Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [29]
So far so good, Boone thought. It could be a lot worse.
But maybe it was when Eddie—blissed-out on a buffet of ecstasy, Maui Wowie, Vicodin, rum colas, and the sheer joy of neighborliness—demonstrated his walking-over-hot-coals meditation technique and insisted that some of his guests share in the transcendental experience that things got seriously weird.
After the EMTs left, Eddie persuaded the surviving guests to lie down side by side between two ramps and then knieveled them on his mountain bike, after which he released his psychotic rottweiler, Dahmer, from its cage and went mano-a-pawo with it, the two of them rolling around on the patio—blood, saliva, fur, and flesh flying until Eddie finally pinned the dog in a rear-naked chokehold and made it bark uncle.
As the guests offered some weak, somewhat stunned applause, Eddie—sweating, bleeding, huffing, but flushed with victory—muttered to Boone, “Jesus, these haoles are hard to entertain. I’m busting a hump, bruddah.”
“I dunno,” Boone said, “I guess some people just don’t have an appreciation for the finer points of human-canine combat.”
Eddie shrugged, like, Go figure. He leaned over and scratched Dahmer’s chest. The dog, panting, bleeding, huffing, and embarrassed by defeat, nevertheless looked up at Eddie with unabashed adoration.
“So what should I do now?” Eddie asked Boone.
“Maybe just chill,” Sunny suggested. “Dial it down a little, let people enjoy their food. The food is great, Eddie.”
Sunny looks great, Boone thought, with her long flower-print sarong, a flower in her hair, and a dot of barbecue sauce on her upper left lip.
“I had it flown in,” Eddie said.
Yes, he had, Boone thought. Mounds of poi, huge platters of fresh ono and opah, pulled pork, chili rice, grilled Spam, and several pigs, the baking pits for which had been dug out of Eddie’s back lawn with backhoes.
“Maybe it’s time for the tattoo artist,” Eddie said.
“Maybe not so much,” Sunny said.
“Fire-eater?” Eddie asked.
“There you go,” Boone said. He looked at Sunny raising her eyebrow. “What? Everyone likes a fire-eater.”
Well, maybe not everybody. Maybe not a La Jolla crowd whose usual entertainment tended more toward chamber orchestras playing in museum foyers, cocktail-bar pianists warbling Cole Porter tunes, or investmentfund managers pointing toward every upward-climbing diagonal line.
The La Jollans stared at the performer—who was clad only in ankle-to-neck tattoos and something resembling a loincloth as he shoved rods of fire down his throat with a Lovelacian dexterity that would have sent a porno superstar into a paroxysm of envy—and prayed to a host of Episcopal saints that Eddie was not going to ask for any more volunteers from the audience. They surreptitiously eyed the front gate, with its promise of relative safety and sanity, but none of them wanted to earn Eddie’s attention by being the first to leave.
Boone found Eddie a little later out by the saltwater wading pool (“ ‘Bad for the glass. Bad for the glass,’ ” Johnny B. delighted in repeating) in a conversation with Dave.
“Eddie and I were just talking about The Searchers,’ ” Dave said. “He has it below High Noon but above Fort Apache?”
“Above them both, but nowhere near Butch Cassidy,” Boone said.
“Ah, Butch Cassidy,” Dave said. “Good flick.”
Dave had dressed for the party in an expensive-looking silk Hawaiianprint shirt in reds and yellows, featuring parrots and ukuleles, and a pair of white slacks over his best dress sandals. His blond hair was neatly brushed back and he was wearing his “social,” as opposed to his “business,” shades, a pair of wraparound Nixons.
“Shane,” said Eddie.
“Another one,” Dave said.
The party was definitely winding down, as was Eddie, whose constant toking had finally soothed his manic drive toward being the perfect host.
The guests—who were much more afraid of Eddie than when they’d arrived—departed in possession of stolen property, their white-knuckled