Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [59]
“Symmetrical and yet cryptic,” Petra says. “But what do you mean?”
“I mean, sit tight.”
She shuts the door, then asks, “ ‘Deleterious’?”
“Means having a negative or destructive effect,” Boone says.
“You’ve been holding out on me, ape man.”
“You don’t know the half.”
Teddy D-Cup comes out of the building and strides toward his car.
44
Teddy Cole is a beautiful man.
Literally.
Teddy is a living testament to the reciprocal professional courtesy that exists among top-line plastic surgeons. Teddy’s been chin-sculpted, Botoxed, nose-jobbed, skin-peeled, hair transplanted, eye-tightened, facelifted, tummy-tucked, dental-worked, lasered, and tanned.
A walking advertisement of his own trade.
He’s about five-ten, slim, his skin glowing with artificial health, the muscles under his black Calvin Klein silk shirt showing hours at the gym. His hair is blond with ash tips, his eyes blue, his teeth perfectly white.
Teddy has to be in his late fifties, but he looks like he’s in his early thirties, except that his face has been lifted so tight and high that his eyes have a slightly Asian look to them. Boone’s afraid that if Teddy smiles too wide, he might actually break. But no cause for concern right now, because the good doctor isn’t smiling. His face is set in fierce concentration as he heads for his Mercedes.
“You’re actually smarter than you look,” Petra says to Boone.
“Low bar to jump,” Boone says. He waits for Teddy to pull out of the lot, then starts the van and follows.
“Can you tail him without him seeing us?” Petra asks.
“ ‘Tail’ him?”
“Well, can you?”
“If I don’t screw it up,” Boone says.
“Well, don’t.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
It’s one of your slower chases, as chases go. Lots of brake lights and waits at traffic signals as they follow Teddy up Prospect Avenue and then north on Torrey Pines Road. Teddy takes a left onto La Jolla Shores Road and they follow him through the beach community, then up the steep hill onto the campus of the University of California at San Diego, where they meander through the narrow, winding road past classroom buildings, dorms, and graduate-student apartments.
Boone drops a couple of cars back and follows Teddy up to Torrey Pines, past the Salk Institute and the whole complex of medical research buildings that define the area. Then it’s through Torrey Pines State Reserve, up to the top of the hill, where there’s this great, sudden view of the ocean stretching out in front of them, from Torrey Pines Beach all the way up to the bluffs at Del Mar.
Highway 101.
45
U.S. Highway 101.
The Pacific Coast Highway.
The PCH.
The Boulevard of Unbroken Dreams.
The Yellow Brick Road.
You may get your kicks on Route 66, but you get your fun on Highway 101. You may take 66 to find America, but you won’t find The American Dream until you hit the PCH. Sixty-six is the route, but 101 is the destination. You travel 66, you arrive at 101. It’s the end of the road, the beginning of the ride.
Back in the back-in-the, those early surfers lugged their heavy wooden boards up and down what was then a virtually empty highway. They had the joint pretty much to themselves, a small wandering band of George Freeth disciples searching for the promised wave. And they found it, breaking all up and down 101. They could just pull off the road and hit the beach, and they did, from Ocean Beach to Santa Cruz.
Then World War II came along, and America discovered the California coast. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, and marines were stationed in San Diego and Los Angeles on their way to the Pacific, and when they came back, if they came back, a lot of them settled in the sun and the fun. Like, how are you going to keep them down on the farm after they’ve seen Laguna?
While their counterparts were reengaging with American society by creating suburbia and making a religion of conformity, these cats wanted to get away from all that.
They wanted the beach.
They wanted to surf.
This was the genesis of the “surf bum,” the image of surfing as not only a culture but as a counterculture.