“You didn’t think that it was just a little too coincidental that he got killed?”
“Things are so much clearer in hindsight.” He shook his head sadly. “At the time I remember being thrilled with my luck. The one thorn in my side had been removed by serendipity. You have to remember, at the time I had no inkling that Marjorie’s death was in any way connected to me. I simply saw Fox as being a man on the make. When he was removed through the luck of an automobile mishap, I was pleased. A deal was made with a reporter to keep Fox’s background on the QT and everything was fine . . . But, of course, it wasn’t. It never was. Gordon, genius that he was, didn’t plan on me not being able to get over Marjorie. And I’m still not.”
“What about McCage?”
“Who?”
“McCage Incorporated. Your payoffs to the cop. Claude Eno.”
Conklin was quiet a moment while he composed an answer.
“Of course, I knew Claude Eno. I didn’t care for him. And I never paid him a dime.”
“McCage was incorporated in Nevada. It was Eno’s company. You and Mittel are both listed as corporate officers. It was a payoff scam. Eno was getting a grand a month from somewhere. You and Mittel.”
“No!” Conklin said as forcefully as he could. The word came out as little more than a cough. “I don’t know about McCage. Gordon could have set it up, even signed for me or made me sign unwittingly. As district attorney he took care of things for me. I signed when he told me to sign.”
He said it while looking directly at Bosch and Harry believed him. Conklin had admitted to far worse deeds. Why would he lie about paying off Eno?
“What did Mittel do when you folded your tent, when you told him you were through?”
“By then he was already quite powerful. Politically. His law firm represented the city’s upper tier and his political work was branching out, growing. Still, I was the centerpiece. The plan was to take the attorney general’s office and then the governor’s mansion. Who knows what after that. So Gordon . . . he was unhappy. I refused to see him but we talked on the phone. When he could not convince me to change my mind, he threatened me.”
“How?”
“He told me that if I ever attempted to assault his reputation, he would see to it that I was indicted for Marjorie’s death. And I had no doubt that he could have done it.”
“From best man to greatest enemy. How’d you ever get hooked up with him?”
“I guess he slipped in the door while I wasn’t looking. I never saw the real face until it was too late . . . I don’t think in my life I’ve come across anyone as cunningly focused as Gordon. He was— is— a dangerous man. I’m sorry I ever brought your mother into his path.”
Bosch nodded. He had no more questions and didn’t know what else to say. After a few moments during which Conklin seemed to be lost in thought, the old man spoke up.
“I think, young man, that you only run into a person that is a perfect fit once in your life. When you find the one that you think fits, then grab on for dear life. And it’s no matter what she’s done in the past. None of that matters. Only the holding on matters.”
Bosch nodded again. It was all he could think of to do.
“Where did you meet her?”
“Oh . . . I met her at a dance. She was introduced and, of course, she was younger than me so I didn’t think there would be any interest from her. But I was wrong . . . We danced. We dated. And I fell in love.”
“You didn’t know about her past?”
“At the time, no. But she told me eventually. By then I didn’t care.”
“What about Fox?”
“Yes, he was the liaison. He introduced us. I didn’t know who he was, either. He said he was a businessman. You see, for him, it was a business move. Introduce the girl to the prosecutor, sit back and see what happens. I never paid her and she never asked me for money. All the while we fell in love, Fox must have been weighing his options.”
Bosch wondered if he should take the photo from Monte Kim out of his case and show it to Conklin, but he decided not to tempt the old man’s memory with the reality of a photo. Conklin spoke while Bosch was still thinking about it.
“I’m very tired now and you never answered my question.”
“What question?”
“Did you come here to kill me?”
Bosch looked at his face and his useless hands and realized he felt the stirring of sympathy.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just knew I was coming.”
“You want to know about her?”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
Bosch thought about the question. His own memories of his mother were dim and fading farther all the time. And he had few recollections about her that came from others.
“What was she like?” he said.
Conklin thought for a moment.
“She is hard for me to describe. I felt a great attraction to her . . . that crooked smile . . . I knew she had secrets. I suppose all people do. But hers ran deep. And despite all of that, she was full of life. And, you see, I didn’t think I was at the time we met. That’s what she gave to me.”
He drank from the glass of water again, emptying it. Bosch offered to get more but Conklin waved off the offer.
“I had been with other women and they wanted to show me off like a trophy,” he said. “Your mother wasn’t like that. She’d rather stay at home or take a picnic basket to Griffith Park than go to the clubs on the Sunset Strip.”
“How did you find out about . . . what she did?”
“She told me. The night she told me about you. She said she needed to tell me the truth because she needed my help. I have to admit . . . the shock was . . . I initially thought of myself. You know, protecting myself. But I admired her courage in telling me and I was in love by then. I couldn’t turn away.”
“How did Mittel know?”
“I told him. I regret it to this day.”
“If she . . . If she was as you described her, why did she do what she did? I’ve never . . . understood.”
“I haven’t, either. As I told you, she had her secrets. She didn’t tell me them all.”
Bosch looked away from him and out the window. The view was to the north. He could see the lights of the Hollywood Hills glimmering in the mist from the canyons.
“She used to tell me that you were a tough little egg,” Conklin said from behind him. His voice was almost hoarse now. It was probably more talking than he had done in months. “She once told me that she knew it didn’t matter what happened to her because you were tough enough to make it through.”
Bosch said nothing. He just looked through the window.
“Was she right?” the old man asked.
Bosch’s eyes followed the crestline of the hills directly north. Somewhere up there the lights glowed from Mittel’s spaceship. He was up there somewhere waiting for Bosch. He looked back at Conklin, who was still waiting for an answer.
“I think maybe the jury’s still out.”
Chapter 40
Bosch leaned against the stainless steel wall of the elevator as it descended. He realized how different his feelings were from those that he held while the elevator had been carrying him up. He had ridden up with hatred pounding in his chest like a cat in a burlap bag. He didn’t even know the man he carried it for. Now he looked upon that man as a pitiful character, a half of a man who lay with his frail hands folded on the blanket, waiting, maybe hoping, for death to come and end his private misery.
Bosch believed Conklin. There was something about his story and his pain that seemed too genuine to be dismissed as an act. Conklin was far beyond posing. He was facing his grave. He had called himself a coward and a puppet and Bosch could think of nothing much harsher that a man could put on his own tombstone.
In realizing that Conklin spoke the truth, Bosch knew that he had already met the real enemy face to face. Gordon Mittel. The strategist. The fixer. The killer. The man
who held the strings to the puppet. Now they would meet again. But this time, Bosch planned to make it on his terms.
He pushed the L button again as if that might coax the elevator to descend faster. He knew it was a useless gesture but he did it again.
When the elevator finally opened, the lobby seemed empty and sterile. The guard was there, behind his desk, working on his word puzzle. There wasn’t even the sound of a far-off TV. Only the silence of old people’s lives. He asked the guard if he needed him to sign out and he was waved off.
“Look, sorry I was an asshole before,” Bosch offered.
“Don’t worry about it, partner,” the guard replied. “It gets to the best of us.”
Bosch wondered what the “it” was he was talking about but said nothing. He nodded solemnly, as if he got most of his life lessons from security guards. He pushed through the glass doors and headed down the steps into the parking lot. It was getting cool and he turned up the collar of his jacket. He saw the sky was clear and the moon as sharp as a sickle. As he approached the Mustang he noticed the trunk of the car next to it was open and a man was bent over, attaching a jack to the rear bumper. Bosch picked up his pace and hoped he wouldn’t be asked to help out. It was too cold and he was tired of talking to strangers.
He passed the crouched man and then, not used to the rental car keys, he fumbled as he tried to get the proper key into the Mustang’s door lock. Just as he got the key in the slot, he heard a shoe scuff along the pavement behind him and a voice said, “Excuse me, fella.”
Bosch turned, trying to quickly think of an excuse for why he couldn’t help the man. But all he saw was the blur of the other man’s arm coming down. Then he saw an explosion of red the color of blood.
Then all he saw was black.
Chapter 41
Bosch followed the coyote again. But this time the animal did not take him on the path through the mountain brush. The coyote was out of his element. He led Bosch up a steep incline of pavement. Bosch looked around and realized he was on a tall bridge over a wide expanse of water that his eyes followed to the horizon. Bosch became panicked as the coyote got too far ahead of him. He chased the animal but it crested the rise of the bridge and disappeared. The bridge was now empty, except for Bosch. He struggled to the top and looked around. The sky was blood red and seemed to be pulsing with the sound of a heartbeat.
Bosch looked in all directions but the coyote was gone. He was alone.
But suddenly he wasn’t alone. The hands of someone unseen grabbed him from behind and pushed him toward the railing. Bosch struggled. He swung his elbows wildly and dug his heels in and tried to stop his movement to the edge. He tried to speak, to yell for help, but nothing came from his throat. He saw the water shimmering like the scales of a fish below him.
Then, as quickly as they had taken hold of him, the hands were gone and he was alone. He spun around and no one was there. From behind he heard a door close sharply. He turned again and there was no one. And there was no door.
Chapter 42
Bosch woke up in darkness and pain to the sound of muffled shouting. He was lying on a hard surface and at first it was a struggle just to move. Eventually, he slid his hand across the ground and determined it was carpet. He knew he was inside somewhere, lying on a floor. Across the expanse of darkness he saw a small line of dim light. He stared at it for some time, using it as a focal point, before realizing that it was the crack of light emitted at the bottom edge of a door.
He pulled himself up into a sitting position and the movement made his interior world slide and melt like a Dalí painting. A feeling of nausea came over him and he closed his eyes and waited for several seconds until equilibrium returned. He raised his hand to the side of his head where the pain came from and found the hair matted with a stickiness he knew by smell was blood. His fingers carefully traced the matted hair to a two-inch-long gash in his scalp. He touched it gingerly and determined that the blood had clotted for now. The wound was no longer bleeding.
He didn’t think he could stand so he crawled toward the light. The dream of the coyote broke into his mind and then disappeared in a flash of red pain.
He found the doorknob was locked. That didn’t surprise him. But the effort exhausted him. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Inside, his instinct to seek a means of escape and his desire to lay up and mend fought for his attention. The battle was interrupted only by the start of the voices again. Bosch could tell they did not come from the room on the other side of the door. They were farther away, yet near enough to be understood.
“Stupid fuck!”
“Look, I tol’ you, you didn’t say anything about any briefcase. You—”
“There had to have been one. Use your common sense.”
“You said bring the man. I brang the man. You want, I go back to the car and look for a briefcase. But you dint say nothin’ about—”
“You can’t go back, you fool! The place will be crawling with cops. They probably have his car and the briefcase already.”
“I didn’t see any briefcase. Maybe he didn’t have one.”
“And maybe I should have depended on someone else.”
Bosch realized that they were talking about him. He also recognized the angry voice as belonging to Gordon Mittel. It had the crisp delivery and haughtiness of the man Bosch had met at the fund-raiser. The other voice Bosch didn’t recognize, though he had a good idea who it was. Though defensive and submissive, it was a gruff voice full of the timbre of violence. Bosch guessed it was the man who had hit him. And he imagined that to be the man he had seen Mittel with inside the house during the fund-raiser.
It took Bosch several minutes to consider the content of what they were arguing about. A briefcase. His briefcase. It wasn’t in the car, he knew. Then he realized he must have forgotten it, left it in Conklin’s room. He had brought it up with him so he could take out the photo Monte Kim had given him and the bank statements from Eno’s safe deposit box and confront the old man with his lies. But the old man hadn’t lied. He hadn’t denied Bosch’s mother. And so the photo and statements weren’t necessary. The briefcase lay at the foot of the bed, forgotten.
He thought about the last exchange he had heard. Mittel told the other man he could not go back, that the police would be there. This made no sense to him. Unless someone had witnessed the attack on him. Maybe the security guard. It gave him hope, then he dashed it himself when he thought of another possibility. Mittel was taking care of all the loose ends and Conklin had to be one of them. Bosch slumped against the wall. He knew he was now the last loose end. He sat there in silence until he heard Mittel’s voice once more.
“Go get him. Bring him outside.”
As quickly as he could, not yet formulating a plan, Bosch crawled back toward the spot where he thought he had been when he woke up. He rammed into something heavy, put his hands on it and determined it was a pool table. He quickly found the corner and reached into the pocket. His hand closed on a billiard ball. He pulled it out, quickly trying to think of a way to conceal it. Finally, he shoved it inside his sport coat so that it rolled down the inside of the left sleeve to the crook in his elbow. There was more than enough room. Bosch liked large jackets because they gave him room to grab his gun. That made the sleeves baggy. He believed that by cocking his arm he could conceal the heavy ball in the folds of the sleeve.
As he heard a key hit the doorknob, he moved to his right and sprawled on the carpet, closed his eyes and waited. He hoped he was in or close to the spot on the carpet where he had been dropped by his captors. In moments, he heard the door open and then light burned through his eyelids. There was nothing after that. No sound or movement. He waited.
“Forget it, Bosch,” the voice said. “That only works in movies.”
Bosch didn’t move.
“Look, your blood is all over the carpet. It’s on the doorknob here.”
Bosch realized he must have left a trail to the door and back. His hal
f-hatched plan to surprise his captor and overtake him had no chance now. He opened his eyes. There was a light on the ceiling directly overhead.
“All right,” he said. “What do you want?”
“Get up. Let’s go.”
Bosch slowly got up. It was an actual struggle but he added to it, ad libbing a bit. And when he was all the way up, he saw blood on the green felt bumper of the pool table. He quickly stumbled and grabbed the spot for support. He hoped the man in the room had not seen the blood was already there.
“Get away from there, goddamnit. That’s a five-thousand-dollar table. Look at the blood . . . shit.”
“Sorry. I’ll pay for it.”
“Not where you’re going. Let’s go.”
Bosch recognized him. It was the man he guessed it would be. Mittel’s man from the party. And his face matched his voice. Gruff, strong, he had broken a few boards with it. He had a ruddy complexion set off by two small brown eyes that never seemed to blink.
He wore no suit this time. At least that Bosch could see. He was dressed in a bulky blue jumpsuit that looked brand-new. It was a splatter suit. Bosch knew that professional killers often used them. It was easier to clean up after a job and you didn’t mess up your suit. Just zip off the splatter suit, dump it, and you’re on your way.
Bosch stood on his own and took a step but immediately bent over and folded his arms across his stomach. He thought this was the best way to conceal the weapon he had.
“You really hit me, man. My balance is shot. I think I might get sick or something.”
“You get sick and I’ll make you clean it up with your tongue. Like a fuckin’ cat.”
“I guess I won’t get sick then.”
“You’re a funny guy. Let’s go.”
The man backed away from the door and into the room. He then signaled Bosch out. For the first time Bosch saw that he carried a gun. It looked like a Beretta twenty-two and was held down low at his side.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Only a twenty-two. You think you could take maybe two, three shots and still get to me. Wrong. I got hollow points in here. I’ll put you down with one shot. Tear a hole the size of a soup bowl outta your back. Remember that. Walk aheadda me.”