away from the point of maximum impact. But now she does release her leash, because the board is going to go in with the wave and she doesn’t want to go with it.
She takes the two waves, then the set ends and Dave pulls her onto the Jet Ski.
“That kook,” Dave says, “jumped in on you.”
“I saw.”
He takes her onto the shore.
People are running up the beach, including some lifeguards with medical equipment. She waves them off. “I’m okay. I’m good.”
But Dave is already striding over to where Tim Mackie is running his pie hole to his entourage and some surf press.
“Yo, kook,” Dave says. “Yeah, you. I’m talking to you.”
“You got a problem, brah?” Mackie asks. He looks surprised. Like, People do not have problems with Tim Mackie.
“No, you have a problem,” Dave says. “You could have killed her.”
“Didn’t see her, bro.”
High Tide steps into it. “You should get your eyesight checked, then, bruddah.”
“You don’t do that shit on my beach,” Dave says.
“This is your beach?”
“That’s right,” Dave says. He moves in, ready to separate Mackie’s head from his body. But Tide steps in front of him. Sunny steps in front of both of them and pushes the boys aside.
“I can take care of myself. Thanks, but I don’t need you to big-brother me.”
“I’d do the same,” Dave says, “if it was Boone or—”
“I can take care of myself.”
Great, she thinks as the crowd stares at her. I wanted the wave of the day; instead, I got the wipeout of the day and a hassle with golden boy Tim Mackie.
“That wasn’t cool,” she says.
“Sorry,” Mackie says. “My bad.”
But he has this smirk on his face.
“A-hole,” she says.
He laughs at her.
There’s only one response to that. She picks up her board and starts back down the beach, to the point where she can paddle out again. She can hear the crowd murmuring words to that effect. “She’s going out again. Do you believe it? After that? The chick’s going back out there.”
Damn right, she thinks, the chick is going back