The Gentlemen's Hour by Don Winslow Page B

in a hurry.
    He now has one clear day to explore the life and times of Corey Blasingame.

31
    He drives over to Corey’s “place of work,” as they say in the police reports.
    Corey delivered pizzas.
    Drove around in one of those little cars with the sign on top, carting twelve-dollar extra-large specials to college kids, slackers, and parents too busy on a given night to get supper together for the kids.
    Yeah, okay, but what was rich kid Corey doing delivering pizzas for minimum wage and minimum tips? Tip money is good money if you’re waiting tables at Mille Fleurs on a Saturday night, but not when you’re pushing the pepperoni in dorms. Corey’s daddy is slapping up half the luxury homes infesting the coastline, but the kid is driving around wearing a funny hat and taking shit for not getting there in twenty minutes?
    Turns out Corey was about to lose even that job.
    â€œWhy?” Boone asks the franchise owner, Mr. McKay.
    â€œThe job was delivering pizzas,” Mr. McKay says. “And he wasn’t delivering them.”
    Worse, he was stealing them. McKay suspected that Corey had his friends call up, order pizzas, and then deny it when Corey went to “deliver.” Then Corey ate the “spoilage.” It got to the point where McKay insisted that Corey bring the spurned extra-large-with-everything-except-anchovies back to the store to be officially thrown away.
    â€œAnyway, I think he was stoned,” McKay says.
    â€œOn what?”
    McKay shrugs. “I don’t know anything about drugs, but he seemed like he was hopped up on speed or something. Really, I was about to terminate him when . . .”
    He lets it trail off.
    Nobody liked talking about the Kuhio killing.
    Depressing, Boone thinks as he drives over to Corey’s old high school. The guy had a gig hauling pizzas and jacks his own product. Like, if you were around pizza all the time, is that really what you’d want for dinner?
    Boone checks himself. Are you feeling sorry for this kid now?
    Yeah, sort of, especially after he leaves the school.

32
    LJPA.
    La Jolla Prep.
    More properly, La Jolla Preparatory Academy.
    Prep for what? Boone thinks as he approaches the security shack that flanks the gated driveway. The students were born on third base, so it must be prep for getting them that last ninety feet. Not that these kids start with a foot on the bag. No, they take a nice long lead, secure in the knowledge that no one is going to even try to pick them off.
    The guard isn’t too enthused about the Deuce.
    It’s a funny thing about security guys, Boone thinks as he sees the uniformed man step out of the shack with that “Turn it around, buddy” look already on his face. They stay in one spot long enough, they get to thinking that they own the place. They actually take a protective pride inguarding a group of people who are very polite, even warm, as they’re going in and out, but are never, ever going to ask them inside to the Christmas party. Boone can never understand why people will man the gates that keep them out.
    And, since Columbine, getting into a school is hard, especially when the school is one of the most exclusive on the West Coast. Boone rolls down the window.
    â€œCan I help you?” the guard asks, meaning, “Can I help you out ?”
    Because the guard already knows. He takes one look inside the Deuce at the mess of wet suits, board trunks, fast-food wrappers, Styrofoam coffee cups, towels, and blankets, and knows that Boone doesn’t belong here. Now he has to make sure that Boone knows he doesn’t belong here.
    While the guard was checking out the van, Boone took a quick glance of the little nameplate pinned on his shirt pocket. “You’re Jim Nerburn, right?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAny relation to Ken Nerburn?”
    â€œHe’s my kid.”
    â€œHe’s a good guy, Ken.”
    â€œYou know