The Black Ice (1993)

  The knob was locked. He stood there unmoving for a long period, listening for something but hearing nothing. Finally, he ducked below the line of windows that fronted the first floor and moved around the house to the side of the four-bay garage. There was another door here and it, too, was locked.

  Bosch recognized the rear of the house from the photographs that had been in Moore’s bag. He saw the sliding doors running along the pool deck. One door was open and the wind buffeted the white curtain. It flapped like a hand beckoning him to come in.

  The open door led to a large living room. It was full of ghosts—furniture covered by musty white sheets. Nothing else. He moved to his left, silently passing through the kitchen and opening a door to the garage. There was one car, which was covered by more sheets, and a pale green panel van. It said MEXITEC on the side. Bosch touched the van’s hood and found it still warm. Through the windshield he saw a sawed-off shotgun lying across the passenger seat. He opened the unlocked door and took the weapon out. As quietly as he could, he cracked it open and saw both barrels were loaded with double-ought shells. He closed the weapon, holstered his own, and carried it with him.

  He pulled the sheet off the front end of the other car and recognized it as the Thunderbird he had seen in the father-and-son photo in Moore’s bag. Looking at the car, Bosch wondered how far back you have to go to trace the reason for a person’s choices in life. He didn’t know the answer about Moore. He didn’t know the answer about himself.

  He went back to the living room and stopped and listened. There was nothing. The house seemed still, empty, and it smelled dusty, like time spent slowly and painfully in wait for something or someone not coming. All the rooms were full of ghosts. He was considering the shape of a shrouded fan chair when he heard the noise. From above, like the sound of a shoe dropping on a wood floor.

  He moved toward the front and in the entry area he saw the wide stone staircase. Bosch moved up the steps. The noise from above was not repeated.

  On the second floor he went down a carpeted hallway, looking through the doors to four bedrooms and two bathrooms but finding each room empty.

  He went back to the stairs and up into the tower. The lone door at the top landing was open and Harry heard no sound. He crouched and moved slowly into the opening, the sawed-off leading the way like a water finder’s divining rod.

  Moore was there. Standing with his back to the door and looking at himself in the mirror. The mirror was on the back of a closet door which was open slightly, angling the glass so that it did not catch Harry’s reflection. He watched Moore unseen for a few moments, then looked around. There was a bed in the center of the room with an open suitcase on it. Next to it was a gym bag that was zipped closed and already appeared to be packed. Moore still had not moved. He was intently staring at the reflection of his face. He had a full beard now, and his eyes were brown. He wore faded blue jeans, new snakeskin boots, a black T-shirt and a black leather jacket with matching gloves. He was Melrose Avenue

  cool. From a distance he could easily pass for the pope of Mexicali.

  Bosch saw the wood grips and chrome handle of an automatic tucked into Moore’s belt.

  “You going to say something, Harry? Or just stare.”

  Without moving his hands or head, Moore shifted his weight to the left and then he and Bosch were staring at each other in the mirror.

  “Picked up a new pair of boots before you put Zorrillo down, didn’t you?”

  Now Moore turned completely to face him. But he didn’t say anything.

  “Keep your hands out front like that,” Bosch said.

  “Whatever you say, Harry. You know, I kinda thought that if somebody came, you’d be the one.”

  “You wanted somebody to come, didn’t you?”

  “Some days I did. Some days I didn’t.”

  Bosch moved into the room and then took a step sideways so he was directly facing Moore.

  “New contacts, beard. You look like the pope—from a distance. But how’d you convince his lieutenants, his guardia. They were just going to stand back and let you move in and take his place?”

  “Money convinced them. They’d probably let you move in there if you had the bread, Harry. See, anything is negotiable when you have your hands on the purse strings. And I did.”

  Moore nodded slightly toward the duffel bag on the bed.

  “How about you? I have money. Not much. About a hundred and ten grand there.”

  “I figured you’d be running away with a fortune.”

  “Oh, I am. I am. What’s in the bag is just what I have on hand. You caught me a little short. But I can get you more. It’s in the banks.”

  “Guess you’ve been practicing Zorrillo’s signature as well as his looks.”

  Moore didn’t answer.

  “Who was he?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who.”

  “Half brother. Different fathers.”

  “This place. This is what it was all about, wasn’t it? It’s the castle you lived in before you were sent away.”

  “Something like that. Decided to buy it after he was gone. But it’s falling apart on me. It’s so hard to take care of something you love these days. Everything is a chore.”

  Bosch tried to study him. He looked tired of it all.

  “What happened back at the ranch?” Bosch asked.

  “You mean the three bodies? Yes, well, I guess you could say justice happened. Grena was a leech who had been sucking Zorrillo for years. Arpis detached him, you could say.”

  “Then who detached Arpis and Dance?”

  “I did that, Harry.”

  He said it without hesitation and the words froze Bosch. Moore was a cop. He knew never to confess. You didn’t talk until there was a lawyer by your side, a plea bargain in place, and a deal that was signed.

  Harry adjusted his sweating hands on the sawed-off. He took a step forward and listened for any other sound in the house. There was only silence until Moore spoke again.

  “I’m not going back, Harry. I guess you know that.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, as if it was a given, something that had been decided a long time ago.

  “How’d you get Zorrillo up to L.A., and then into that motel room? How’d you get his prints for the personnel file?”

  “You want me to tell you, Harry? Then what?”

  Moore looked down at the gym bag briefly.

  “Then nothing. We’re going back to L.A. You haven’t been advised—nothing you can say now can be used against you. It’s just you and me here.”

  “The prints were easy. I was making him IDs. He had three or four so he could come across when he liked. One time he told me he wanted a passport and full wallet spread. I told him I needed prints. Took ’em myself.”

  “And the motel?”

  “Like I said, he crossed over all the time. He’d go through the tunnel and the DEA would be out there sitting on the ranch thinking he was still inside. He liked to come up to see the Lakers, sit down on court level near that blonde actress who likes to get on TV. Anyway, he was up there and I told him I wanted to meet. He came.”

  “And you put him down and took his place. . . . What about the old man, the laborer? What did he do?”

  “He was just in the wrong place. Zorrillo told me he was there when he came up through the floor on the last trip. He wasn’t supposed to be in that room. But I guess he couldn’t read the signs. Zorrillo said he couldn’t take the chance he’d tell someone about the tunnel.”

  “Why’d you dump him in the alley? Why didn’t you just bury him out in Joshua Tree. Someplace he’d never be found.”

  “The desert would’ve been good but I didn’t dump him, Bosch. Don’t you see? They were controlling me. They brought him up here and dumped him there. Arpis did. That night I get a call from Zorrillo telling me to meet him at the Egg and I. He says park in the alley. I did and there was the body. I wasn’t going to move the fucking thing. I called it in
. You see it was one more way for him to keep his hold on me. And I went along. Porter caught the case and I made a deal with him to take it slow.”

  Bosch didn’t say anything. He was trying to envision the sequence Moore had just described.

  “This is getting boring, man. You going to try to cuff me, take me in, be the hero?”

  “Why couldn’t you let it go?” Bosch asked.

  “What?”

  “This place. Your father. The whole thing. You should have let the past go.”

  “I was robbed of my life, man. He kicked us right out. My mother—How do you let go of a past like that? Fuck you, Bosch. You don’t know.”

  Bosch said nothing. But he knew he was allowing this to go on too long. Moore was taking control of the situation.

  “When I heard he was dead, it did something,” Moore said. “I don’t know. I decided I wanted this place and I went to see my brother. That was my mistake. Things started small but they never stopped. Soon I was running the show for him up there. I had to get out from under it. There was only one way.”

  “It was the wrong way.”

  “Don’t bother, Bosch. I know the song.”

  Bosch was sure Moore had told the story the way he believed it. But it was clear to Bosch he had fully embraced the devil. He had found out who he was.

  “Why me?” Bosch asked.

  “Why you what?”

  “Why did you leave the file for me? If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be here. You’d be in the clear.”

  “Bosch, you were my backup. You don’t see? I needed something in case the suicide play didn’t work. I figured you’d get that file and take it from there. I knew with just a little misdirection you would sound the alarm. Murder. Thing is, I never thought you’d get this far. I thought Irving and the rest of them would crush you because they wouldn’t want to know what it was all about. They’d just want the whole thing to die with me.”

  “And Porter.”

  “Yeah, well, Porter was weak. He’s probably better off now, anyway.”

  “And me? Would I be better off if Arpis had hit me with the bullet in the hotel room?”

  “Bosch, you were getting too close. Had to take the shot.”

  Harry had nothing more to say or ask. Moore seemed to sense that they were at a final point. He tried one more time.

  “Bosch, in that bag I have account numbers. They’re yours.”

  “Not interested, Moore. We’re going back.”

  Moore laughed at that notion.

  “Do you really think anybody up there gives a rat’s ass about all of this?”

  Bosch said nothing.

  “In the department?” Moore said. “No fucking way they care. They don’t want to know about something like this. Bad for business, man. But, see, you—you’re not in the department, Bosch. You’re in it but not of it. See what I’m saying? There’s the problem. There’s—you take me back, man, and they’re gonna look at you as being just as bad as me. Because you’ll be pulling this wagon full of shit behind you.

  “I think you’re the only one who cares about it, Bosch. I really think you are. So just take the money and go.”

  “What about your wife? You think she cares?”

  That stopped him, for a few moments, at least.

  “Sylvia,” he said. “I don’t know. I lost her a long time ago. I don’t know if she cares about this or not. I don’t care anymore myself.”

  Bosch watched him, looking for the truth.

  “Water under the bridge,” Moore said. “So take the money. I can get more to you later.”

  “I can’t take the money. I think you know that.”

  “Yeah, I guess I know that. But I think you know I can’t go back with you, either. So where’s that leave us?”

  Bosch shifted his weight on to his left side, the butt of the shotgun against his hip. There was a long moment of silence during which he thought about himself and his own motives. Why hadn’t he told Moore to take the gun out of his pants and drop it?

  In a smooth, quick motion, Moore reached across his body with his right hand and pulled the gun out of his waistband. He was bringing the barrel around toward Bosch when Harry’s finger closed over the shotgun’s triggers. The double-barrel blast was deafening in the room. Moore took the brunt of it in the face. Through the smoke Bosch saw his body jerk backward into the air. His hands flew up toward the ceiling and he landed on the bed. His handgun fired but it was a stray shot, shattering one of the panes of the arched windows. The gun dropped onto the floor.

  Pieces of blackened wadding from the shells floated down and landed in the blood of the faceless man. There was a heavy smell of burned gunpowder on the air and Bosch felt a slight mist on his face that he also knew by smell was blood.

  He stood still for more than a minute, then he looked over and saw himself in the mirror. He quickly looked away.

  He walked over to the bed and unzipped the duffel bag. There were stacks and stacks of money inside it, most of it in one-hundred-dollar bills. There was also a wallet and passport. He opened them and found they identified Moore as Henry Maze, age forty, of Pasadena. There were two loose photos held in the passport.

  The first was a Polaroid that he guessed had come from the white bag. It was a photo of Moore and his wife in their early twenties. They were sitting on a couch, maybe at a party. Sylvia was not looking at the camera. She was looking at him. And Bosch knew why he had chosen this photo to take. The loving look on her face was beautiful. The second photo was an old black and white with discoloration around the edges, indicating it had come from a frame. It showed Cal Moore and Humberto Zorrillo as boys. They were playfully wrestling, both shirtless and laughing. Their skin was bronze, blemished only by the tattoos. Each boy had the Saints and Sinners tattoo on his arm.

  He dropped the wallet and passport back into the duffel bag but put the two photos in his coat pocket. He walked over to the window with the broken pane and looked out onto Coyote Trail and the lowlands leading to the border. No police cars were coming. No Border Patrol. No one had even called for an ambulance. The thick walls of the castle had held the sound of the man dying inside.

  The sun was high in the sky and he could feel its warmth through the triangular opening in the broken glass.

  33

  Bosch did not begin to feel whole again until he reached the smogged outskirts of L.A. He was back in the nastiness again but he knew that it was here that he would heal. He skirted downtown on the freeway and headed up through Cahuenga Pass. Midday traffic was light. Looking up at the hills he saw the charred path of the Christmas-night fire. But he even took some comfort in that. He knew that the heat of the fire would have cracked open the seeds of the wildflowers and by spring the hillside would be a riot of colors. The chaparral would follow and soon there would be no scar on the land at all.

  It was after one. He was going to be too late for Moore’s funeral mass at the San Fernando Mission. So he drove through the Valley to the cemetery. The burial of Calexico Moore, killed in the line of duty, was to be at Eternal Valley in Chatsworth, the police chief, the mayor and the media presiding. Bosch smiled as he drove. We gather here to honor and bury a drug dealer.

  He got there before the motorcade but the media were already set up on a bluff near the entrance road. Men in black suits, white shirts and black ties, with funeral bands around their left arms, were in the cemetery drive and signaled him to a parking area. He sat in the car, using the rearview mirror to put on a tie. He was unshaven and looked crumpled but didn’t care.

  The plot was near a stand of oak trees. One of the armbands had pointed the way. Harry walked across the lawn, stepping around plots, the wind blowing his hair in all directions. He took a position a good distance away from the green funeral canopy and accompanying bank of flowers and leaned against one of the trees. He smoked a cigarette while he watched cars start to arrive. A few had beaten the procession. But then he heard the approaching sound of the helicopters—t
he police air unit that flew above the hearse and the media choppers that started circling the cemetery like flies. Then the first motorcycles cut through the cemetery gate and Bosch watched as the TV cameras on the bluff followed the long line in. There must have been two hundred cycles, Bosch guessed. The best day to run a red light, break the speed limit or make an illegal U-turn in the city was on a cop’s funeral day. Nobody was left minding the store.

  The hearse and attendant limousine followed the cycles. Then came the rest of the cars and pretty soon people were parking all over the place and walking across the cemetery from all directions toward the plot. Bosch watched one of the armbands help Sylvia Moore out of the limo. She had been riding alone. Though he was maybe fifty yards away, Harry could tell she looked lovely. She wore a simple black dress and the wind gusted hard against it, pressing the material against her and showing her figure. She had to hold a black barrette in place in her hair. She wore black gloves and black sunglasses. Red lipstick. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.