The Last Coyote (14 page)

Bosch was led to a table to the side of the entrance area. Taped across the front of it was a red, white and blue banner that said ROBERT SHEPHERD NOW! It told Bosch all he needed to know about the affair.

There was a guest registry on the table and a woman sat behind it in a black crushed-velvet cocktail dress that did little to camouflage her breasts. Mr. Johnson seemed more intent on these two items than on Bosch as he signed the name Harvey Pounds in the registry.

As he signed, Bosch noticed a stack of pledge cards and a champagne goblet filled with pencils on the table. He picked up an information sheet and started to read about the unannounced candidate. Johnson finally pulled his eyes away from the table hostess and checked the name Bosch had written.

“Thank you, Mr. Pounds. Enjoy yourself.”

He disappeared into the crowd then, probably to check on whether a Harvey Pounds was on the list of invitees. Bosch decided he’d stay a few minutes, see if he could spot Mittel and then leave before the surfer came looking for him.

He stepped away from the entrance and out from beneath the tent. After crossing a short lawn to a retainer wall, he tried to act like he was just enjoying the view. And it was a view; the only higher one would have been from a jet coming in to LAX. But on the jet you wouldn’t have the breadth of vision, the cool breeze, or the sounds from the city below.

Bosch turned around and looked back at the crowd under the tent. He studied the faces but could not spot Gordon Mittel. There was no sign of him. There was a large knot of people beneath the center of the tent and Bosch realized that it was a grouping of people trying to reach their hands toward the unannounced candidate, or at least the man Bosch assumed was Shepherd. Harry noticed that while the crowd seemed to exhibit solidarity in terms of wealth, it cut across all age lines. He guessed that many were there to see Mittel as much as Shepherd.

One of the women in black-and-white came out from under the white canopy and toward him with a tray of champagne glasses. He took one, thanked her, and turned back to the view. He sipped at it and supposed that it was top quality, but he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. He decided he should gulp it and go when a voice from his left interrupted.

“Wonderful view, isn’t it? Better than a movie. I could stand here for hours.”

Bosch turned his head to acknowledge the speaker but didn’t look at him. He didn’t want to get involved.

“Yeah, it’s nice. But I’ll take the mountains I have.”

“Really? Where is that?”

“The other side of the hill. On Woodrow Wilson.”

“Oh, yes. There are some very nice properties there.”

Not mine, Bosch thought. Unless you like neoearthquake classic.

“The San Gabriels are brilliant in the sun,” the conversationalist said. “I looked there but then I bought here.”

Bosch turned. He was looking at Gordon Mittel. The host put out his hand.

“Gordon Mittel.”

Bosch hesitated but then figured Mittel was used to people losing a step or stuttering in his presence.

“Harvey Pounds,” Bosch said, taking his hand.

Mittel was wearing a black tuxedo. He was as overdressed for the crowd as Bosch was underdressed. His gray hair was cropped short and he had a smooth machine tan. He was as trim and tight as a rubber band stretched around a stack of hundreds and looked at least five to ten years younger than he was.

“Glad to meet you, glad you could come,” he said. “Did you meet Robert yet?”

“No, he’s kind of in the middle of the pack there.”

“Yes, that’s true. Well, he’ll be happy to meet you when he gets the chance.”

“I guess he’ll be happy to take my check as well.”

“That, too.” Mittel smiled. “Seriously, though, I hope you can help us out. He’s a good man and we need people like him in office.”

His smile seemed so phony that Harry wondered if Mittel had already pegged him as a crasher. Bosch smiled back and patted the right breast of his jacket.

“I’ve got the checkbook right here.”

Doing that, Bosch remembered what he really had in his pocket and got an idea. The champagne, though only a single glass, had emboldened him. He suddenly realized he wanted to spook Mittel and maybe get a look at his real colors.

“Tell me,” he said, “is Shepherd the one?”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“Is he going all the way to the White House someday? Is he the one that’s going to take you?”

Mittel sloughed off a frown or maybe it was a glimmer of annoyance.

“I guess we shall see. We’ve got to get him into the Senate first. That’s the important thing.”

Bosch nodded and made a show of scanning the crowd.

“Well, it looks like you have the right people here. But, you know, I don’t see Arno Conklin. Are you still tight with him? He was your first, wasn’t he?”

Mittel’s forehead creased with a deep furrow.

“Well…” Mittel seemed to be uncomfortable, but then it quickly passed. “To tell the truth, we haven’t spoken in a long time. He’s retired now, an old man in a wheelchair. Do you know Arno?”

“Never spoken to him in my life.”

“Then tell me, what prompts a question about ancient history?”

Bosch hiked his shoulders.

“I guess I’m just a student of history, that’s all.”

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Pounds? Or are you a fulltime student?”

“I’m in law.”

“We have something in common then.”

“I doubt it.”

“I’m a Stanford man. How about you?”

Bosch thought a moment.

“Vietnam.”

Mittel frowned again and Bosch saw the interest go out of his eyes like water down a drain.

“Well, I tell you, I ought to mingle a little more. Watch the champagne, and if you decide you don’t want to drive, one of the boys on the driveway can get you home. Ask for Manuel.”

“The one in the red vest?”

“Uh, yes. One of them.”

Bosch held up his glass.

“Don’t worry, this is only my third.”

Mittel nodded and disappeared back into the crowd. Bosch watched him cross beneath the tent, stop to shake a few hands, but eventually make it to the house. He entered through a wall of French doors into what looked like a living room or some sort of viewing area. Mittel walked to a couch and bent down to speak quietly to a man in a suit. This man looked to be about the same age as Mittel but with a harder appearance. He had a sharp face and, though sitting, clearly had a much heavier body. As a younger man he had probably used his strength, not his brain. Mittel straightened up and the other man just nodded. Mittel then disappeared into the further recesses of his house.

Bosch finished his glass of champagne and started moving through the crowd under the tent toward the house. As he got near the French doors, one of the black-and-white women asked if he needed help finding something. He said he was looking for the bathroom and she directed him to another door to the left. He went where he was told and found the door was locked. He waited for a few moments and the door finally opened, emitting a man and a woman. They giggled when they saw Bosch waiting and headed back to the tent.

Inside the bathroom Bosch opened his jacket and took a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket on the left. It was the photocopy of the Johnny Fox story that Keisha Russell had given him. He unfolded it and took out a pen. He circled the names Johnny Fox, Arno Conklin and Gordon Mittel, then, under the story, wrote, “What prior work experience got Johnny the job?”

He refolded the page twice and ran his fingers tightly over the creases. Then, on the outside, he wrote, “For Gordon Mittel Only!”

Back under the tent, Bosch found a black-and-white woman and gave her the folded paper.

“You have to find Mr. Mittel right away,” he told her. “Give him this note. He’s waiting on it.”

He watched her go and then made his way back out through the crowd to the sign-in table at the entry area. He quickly bent over the guest registry and wrote his mother’s name down. The table hostess protested that he had already signed in.

“This is for somebody else,” he said.

For an address, he wrote Hollywood and Vista. He left the line for a telephone number blank.

Bosch scanned the crowd again and saw neither Mittel nor the woman he had given the note to. Then he looked into the room beyond the French doors and Mittel appeared with the note in his hand. He walked slowly into the room, studying it. Bosch could tell by the direction of his eyes that he was studying the note scribbled on the bottom. Even with his phony tan, he seemed to Bosch to go pale.

Bosch took a step back into the entrance alcove and watched. He could feel his heart beating at a quicker pace. He felt like he was watching some secret play on a stage.

There was a look of perplexed anger on Mittel’s face now. Bosch saw him hand the page to the rough man who still sat in the cushioned chair. Then Mittel turned to the glass panels and looked out at the people under the tent. He said something and Bosch thought he could read his lips.

“Son of a bitch.”

Then he started talking more quickly, barking orders. The man on the chair rose and Bosch knew instinctively that it was his cue to leave. He walked quickly back out to the driveway and trotted down to the group of men in red vests. He handed his valet ticket and a ten-dollar bill to one of them and said in Spanish that he was in a great hurry.

Still, it seemed to take forever. As he waited nervously, Bosch kept his eyes on the house, waiting for the rough man to appear. He had watched which direction the valet had gone for his car and he was ready to bolt that way if necessary. He began to wish he had his gun. Whether he really needed it or not did not matter. In this moment he knew it gave him a sense of security that he felt naked without.

The surfer in a suit appeared at the top of the driveway and strode down toward Bosch. At the same time, Bosch saw his Mustang approaching. He walked out into the street, ready to take it. The surfer got to him first.

“Hey, buddy, hold on a sec—”

Bosch turned from his approaching car and hit him in the jaw, sending him backward onto the driveway. He moaned and rolled onto his side, both hands clutching his jaw. Bosch was sure the jaw was dislocated if not broken. He shook away the pain in his hand as the Mustang screeched to a stop.

The man in the red vest was slow in getting out. Bosch pulled him away from the open door and jumped in. As he settled in behind the wheel he looked up the driveway and saw the rough man was now coming. When he saw the surfer on the ground, he started running but his steps were unsteady on the downgrade of the driveway. Bosch saw his heavy thighs pressing the fabric of his pants and suddenly he slipped and fell. Two of the red vests went to help him up but he angrily shoved them away.

Bosch gunned the car and sped away. He worked his way up to Mulholland and turned east toward home. He could feel adrenaline surging through him. Not only had he gotten away, but it was clear he had struck a nerve with a hammer. Let Mittel think about that for a while, he thought. Let him sweat. Then he yelled out loud in the car, though no one could hear except himself.

“Spooked ya, didn’t I, you fuck!”

He banged his palm triumphantly on the steering wheel.

Chapter Nineteen

H
E DREAMED OF
the coyote again. The animal was on a mountain path where there were no homes, no cars, no people. It was moving very quickly through the dark as if it was trying to get away. But the path and place were his. He knew the land and knew he would escape. What it was he fled from was never clear, never seen. But it was there, behind him in the dark. And the coyote knew by instinct it must get away.

The phone woke Bosch, breaking into the dream like a knife stabbed through paper. Bosch pulled the pillow off his head, rolled to his right and his eyes were immediately assaulted by the light of dawn. He had forgotten to close the blinds. He reached for the phone on the floor.

“Hold on,” he said.

He put the phone down on the bed, sat up and rubbed a hand across his face. He squinted at the clock. It was ten minutes after seven. He coughed and cleared his throat, then picked the phone back up.

“Yeah.”

“Detective Bosch?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Brad Hirsch. I’m sorry to call so early.”

Bosch had to think a moment. Brad Hirsch? He had no idea who it was.

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he said while he continued to search his mind for the name.

A silence followed.

“I’m the one…In Latents? Remember, you—”

“Hirsch? Yeah, Hirsch. I remember. What’s up?”

“I wanted to tell you I made the AFIS run you wanted. I came in early and ran it with another search I’m doing for Devonshire Homicide. I don’t think anybody will know.”

Bosch kicked his legs over the side of the bed, opened a drawer in the bed table and took out a pad and a pencil. He noticed that he had taken the pad from the Surf and Sand Hotel in Laguna Beach. He remembered he had spent a few days with Sylvia there the year before.

“Yeah, you made the run? What’d you get?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I’m sorry but I got nothing.”

Bosch threw the pad back into the open drawer and threw himself backward on the bed.

“No hits?”

“Well, the computer came up with two candidates. I then did a visual comparison and it was no good. No matches. I’m sorry. I know this case means…”

He didn’t finish.

“You took it through all the data bases?”

“Every one on our network.”

“Let me ask you something. All those data bases, do they include DA’s employees and LAPD personnel?”

There was silence as Hirsch must have been mulling over what the question might mean.

“You there, Hirsch?”

“Yes. The answer is yes.”

“How far back? You know what I mean? These bases have prints going how far back?”

“Well, each data base is different. The LAPD’s is extensive. I’d say we have prints on everybody who’s worked here since World War II.”

Well, that clears Irving and the rest of the cops, Bosch thought. But that didn’t bother him much. His sights were definitely somewhere else.

“What about people working for the DA?”

“The DA’s office would be different,” Hirsch said. “I don’t think they started printing employees until the middle sixties.”

Conklin had been there during that time, Bosch knew, but he would already have been elected DA. It would seem that he would not have submitted his own prints, especially if he knew there was a print card in a murder book somewhere that could possibly be matched to him.

He thought of Mittel. He would have been out of the DA’s office by the time employees’ prints were taken as a matter of course.

“What about the federal base?” he asked. “What if some guy worked for a president and got the kind of clearance you need to go visit the White House, would those prints be in that base?”

“Yes, they’d be in twice. In the federal employees base and in the FBI’s. They keep prints on record of everyone they do background investigations on, if that’s what you mean. But remember, just because somebody visits the president, it doesn’t mean they get printed.”

Well, Mittel isn’t a scratch but it’s close, Bosch thought.

“So what you’re saying,” Bosch said, “is that whether or not we have complete data files going back to 1961, whoever belongs to those prints I gave you hasn’t been printed since then?”

“That’s not one hundred percent but it’s close. The person who left these prints probably hasn’t been printed—at least by any contributor to the data banks. We can only reach so far with this. One way or another we can pull prints on one out of about every fifty or so people in the country. But I just didn’t get anything this time. Sorry.”

“That’s okay, Hirsch, you tried.”

“Well, I guess I’ll be getting back to work now. What do you want me to do with the print card?”

Bosch thought a moment. He wondered if there was any other avenue to chase down.

“Tell you what, can you just hold on to it? I’ll come by the lab and pick it up when I can. Probably be by later today.”

“Okay, I’ll put it in an envelope for you in case I’m not here. Good-bye.”

“Hey, Hirsch?”

“Yeah?”

“It feels good, don’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“You did the right thing. You didn’t get a match but you did the right thing.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He was acting like he didn’t understand because he was embarrassed, but he understood.

“Yeah, I’ll see you Hirsch.”

After hanging up, Bosch sat on the side of the bed, lit a cigarette and thought about what he was going to do with the day. The news from Hirsch was not good but it wasn’t daunting. It certainly didn’t clear Arno Conklin. It might not even have cleared Gordon Mittel. Bosch wasn’t sure whether Mittel’s work for presidents and senators would have required a fingerprint check. He decided his investigation was still intact. He wasn’t changing any plans.

He thought about the night before and the wild-ass chance he had taken confronting Mittel the way he had. He smiled at his own recklessness and thought about what Hinojos might make of it. He knew she’d say it was a symptom of his problem. She wouldn’t see it as a tactful way of flushing the bird from the bush.

He got up and started the coffee and then showered, shaved and got ready for the day. He took his coffee and the box of cereal from the refrigerator out to the deck, leaving the sliding door open so he could hear the stereo. He had KFWB news on.

It was cool and crisp outside but he could tell it would get warmer later. Blue jays were swooping in and out of the arroyo below the deck and he could see black bees the size of quarters working in the yellow flowers of the primrose jasmine.

There was a story on the radio about a building contractor making a fourteen-million-dollar bonus for completing the rebuilding of the 10 freeway three months ahead of schedule. The officials who gathered to announce the engineering feat likened the fallen freeway to the city itself. Now that it was back upright, so, too, was the city. The city was on the move again. They had a lot to learn, Bosch thought.

Afterward, he went in and got out the yellow pages and started working the phone in the kitchen. He called the major airlines, shopped around and made arrangements to fly to Florida. But flying on one day’s notice, the best deal he could get was still seven hundred dollars, a shocking amount to him. He put it on a credit card so that he could pay it off over time. He also reserved a rental car at Tampa International Airport.

When he had that finished he went back out to the deck and thought about the next project he had to tackle:

He needed a badge.

For a long time he sat on the deck chair and contemplated whether he needed it for his own sense of security or because it was a bona fide necessity to his mission. He knew how naked and vulnerable he had felt this week without the gun and the badge, extremities he had carried on his body for more than twenty years. But he had avoided the temptation to carry the back-up gun that he knew was in the closet next to the front door. That he could do, he knew. But the badge was different. More so than the gun, the badge was the symbol of what he was. It opened doors better than any key, it gave him more authority than any words, than any weapon. He decided the badge was a necessity. If he was going to Florida and was going to scam McKittrick, he had to look legit. He had to have a badge.

He knew his badge was probably in a desk drawer in Assistant Chief Irving S. Irving’s office. There was no way he could get to it and not be discovered. But he knew where there was another one that would work just as well.

Bosch looked at his watch. Nine-fifteen. It was forty-five minutes until the daily command meeting at Hollywood Station. He had plenty of time.