Michael Connelly (101 page)

“But you went too far, Bosch. He never planned on that.”

“I guess not.”

Bosch thought about his meeting with Moore in the tower. He still hadn’t decided whether Moore had been expecting him, even
waiting for him. Waiting for Harry to come kill him. He didn’t think he’d ever know. That was Calexico Moore’s last mystery.

“Time for what?” Irving asked.

“What?”

“You said he just wanted some time.”

“I think he wanted time to go down there, take Zorrillo’s place and then take the money and run. I don’t think he wanted to
be the pope forever. He just wanted to live in a castle again.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

They were silent a moment before Bosch finished up.

“Most of this I know you already have, Chief.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, you do. I think you figured it out after Chastain told you that Moore sent the letter himself.”

“And how did Detective Chastain know that?”

He wasn’t going to give Bosch anything. That was okay, though. Harry found that telling the story helped clarify it. It was
like holding it up to inspect for holes.

“After he got the letter, Chastain thought it was the wife who sent it. He went to her house and she denied it. He asked for
her typewriter because he was going to make sure and she slammed the door in his face. But she didn’t do it before saying
she didn’t even have a typewriter. So then, after Moore turns up dead, Chastain starts thinking about things and takes the
machine out of Moore’s office at the station. My guess is he matched the keys to the letter. From that point, it wouldn’t
be difficult to figure out the letter came from either Moore or somebody in the BANG squad. My guess is that Chastain interviewed
them this week and concluded they hadn’t done it. The letter was typed by Moore.”

Irving didn’t confirm any of it but didn’t have to. Bosch knew. It all fit.

“Moore had a good plan, Chief. He played us like cheater’s solitaire. He knew every card in the deck before it was turned
over.”

“Except for one,” Irving said. “You. He didn’t think you’d come looking.”

Bosch didn’t reply. He looked over at Sylvia again. She was innocent. And she would be safe. He noticed Irving turn his gaze
on her, too.

“She’s clear,” Bosch said. “You know it. I know it. If you make trouble for her, I’ll make trouble for you.”

It wasn’t a threat. It was an offer. A deal. Irving considered it a moment and nodded his head once. A blunt agreement.

“Did you speak to him down there, Bosch?”

Harry knew he meant Moore and he knew he couldn’t answer.

“What did you do down there?”

After a few moments of silence Irving turned and walked as upright as a Nazi back to the rows of chairs holding the VIPs and
top brass of the department. He took a seat his adjutant had been saving in the row behind Sylvia Moore. He never looked back
at Bosch once.

Through the entire service Bosch had watched her from his position next to the oak tree. Sylvia Moore rarely raised her head,
even to watch the line of cadets fire blanks into the sky or when the air squad flew over, the helicopters arranged in the
missing-man formation. One time he thought she glanced over at him, or at least in his direction, but he couldn’t be sure.
He thought of her as being stoic. And he thought of her as being beautiful.

When it was over and the casket was in the hole and the people were moving away, she stayed seated and Bosch saw her wave
away an offer from Irving to be escorted back to the limousine. The assistant chief sauntered off, smoothing his collar against
his neck. Finally, when the area around the burial site was clear, she stood up, glanced once down into the hole, and then
started walking toward Bosch. Her steps were punctuated by the slamming of car doors all across the cemetery. She took the
sunglasses off as she came.

“You took my advice,” she said.

This immediately confused him. He looked down at his clothes and then back at her. What advice? She read him and answered.

“The black ice, remember? You have to be careful. You’re here, so I assume you were.”

“Yes, I was careful.”

He saw that her eyes were very clear and she seemed even stronger than the last time they had encountered each other. They
were eyes that would not forget a kindness. Or a slight.

“I know there is more than what they have told me. Maybe you will tell me sometime?”

He nodded and she nodded. There was a moment of silence as they looked at each other that was neither long or short. It seemed
to Bosch to be a perfect moment. The wind gusted and broke the spell. Some of her hair broke loose from the barrette and she
pushed it back with her hand.

“I would like that,” she said.

“Whenever you want,” he said. “Maybe you’ll tell me a few things, too.”

“Such as?”

“That picture that was missing from the picture frame. You knew what it was, but you didn’t tell me.”

She smiled as if to say he had focused his attention on something unnecessary and trivial.

“It was just a picture of him and his friend from the barrio. There were other pictures in the bag.”

“It was important but you didn’t say anything.”

She looked down at the grass.

“I just didn’t want to talk or think about it anymore.”

“But you did, didn’t you?”

“Of course. That’s what happens. The things you don’t want to know or remember or think about come back to haunt you.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“You know, don’t you?” he finally said.

“That that wasn’t my husband buried there? I had an idea, yes. I knew there was more than what people were telling me. Not
you, especially. The others.”

He nodded and the silence grew long but not uncomfortable. She turned slightly and looked over at the driver standing next
to the limo, waiting. There was nobody left in the cemetery.

“There is something I hope you will tell me,” she said. “Either now or sometime. If you can, I mean. … Um, is he … is there
a chance he will be back?”

Bosch looked at her and slowly shook his head. He studied her eyes for reaction. Sadness or fear, even complicity. There was
none. She looked down at her gloved hands, which grasped each other in front of her dress.

“My driver …,” she said, not finishing the thought.

She tried a polite smile and for the hundredth time he asked himself what had been wrong with Calexico Moore. She took a step
forward and touched her hand to his cheek. It felt warm, even through the silk glove, and he could smell perfume on her wrist.
Something very light. Not really a smell. A scent.

“I guess I should go,” she said.

He nodded and she backed away.

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded. He didn’t know what he was being thanked for but all he could do was nod.

“Will you call? Maybe we could …I don’t know. I —”

“I will call.”

Now she nodded and turned to walk back to the black limousine. He hesitated and then spoke up.

“You like jazz? The saxophone?”

She stopped and turned back to him. There was sharpness in her eyes. That need for touch. It was so clear he could feel it
cut him. He thought maybe it was his own reflection.

“Especially the solos,” she said. “The ones that are lonely and sad. I love those.”

“There is … is tomorrow night too soon?”

“It’s New Year’s Eve.”

“I know. I was thinking …I guess it might not be the right time. The other night — that was …I don’t know.”

She walked back to him and put her hand on his neck and pulled his face down to hers. He went willingly. They kissed for a
long time and Bosch kept his eyes closed. When she let him go he didn’t look to see if anyone was watching. He didn’t care.

“What is a right time?” she asked.

He had no answer.

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

He smiled and she smiled.

She turned for the last time and walked to the car, her high heels clicking on the asphalt once she left the carpet of grass.
Bosch leaned back against the tree and watched the driver open the door for her. Then he lit a cigarette and watched as the
sleek black machine carried her out through the gate and left him alone with the dead.

The
  

Concrete

Blonde
 

This is for Susan, Paul and Jamie,
Bob and Marlen, Ellen, Jane and Damian

The house in Silverlake was dark, its windows as empty as a dead man’s eyes. It was an old California Craftsman with a full
front porch and two dormer windows set on the long slope of the roof. But no light shone behind the glass, not even from above
the doorway. Instead, the house cast a foreboding darkness about it that not even the glow from the streetlight could penetrate.
A man could be standing there on the porch and Bosch knew he probably wouldn’t be able to see him.

“You sure this is it?” he asked her.

“Not the house,” she said. “Behind it. The garage. Pull up so you can see down the drive.”

Bosch tapped the gas pedal and the Caprice moved forward and crossed the entrance to the driveway.

“There,” she said.

Bosch stopped the car. There was a garage behind the house with an apartment above it. Wooden staircase up the side, light
over the door. Two windows, lights on inside.

“Okay,” Bosch said.

They stared at the garage for several moments. Bosch didn’t know what he expected to see. Maybe nothing. The whore’s perfume
was filling the car and he rolled his window down. He didn’t know whether to trust her claim or not. The one thing he knew
he couldn’t do was call for backup. He hadn’t brought a rover with him and the car was not equipped with a phone.

“What are you going to — there he goes!” she said urgently.

Bosch had seen it, the shadow of a figure crossing behind the smaller window. The bathroom, he guessed.

“He’s in the bathroom,” she said. “That’s where I saw all the stuff.”

Bosch looked away from the window and at her.

“What stuff?”

“I, uh, checked the cabinet. You know, when I was in there. Just looking to see what he had. A girl has to be careful. And
I saw all the stuff. Makeup shit. You know, mascara, lipsticks, compacts and stuff. That’s how I figured it was him. He used
all that stuff to paint ’em when he was done, you know, killing them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that on the phone?”

“You didn’t ask.”

He saw the figure pass behind the curtains of the other window. Bosch’s mind was racing now, his heart jacking up into its
overdrive mode.

“How long ago was this that you ran out of there?”

“Shit, I don’t know. I hadda walk down to Franklin just to find a fucking ride over to the Boulevard. I was with the ride
’bout ten minutes. So I don’t know.”

“Guess. It’s important.”

“I don’t know. It’s been more than an hour.”

Shit, Bosch thought. She stopped to turn a trick before she called the task force number. Showed a lot of genuine concern
there. Now there could be a replacement up there and I’m sitting out here watching.

He gunned the car up the street and found a space in front of a hydrant. He turned off the engine but left the keys in the
ignition. After he jumped out he stuck his head back in through the open window.

“Listen, I’m going up there. You stay here. If you hear shots, or if I’m not back here in ten minutes, you start knocking
on doors and get some cops out here. Tell them an officer needs assistance. There’s a clock on the dash. Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes, baby. You go be the hero now. But I’m getting that reward.”

Bosch pulled his gun as he hurried down the driveway. The stairs up the side of the garage were old and warped. He took them
three at a time, as quietly as he could. But still it felt as if he were shouting his arrival to the world. At the top, he
raised the gun and broke the bare bulb that was in place over the door. Then, he leaned back into the darkness, against the
outside railing. He raised his left leg and put all his weight and momentum into his heel. He struck the door above the knob.