“A flaky stripper,” Boone says. “Again, brave new world.”

“We've made repeated attempts to contact her,” Petra says. “She neither answers her phone nor returns messages. I rang her current employer, Totally Nude Girls. The manager informed me that she hasn't shown up for work for three days.”

“Have you checked the morgue?” Boone asks.

Five million dollars is a lot of money.

“Of course.”

“So she's taken off,” Boone says.

“You have a keen grasp of the obvious, Mr. Daniels,” Petra says. “Therefore, you should have no trouble discerning what it is that we require of you.”

“You want me to find her.”

“Full marks. Well done.”

“I'll get right on it,” Boone says. “As soon as the swell is over.”

“I'm afraid that won't do.”

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Boone says. “It's just that this.. .”

“Tamara.”

“… Tammy babe could be anywhere by now,” Boone says. “It's at least an even bet that she's at a spa in Cabo with Dan Silver. Wherever she is or isn't, it's going to take a while to find her, so whether I start today, or tomorrow, or the day after, it really doesn't matter.”

“It does to me,” Petra says. “And to Mr. Burke.”

Boone says, “Maybe you didn't understand me when I was talking about the big-”

“I did,” Petra says. “Something is in the process of ‘swelling,’ and certain people with sophomoric sobriquets are, for reasons that evade my comprehension, ‘stoked’ about it.”

Boone stares at her.

Finally he says, as if to a small child, “Well, Pete, let me put it to you in a way you can understand: Some very big waves-the sort of waves that come only about once every other presidential administration-are about to hit that beach out there, for one day only, so all I'm going to be doing for those twenty-four hours is clocking in the green room. Now go back and tell Alan that as soon as the swell passes, I'll find his witness.”