Afghanistan and Iraq the sheer madness the killing the bombing the missiles the death you are back in Vietnam again and I could blame it all on that but at the end of the day at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves.
What happened?
We got tired, we got old we gave up our dreams we taught ourselves to scorn ourselves to despise our youthful idealism we sold ourselves cheap we aren’t
Who we wanted to be.
247
Paqu lies on the sofa.
Bottle of gin, bottle of pills on the coffee table.
The effects on her face, in her eyes. She sees O come in and says, “You look uncharacteristically nice.”
“Where’s Four?”
“That’s very amusing,” Paqu says, her words a little slurred. “Four is gone.”
“I went and saw Paul.”
“I told you not to.”
“I know.”
“But you did it anyway.”
“Obviously.”
Paqu sits up, pours the last of the bottle into her glass, and says, “And are you happier now? Did you gain an epiphany? One that might propel you from this perpetual adolescence of yours?”
“He said he wasn’t my father.”
“The man is a liar.”
“I believe him.”
“Of course you do,” Paqu says. “You believed in the tooth fairy until you were eleven. I considered having you tested.”
“Who was he?”
“Who was who?”
“My father,” O says.
Just tell me.
248
He knows his old man.
Knows him in the way that only blood can.
The shared secret code hidden deep in deoxyribonucleic acid.
DNA.
Fathers and sons are really brothers
Twins of the double helix
Fates twisted around each other
Inseparable
Inextricable
He knows his father would not have come unprepared to this feast because he wouldn’t
Knows that his father cannot let it end here
Because he couldn’t
Knows that he now has to do
The one thing
That will cost him more than he can pay
And that he would never do for anyone
Not even himself
But will do
For Ben
Go to his father’s house
And ask
For mercy.
249
INT. PAQU’S LIVING ROOM — NIGHT
PAQU takes a long sip of her drink and looks over the glass at O, who stands there, furious and determined.
PAQU
Look at you, my little girl, all forceful and resolute. You look ridiculous. Do you want your face to freeze that way?
O says nothing, just holds her glare.
PAQU (CONT’D.)
I wish you were this determined to find a job.
Same.
Paqu is really out of it now-the effects of the alcohol and pills have hit her.
PAQU (CONT’D.)
Of course, I should talk. I’ve done absolutely nothing with mine. Nothing. Except give birth to you. And, no offense, please don’t take this personally, but you’re such a… disappointment. Very well. You want to know who your father is? Who he was?
250
Elena sips a sherry and watches the evening news.
A small pleasure before dinner at an empty table, as Magda refuses to come out of her room, leaving Elena to dine with memories and might-have-beens.
She is just finishing her drink when her guards let Lado in.
“I heard there was a slaughter at the Revolucion Club,” she says.
“I heard the same thing.”
“A terrible thing,” she says. “We live in terrible times.”
“Someone whispered a name to me,” Lado says.
“Whispered or screamed?”
She looks out the window into the courtyard, where she still expects Filipo to pull up in his car and twirl her in his arms.
“ Buen viaje, ” she says.
Have a nice trip.
251
“This guy John,” Ben asks. “What did he look like?”
“Why?” Diane asks.
“I need to know.”
She rummages around until she finds a scrapbook. Opens it up and the results are almost comical-his mom and dad as hippies-long hair, leather fringes-almost as if they’re at a costume party.
Diane turns to a picture of a bunch of people on the front steps of an old bookstore and points to a young man, bare-chested and in jeans.
“That’s John,” she says.
“I have to go.”
252
His name was Halliday, Paqu says, and they called him “Doc.”
And when he found out I was pregnant with you he put a gun to his head, pulled the trigger, and ruined the interior of a very expensive car.
I don’t know if my pregnancy was the… causal factor… but there you are.
Happy now?
O runs out of the house.
253
Ben drives down the canyon and hits Chon’s number.
There’s no answer.
Where the fuck are you? Ben thinks.
Chon was following the line up from Crowe and Hennessy. If he’s succeeded, the line leads to his own father.
Ben can’t let him do it.
He lets the phone ring and ring.
Chon doesn’t answer.
Don Winslow
The Kings Of Cool
254
Chon’s gassed out.
Blood flows freely down his leg as he lumbers up the hill to John’s house.
He stops down the street to catch his breath and recon the scene.
There’s a car parked in the driveway, and he can make out three men inside-two in front, one in the back.
Chon takes three long breaths, drops to his stomach, and crawls across the neighbor’s yard to the back. Then he climbs the fence into John’s yard, tears another strip off his shirt, wraps it around his hand, and punches the bathroom window.
He reaches in, unlocks the window, slides it open, and climbs in.
Walks from the bathroom into the living room.
John is standing there.
Old denim shirt, jeans.
255
“Surprised to see me?” Chon asks.
“I thought you were in Iraq. Someplace like that.” John turns and walks into the step-down living room, walks behind the bar, and starts to make himself a drink. “You want something?”
Chon doesn’t.
“A joint?” John asks. “You want to smoke up?”
“Keep your hands above the bar.”
“You don’t trust your old man?”
“No,” Chon says. “You taught me that, remember? ‘Never trust anybody’?”
“And I was right.”
John takes a sip of his drink and sits heavily on the sofa. First time Chon notices that he has a gut.
“Sit down.”
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” He leans back into the cushions. “Who gave me up? Crowe?”
He looks almost amused.
“Crowe and Hennessy are both dead.”
“You did us a favor,” John says. “They had to go, anyway.”
“I thought you were out of the business.”
“And I didn’t know you were in it,” John says. He holds a hand up. “Swear to God, son. But I guess the apple don’t fall far from the tree, huh? Though I guess you’re some kind of war hero? Is that true?”
“No.”
John shrugs. “So what brings you here?”
“Believe me, I didn’t want to come here.”
“But here you are.”
256
Ben goes to Chon’s apartment.
He’s not there.
Ben drives the streets-the PCH, the Canyon, Bluebird, Glenneyre, Brooks-Chon is nowhere to be seen.
Of course he is, Ben thinks.
When Chon doesn’t want to be found, he’s not going to be found.
Ben hits his number again and again.