Trunk Music (19 page)

“Just sit tight,” Iverson said. “We’ll hear your sorry side of things. But we’re going to have a look around first.”

He took the warrant out of his pocket and dropped it on Goshen’s chest.

“There’s your warrant.”

“I can’t read it.”

“Not my fault you didn’t stay in school.”

“Just hold it up for me.”

Iverson ignored him and looked at the others.

“Okay, let’s split up and see what we’ve got here. Harry, you take this room, okay, keep our friend here company?”

“Right.”

Iverson then addressed the two uniforms.

“I want one of you guys in here. Just stand out of the way and keep your eyes on douche bag here.”

One of the uniforms nodded and the others left the room. Bosch and Goshen looked at each other.

“I can’t read this thing,” Goshen said.

“I know,” Bosch said. “You said that.”

“This is bullshit. It’s just a roust. You couldn’t possibly have anything on me because I didn’t do it.”

“Then who’d you have do it? Gussie?”

“No, man, nobody. There’s no way you’ll be able to pin this on me. No fucking way. I want my lawyer.”

“As soon as you’re booked.”

“Booked for what?”

“For murder, Lucky.”

Goshen continued his denials and demands for a lawyer while Bosch ignored him and started looking around the room, checking the drawers of the dresser. He glanced back at Goshen every few seconds. It was like walking around a lion’s cage. He knew he was safe but that didn’t stop him from checking. He could tell Goshen was watching him in the mirror over the bed. When the big man finally quieted, Bosch waited a few moments and then started asking questions. He did it casually while he continued the search, as if he didn’t really care about the answers.

“So where were you Friday night?”

“Fuckin’ your mother.”

“She’s dead.”

“I know it. It wasn’t all that good.”

Bosch stopped what he was doing and looked at him. Goshen wanted him to hit him. He wanted the violence. It was the playing field he understood.

“Where were you, Goshen? Friday night.”

“Talk to my lawyer.”

“We will. But you can talk, too.”

“I was working the club. I have a fucking job, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. When did you work till?”

“I don’t know. Four. I go home after that.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Where were you, in that office?”

“That’s right.”

“Anybody see you? You ever come out before four?”

“I don’t know. Talk to my lawyer.”

“Don’t worry. We will.”

Bosch went back to the search and opened the closet door. It was a walk-in but it was only a third lined with clothes. Goshen lived light.

“Fuckin’ A it’s right,” Goshen called from the bed. “You go check. Check it out.”

The first thing Bosch did was to turn over the two pairs of shoes and the Nikes that were lined on the floor. He studied the sole patterns and none of them appeared even remotely like the pattern found on the bumper of the Rolls and Tony Aliso’s hip. He glanced back out at Goshen to make sure the big man wasn’t moving. He wasn’t. Bosch next reached to the shelf above the clothes rod. He took a box down and found it full of photos. They were eight by ten publicity shots of dancers. They weren’t nudes. Each young woman was posed provocatively in a skimpy costume. Each one’s name was printed in the white border below the photo, accompanied by the name and number of Models A Million, which Bosch guessed was a local agency that provided dancers to clubs. He looked through the box until he found a photo with the name Layla on it.

He studied the photo of the woman he had been looking for the previous night. She had long flowing brown hair with blond highlights, a full figure, dark eyes and bee sting lips. In the photo they were parted just enough to show a hint of white teeth. She was a beautiful woman and there was something familiar about her but he couldn’t place it. He decided that maybe the familiarity was the sexual malice that all the women in the photos and those whom he had seen the night before in the club seemed to convey.

Bosch took the box out of the closet and dropped it on the bureau. He held the picture of Layla out of it.

“What’s with the pictures, Lucky?”

“They’re all the girls I’ve been with. How ’bout you, cop? You had that many? I bet the ugliest one in there is better than the best one you’ve ever had.”

“So what do you want to do, compare pricks, too? I’m glad you’ve had your fill of women, Lucky, ’cause there aren’t going to be any more. I mean, sure, you’ll be able to fuck or be fucked. It just won’t be with women is all I’m saying.”

Goshen was quiet while he contemplated this. Bosch put the photo of Layla on the bureau next to the box.

“Look, Bosch, just tell me what you guys’ve got and I’ll tell you what I know so we can get this straightened out. You’re wrong on this. I didn’t do anything, so let’s get this over with, stop wasting each other’s time.”

Bosch didn’t answer. He went back into the closet and hiked up on his toes to see if there was anything else on the shelf. There was. A small cloth folded like a handkerchief. He took it down and unfolded it. It was soiled with oil. He smelled it and recognized it.

Bosch came out of the closet, tossed the rag so it hit Goshen in the face and fell onto the bed.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know. What is it?”

“It’s a rag with gun oil on it. Where’s the gun?”

“I don’t have a gun and that isn’t mine, either. Never saw it before.”

“Okay.”

“What do you mean, okay? I never fuckin’ saw it before.”

“I mean, okay, Goshen. That’s all. Don’t get nervous.”

“It’s hard with you people sticking your nose up my ass.”

Bosch bent over the night table. He opened the top drawer, found an empty cigarette box, a set of pearl earrings and an unopened box of condoms. Bosch threw the box at Goshen. It bounced off his huge chest and fell to the floor.

“You know, Goshen, just buying them ain’t safe sex. You gotta put ’em on.”

He opened the bottom drawer. It was empty.

“How long you lived here, Goshen?”

“Moved in right after I kicked your sister out on her ass. Put her on the street. Last I seen, she was selling it over on Fremont outside the Cortez.”

Bosch straightened up and looked at him. Goshen was smiling. He wanted to provoke something. He wanted to control things, even handcuffed on the bed. Even if it cost him some blood.

“My mother, now my sister, who’s next, my wife?”

“Yeah, I got something planned for her. I’ll —”

“Shut up, would you? It’s not working, understand? You’re not getting to me. You can’t get to me. So save your strength.”

“Everybody can be gotten to, Bosch. Remember that.”

Bosch looked at him and then stepped into the master bathroom. It was a large room with a separate shower and tub, almost in the same configuration as the room Tony Aliso had used at the Mirage. The toilet was in a small closet-size room behind a door with a slatted grill. Bosch started there. He quickly lifted the top of the water tank and found nothing unusual. Before putting the porcelain top back in place he leaned over the toilet and looked down the wall behind the tank. What he saw made him immediately call for the uniform in the bedroom.

“Yes, sir?” the cop said.

He looked like he wasn’t yet twenty-five. His black skin had almost a bluish tint to it. He kept his hands on his equipment belt in a relaxed mode, his right just a few inches from his gun. It was the standard pose. Bosch saw that the nameplate above his breast pocket said Fontenot.

“Fontenot, take a look down here behind the tank.”

The cop did as he was asked without even taking his hands off his belt.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I think it’s a gun. Why don’t you step back and let me pull it out.”

Bosch flattened his hand and reached it down into the two-inch space between the wall and the tank. His fingers closed on a plastic bag attached to the back of the tank with gray duct tape. He managed to pull it free and get the bag out. He held it up for Fontenot to see. The bag contained a blue metal pistol equipped with a three-inch screw-on silencer.

“A twenty-two?” Fontenot asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Bosch said. “Go get Felton and Iverson, would you?”

“Right away.”

Bosch followed Fontenot out of the bathroom. He was holding the bag containing the gun the way a fisherman holds a fish by its tail. When he stepped into the bedroom he couldn’t help but smile at Goshen, whose eyes noticeably widened.

“That ain’t mine,” Goshen immediately protested. “That’s a plant, you fuck! I don’t be — Get me my goddamned lawyer, you son of a bitch!”

Bosch let the words go by but studied the look. He saw something flash in Goshen’s eyes. It was there for only a second and then he covered up. It wasn’t fear. He didn’t think that was something Goshen would let slip into his eyes. Bosch believed he had seen something else. But what? He looked at Goshen and waited a moment for the look to return. Was it confusion? Disappointment? Goshen’s eyes showed nothing now. But Bosch believed he knew the look. What he had seen had been surprise.

Iverson, Baxter and Felton then filed into the room. They saw the gun and Iverson yelped in triumph.

“Sayonara,
bay-bee!
”

His glee showed on his face. Bosch explained how and where he had found the weapon.

“These fuckhead gangsters,” Iverson said, looking at Goshen. “Think the cops never saw
The Godfather?
Who’d you put it there for, Goshen? Michael Corleone?”

“I said get me my fucking lawyer!” Goshen yelled.

“You’ll get your lawyer,” Iverson said. “Now get up, you piece of shit. You gotta get dressed for the ride in.”

Bosch held him at gunpoint while Iverson took one of the cuffs off. Then they both pointed guns at him while he got dressed in black jeans, boots and T-shirt — the shirt manufactured for a much smaller man.

“You guys are always tough in numbers,” Goshen said as he went about putting the clothes on. “You ever come up against me alone, then it’s going to be wet ass time.”

“Come on, Goshen, we don’t have all day,” Iverson said.

When he was done, they cuffed him and stuffed him into the back of Iverson’s car. Iverson locked the gun in the trunk, then they went back inside the house. In a short meeting inside the front hallway it was decided that Baxter and two of the other detectives would stay behind to finish the search of the house.

“What about the women?” Bosch asked.

“The uniforms will watch them until these boys are done,” Iverson said.

“Yeah, but as soon as they leave they’ll be on the phone. We’ll have Goshen’s lawyer down our throat before we even get started.”

“I’ll take care of that. Goshen’s got one car here, right? Where’s the keys?”

“Kitchen counter,” one of the other detectives said.

“Okay,” Iverson said. “We’re out of here.”

Bosch followed him through the kitchen, watching him pocket the keys that were on the counter, and then out into the carport by the Corvette. There was a little workroom here with tools hanging on a peg board. Iverson selected a shovel and then stepped out of the carport and around to the back yard.

Bosch followed and watched as Iverson found the spot where the telephone line came in from a pole at the street and connected to the house. He swung the shovel up and with one strike disconnected the line.

“Amazing how strong the wind can get out here in the open desert,” he said.

He looked around behind the house.

“Those girls have no car and no phone,” he said. “Nearest house is a half mile, city’s about five. My guess is they’ll stay put a while. That’ll give us time. All we need.”

Iverson took a baseball swing with the shovel and launched it out over the property wall and into the scrub brush. He started walking toward the front of the house and his car.

“What do you think?” Bosch asked.

“I think the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Goshen’s ours, Harry. Yours.”

“No. I mean about the gun.”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know.…It seems too easy.”

“Nobody said criminals gotta be smart. Goshen’s not smart. He’s just been lucky. But not anymore.”

Bosch nodded but he still didn’t like it. It wasn’t really a question of being smart or not. Criminals followed routines, instincts. This didn’t make sense.

“I saw something in his eyes when he saw the gun. Like he was just as surprised to see it as we were.”

“Maybe. Maybe he’s just a good actor. And maybe it’s not even the right gun. You’ll have to take it back with you to run tests. Find out if it’s the gun, Harry, then worry about if it’s too easy.”

Bosch nodded. He took out a cigarette and lit it.

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Look, Harry, you want to make a case or not?”

“I want a case.”

“Then let’s take him in and put him in a room, see what he has to say.”

They were at the car. Bosch realized he had left the photo of Layla inside. He told Iverson to start the car and he’d be right back. When he came back with the photo and got in, he checked Goshen in the back and saw a trickle of blood running down from the corner of his mouth. Bosch looked at Iverson, who was smiling.

“I don’t know, he must’ve bumped his face getting in. Either that or he did it on purpose to make it look like I did it.”

Goshen said nothing and Bosch just turned around. Iverson pulled the car out onto the road and they headed back toward the city. The temperature was climbing rapidly and Bosch could already feel the sweat sticking his shirt to his back. The air conditioner labored to overcome the heat that had built up in the car while they were inside the house. The air was as dry as old bones. Bosch finally took out the Chap Stick and rolled it across his sore lips. He didn’t care what Iverson or Goshen thought about it.

They took Goshen up to the detective bureau in a back elevator in which Goshen audibly farted. Then Bosch and Iverson walked him down a hallway off the squad room and into an interview room barely larger than a rest-room stall. They handcuffed him to a steel ring bolted to the center of the table and locked him in. Then they left him there. As Iverson closed the door, Goshen called after him that he wanted to make his phone call.