The Concrete Blonde (31 page)

“Speaking of Bremmer, there he is. Maybe he wants to check a detail or two with you after we're done.”

“Harry, it's not me.”

Bosch let him get away with the Harry that time. He was getting tired and depressed with this scene. He wanted to get it over with and get out of there, go see Sylvia.

“How many times did you talk to her?”

“Every night.”

“She turned it on you, didn't she? You had to go see her.”

“I was stupid. I needed the money. Once I met her the first night she had me by the balls. She said she wanted updates on the investigation or she'd tell you I was the leak, she'd inform IAD. Fuck, she never even paid me.”

“What happened tonight to make her split early?”

“She said the case was over, going to closing arguments tomorrow, so it didn't matter what was happening in the case. She cut me loose.”

“But it won't end there. You know that, don't you? Whenever she needs a plate run, an address from DMV, a witness's unlisted number, she's going to call you. She's got you, man.”

“I know. I'll have to deal with it.”

“All for what? What was the price, that first night?”

“I wanted one goddamn mortgage payment… . Can't sell the fuckin' house, can't make the mortgage, I don't know what I'm going to do.”

“What about me? Aren't you worried about what I'm going to do?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Bosch looked back at the quartet. They were staying with a Strayhorn set and were on to “Blood Count.” There was a journeyman quality to the sax man's work. He stayed on point and his phrasing was clean.

“What are you going to do?” Edgar asked.

Bosch didn't have to think, he already knew. He didn't take his eyes from the sax man as he spoke.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It's what you are going to do. I can't work with you anymore, man. I know we got this thing with Irving but that's it, that's the end. After this is over you go to Pounds and tell him you want to transfer out of Hollywood.”

“But there aren't openings in homicide anywhere else. I looked at the board, you know how rarely they come.”

“I didn't say anything about homicide. I just said you're going to ask for a transfer. You ask for the first thing open, understand? I don't care if you end up on autos in the Seventy-seventh, you take the first thing you can get.”

Now he looked at Edgar, whose mouth was slightly open, and said, “That's the price you pay.”

“But homicide is what I do, you know that. It's where it's at.”

“And you're not where it's at anymore. This isn't negotiable. Unless you want to take your chances with IAD. But either you go to Pounds or I go to them. I can't work with you anymore. That's it.”

He looked back at the band. Edgar was silent and after a few moments Bosch told him to leave.

“You go first. I can't walk with you back to Parker.”

Edgar stood up and hovered near the table for a few moments before saying, “Someday, you're going to need all the friends you can get. That's the day you'll remember doing this to me.”

Without looking at him, Bosch said, “I know.”

After Edgar had gone Bosch got the barmaid's attention and ordered another round. The quartet played “Rain Check” with some improvisational riffs that Bosch liked. The whiskey was beginning to warm his gut and he sat back and smoked and listened, trying not to think about anything to do with cops and killers.

But soon he felt a presence nearby and turned to see Bremmer standing there with his bottle of beer in hand.

“I take it by the look on Edgar's face when he left that he won't be coming back. Can I join you?”

“No, he won't be back and you can do whatever you want, but I'm off duty, off the record and off the road.”

“In other words, you ain't saying shit.”

“You got it.”

The reporter sat down and lit a cigarette. His small but sharp green eyes squinted through the smoke.

“It's okay, 'cause I'm not working either.”

“Bremmer, you're always working. Even now, I say the wrong word and you aren't going to forget about it.”

“I suppose. But you forget the times we worked together. The stories that helped you, Harry. I write one story that doesn't go the way you want and all of that is forgotten. Now I'm just ‘that damn reporter’ who—”

“I haven't forgotten shit. You're sitting here, right? I remember what you did for me and I'll remember what you did against me. It all evens out in the end.”

They sat in silence for a while and listened to the music. The set ended just as the barmaid was putting Bosch's third double Jack Black on the table.

“I'm not saying I would ever reveal it,” Bremmer said, “but how come my source on the note story was so important?”

“It's not that important anymore. At the time I just wanted to know who was trying to nail me.”

“You said that before. That someone was setting you up. You really think that?”

“It doesn't matter. What kind of story did you write for tomorrow?”

The reporter straightened up and and his eyes brightened.

“You'll see it. Pretty much a straight court story. Your testimony about someone else continuing the killings. It's going out front. It's a big story. That why I'm here. I always come in for a pop after I hit the front page.”

“Party time, huh? What about my mother? Did you put that stuff in?”

“Harry, if that's what you are worried about, forget it. I didn't even mention that in the story. To be honest, it's of course vitally interesting to you, but as far as a newspaper story goes, I thought it was too much inside baseball. I left it out.”

“Inside baseball?”

“Too arcane, like the stats those sports guys on TV throw around. You know, like how many fastballs Lefty So and So threw during the third inning of the fifth game of the 1956 World Series. I thought the stuff with your mother—Chandler's attempt to use it as your motivation for dropping this guy—was going too far inside.”

Bosch just nodded. He was glad that part of his life would not be in the hands of a million newspaper buyers tomorrow, but he acted nonchalant about it.

“But,” Bremmer said, “I gotta tell you, if we get a verdict back on this that goes against you and the jurors start saying they thought you did it to avenge your mother's death, then that is usable and I won't have a choice.”

Bosch nodded again. It seemed fair enough. He looked at his watch and saw it was nearly ten. He knew he should call Sylvia and he knew he should get out of there before the next set started and he became entranced by the music again.

He finished his drink and said, “I'm gonna hit it.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Bremmer said. “I'll walk out with you.”

Outside, the chilled night air cut through Bosch's whiskey daze. He said good-bye to Bremmer and put his hands in his pockets as he started down the sidewalk.

“Harry, you walking all the way back to Parker Center? Hop in. My car is right here.”

Bosch watched Bremmer unlock the passenger door to his Le Sabre, which was parked right at the curb in front of the Wind. Bosch got in without a word of thanks and leaned over and unlocked the other side. When he was drunk he went through a stage where he said almost nothing, just vegetated in his own juices and listened.

Bremmer started the conversation during the four blocks to Parker Center.

“That Money Chandler is something else, isn't she? She really knows how to play a jury.”

“You think she's got it, don't you?”

“It's going to be close, Harry. I think. But even if it's one of those statement verdicts that are popular these days against the LAPD, she'll get rich.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“You haven't been in federal court before have you?”

“No. I try not to make it a habit.”

“Well, in a civil rights case, if the plaintiff wins—in this case, Chandler—then the defendant—in this case the city is paying your tab—has to pay the lawyer's fees. I guarantee you, Harry, that in her closing argument tomorrow Money will tell those jurors that all they need to do is make a statement that you acted wrongly. And even damages of a dollar make that statement. The jury will see that as the easy way out. They can say you were wrong and only give a dollar in damages. They won't know, because Belk is not allowed to tell them, that even if the plaintiff wins a dollar, Chandler bills the city. And that won't be a dollar. More like a couple hundred thousand of them. It's a scam.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that's the justice system.”

Bremmer pulled into the lot and Bosch pointed out his Caprice in one of the front rows.

“You going to be all right to drive?” Bremmer asked.

“No problem.”

Bosch was about to close the door when Bremmer stopped him.

“Hey, Harry, we both know I can't reveal my source. But I can tell you who it isn't. And I'll tell you it is not someone you'd expect. You know? Edgar and Pounds, if that's who you think it is, forget it. You'd never guess who it was, so don't bother. Okay?”

Bosch just nodded and shut the door.

21

After fumbling to find the right one, Bosch put the key in the ignition but didn't turn it. He briefly considered whether he should try to drive or whether he should go get coffee from the cafeteria first. He looked up through the windshield at the gray monolith that was Parker Center. Most of the lights were on but he knew the offices had emptied. The lights of the squad rooms were always left on to give the appearance that the fight against crime never sleeps. It was a lie.

He thought of the couch that was kept in one of the RHD interrogation rooms. That was also an alternative to driving. Unless, of course, it was already taken. But then he thought of Sylvia and how she had come to court despite what he had said about not wanting her there. He wanted to get home to her. Yes, he thought, home.

He put his hand on the key but then dropped it away again. He rubbed his eyes. They were tired and there were so many thoughts swimming in the whiskey. There was the sound of the tenor sax floating there, too. His own improvisational riff.

He tried to think of what Bremmer had just said, that Bosch would never guess who the source was. Why had he said it that way? He found that more tantalizing than wondering who his source actually was.

It didn't matter, he told himself. All would be over soon. He leaned his head against the side window, thinking about the trial and his testimony. He wondered how he had looked up there, all eyes on him. He never wanted to be in that position again. Ever. To have Honey Chandler cornering him with words.

Whoever fights monsters, he thought. What had she told the jury? About the abyss? Yes, where monsters dwell. Is that where I dwell? In the black place? The black heart, he remembered then. Locke had called it that. The black heart does not beat alone. In his mind he replayed the vision of Norman Church being knocked upright by the bullet and then flopping helplessly naked on the bed. The look in the dying man's eyes stayed with him. Four years later and the vision was as clear as yesterday. Why was that, he wanted to know. Why did he remember Norman Church's face and not his own mother's? Do I have the black heart, Bosch asked himself. Do I?

The darkness came up on him then like a wave and pulled him down. He was there with the monsters.

There was a sharp rap on the glass. Bosch abruptly opened his eyes and saw the patrolman next to the car holding his baton and flashlight. Harry quickly looked around and grabbed the wheel and put his foot on the brake. He didn't think he had been driving that badly, then he realized he hadn't been driving at all. He was still in the Parker Center lot. He reached over and rolled the window down.

The kid in the uniform was the lot cop. The lowest-rated cadet in each academy class was first assigned to watch the Parker Center lot during
P.M.
watch. It was a tradition but it also served a purpose. If the cops couldn't prevent car break-ins and other crime in the parking lot of their own headquarters, then it begged the question, where could they stop crime?

“Detective, are you all right?” he said as he slid his baton back into the ring on his belt. “I saw you get dropped off and get in your car. Then when you didn't leave I wanted to check.”

“Yes,” Bosch managed to say. “I'm, uh, fine. Thanks. I musta dozed off there. Been a long day.”

“Yes, they all are. Be careful now.”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay driving?”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

He waited until the cop walked away before starting the car. Bosch looked at his watch and figured he had slept for no more than thirty minutes. But the nap, and the sudden waking, had refreshed him. He lit a cigarette and pulled the car out onto Los Angeles Street and took it to the Hollywood Freeway entrance.

As he drove north on the freeway he rolled the window down so the cool air would keep him alert. It was a clear night. Ahead of him, the lights of the Hollywood Hills ascended into the sky where spotlights from two different locations behind the mountains cut through the darkness. He thought it was a beautiful scene, yet it made him feel melancholy.

Los Angeles had changed in the last few years, but then there was nothing new about that. It was always changing and that was why he loved it. But riot and recession had left a particularly harsh mark on the landscape, the landscape of memory. Bosch believed he would never forget the pall of smoke that hung over the city like some kind of supersmog that could not be lifted by the evening winds. The TV pictures of burning buildings and looters unchecked by the police. It had been the department's darkest hour and it still had not recovered.

And neither had the city. Many of the ills that led to such volcanic rage were still left untended. The city offered so much beauty and yet it offered so much danger and hate. It was a city of shaken confidence, living solely on its stores of hope. In Bosch's mind he saw the polarization of the haves and have-nots as a scene in which a ferry was leaving the dock. An overloaded ferry leaving an overloaded dock, with some people with a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock. The boat was pulling further away and it would only be so long before those in the middle would fall in. Meanwhile, the ferry was still too crowded and it would capsize at the first wave. Those left on the dock would certainly cheer this. They prayed for the wave.