Dawn Patrol Read Online Free PDF Page B

irresponsibility, unpaid bills, unfiled taxes, unwritten invoices, and uncashed checks.
    For an accountant and businessman, Boone Daniels is Mount Everest.
    “As your accountant,” he tells Boone now, “I strongly advise you to take the case.”
    “How about as my landlord?”
    “I strongly advise you to take the case.”
    “Are you going to evict me?”
    “You have negative cash flow,” Cheerful says. “Do you know what that means?”
    “It means I have more money going out than I have coming in.”
    “No,” Cheerful says. “If you were
paying
your bills, you’d have more money going out than coming in.”
    Boone performs the complicated maneuver of putting on jeans while still keeping the towel wrapped around him as he moans, “Twelve to twenty feet … double overheads …”
    “Oh, stop whinging,” Petra says.
Whinge
is one of her favorite Brit words—a combination between a whine and a cringe. “If you’re as good as your reputation, you’ll find my witness before your swelling goes down.”
    She proffers a file folder.
    Boone pulls a North Shore T-shirt over his head, followed by a hooded Killer Dana sweatshirt, slips into a pair of Reef sandals, takes the file, and walks downstairs.
    “Where are you going?” Petra calls after him.
    “Breakfast.”
    “Now?”
    “It’s the most important meal of the day.”
12
    Despite his name, Dan Silver always wears black.
    For one thing, he’d look pretty stupid dressed in silver. He knows this for a fact, because back when he was a professional wrestler, he dressed all in silver and he looked pretty stupid. But what the hell else was a wrestler named Dan Silver going to wear? He started off as a good guy, but soon found out that the wrestling fans didn’t buy him as a hero. So he traded the silver for black and became a villain by the name of “Vile Danny Silver,” which the fans
did
buy.
    And, anyway, bad guys made more money than good guys.
    A life lesson for Danny.
    He did about five years in the WWE, then decided that it was easier dealing with strippers than getting the shit kicked out of you three nights a week, so he cashed out and opened his first club.
    Now Dan has five clubs, and he still dresses in black because he thinks the black makes him look sexy and dangerous. And slim, because Dan is starting to get that fifties tire around his waist, some heavy jowls, and a second chin, and he doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t like that his rust red hair is starting to thin and black clothes can’t do a thing about it. But he still wears a black shirt, black jeans, and a thick black belt with a wide silver buckle, as well as black cowboy boots with walking heels.
    It’s his trademark look.
    He looks like a trademark asshole.
    Now he goes to meet the guy down on Ocean Beach near the pier.
    The sea is kicking up like a nervous Thoroughbred in the starting gate. Dan could give a shit. He’s lived by the water all his life, never been in it above his ankles. The ocean is full of nasty stuff like jellyfish, sharks, and waves, so Dan’s more of a Jacuzzi man.
    “You ever hear of anyone drowning in a hot tub?” he asked Red Eddie when the subject of getting into the ocean came up.
    Actually, Red Eddie had, but that’s another story.
    Now Dan walks up the beach and meets Tweety.
    “You take care of it?” Dan asks.
    Dan is a big guy, six-four and pushing 275, but he looks small standing face-to-face with Tweety. Fucking guy is built like an industrial-size refrigerator and he’s just as cold.
    “Yeah,” Tweety says.
    “Any trouble?” Dan asks.
    “Not for
me
.”
    Dan nods.
    He already has the cash, twenty one-hundred-dollar bills, rolled into one of his thick hands.
    Two grand to pitch a woman off a motel balcony.
    Whoever said life is cheap overpaid.
    It’s too bad, Dan thinks, because that was one hot chick, and a little freak to boot. But she’d seen something she shouldn’t have seen, and if there’s one thing Dan’s learned about