The Concrete Blonde (41 page)

There was a TV and VCR on a cart in the corner. He went to it and opened the video storage drawer below the VCR but it was empty except for a round metal object the size of a hockey puck. Bosch picked it up and looked at it but could not tell what it was. He thought it might be from the weight set upstairs. He put it back and closed the drawer.

He opened the drawers of the white dresser but found nothing but women's underwear in the top drawer. The second drawer held a box containing a palette of varying colors of eye makeup and several brushes. There was also a round plastic container of beige facial powder. The makeup containers were for home use, too large to carry in a purse and therefore could not have come from any of the Follower's victims. They belonged to whoever used this room.

There was nothing at all in the bottom three drawers. He looked at himself in the mirror above the bureau and saw he was sweating again. He knew he was using too much time. He looked at his watch; sixty minutes had gone by now.

Bosch opened the closet door and immediately launched himself backward as a jolt of fear punched into his chest. He took cover to the side of the door while drawing his gun.

“Ray! That you?”

No one answered. He realized he was leaning against the light switch for the deep, walk-in closet. He flicked it on and swung into the doorway in a low crouch, his gun pointing at the man he had seen when he opened the door.

He quickly reached outside the door and killed the light. On the shelf above the clothes bar was a round Styro-foam ball on which sat a wig of long black hair. Bosch caught his breath and stepped all the way into the closet. He studied the wig without touching it. How does this fit? he wondered. He turned to his right and found more pieces of women's sheer lingerie and a few thin silk dresses on hangers. On the floor beneath them, parked toe-in to the wall, was a pair of red shoes with stiletto heels.

On the other side of the closet, behind some clothes in dry-cleaner bags, stood a camera tripod. Bosch's adrenaline began flowing again at a quicker pace. He quickly raised his eyes and began looking among the boxes on the shelves above the clothing bar. One box was marked with Japanese writing and he carefully pulled it down, finding it surprisingly heavy. Opening it, he found a video camera and cassette recorder.

The camera was large and he recognized that it was not a department store-bought piece of equipment. It was more like the kind of camera Bosch had seen used by TV news crews. It had a detachable industrial battery and a strobe. It was connected by an eight-foot coaxial cable to the recorder. The recorder had a playback screen and editing controls.

He thought that Mora's having such obviously expensive equipment was curious but he did not know what to make of it. He wondered if the vice cop had seized it from a porno producer and never turned it in to the evidence lockup. He pressed a button that opened the cassette housing on the recorder but it was empty. He repacked the equipment in the box and replaced it on the shelf, all the while wondering why a man with such a camera would have only blank tapes. He realized, as he took another quick look around the closet, that the tapes he had found so far might have recently been erased. He knew if that was the case, Mora might have tumbled to the surveillance.

He looked at his watch. Seventy minutes. He was pushing the envelope.

As he closed the closet door and turned around, he caught his own image in the mirror over the bureau. He quickly turned to the door to go. That was when he saw the rack of lights on a track running high on the wall above the bedroom door. There were five lights and he did not need to turn them on to be able to tell they focused on the bed.

He focused on the bed himself for a moment as he began to put it together. He took another glance at his watch, though he already knew it was time to go, and headed for the door.

As he crossed the room he looked at the TV and VCR again and realized that he had forgotten something. He quickly dropped to his knees in front of the machines and turned the VCR on. He hit the eject button and a videocas-sette popped out. He pushed it back in and hit the rewind button. He turned the TV on and pulled out the rover.

“One, how we doing?”

“Movie's getting out now. I'm watching for him.”

That wasn't right, Bosch knew. No general release movie was that short. And he knew the Dome was a single theater. One movie shown at a time. So Mora had gone into the theater after the movie had started. If he had really gone in. An adrenaline-charged alert swept over him.

“You sure it's over, One? He's barely been in there an hour.”

“We're going in!”

There was panic in Sheehan's voice. Then Bosch understood. We're going in. Opelt had not followed Mora into the theater. They had clicked off on Rollenberger's order to split up but they hadn't followed the order. They couldn't. Mora had seen Sheehan and Opelt the day before at the burrito stand by Central Division. There was no way one of them could go into a dark theater looking for Mora and risk being seen by the vice cop first. If that happened, Mora would instantly tumble to the setup. He would know. Sheehan had rogered the order from Rollen-berger because the alternative was to tell the lieutenant that they had fucked up the day before.

The VCR rewind clicked off. Bosch sat there motionless, his finger poised in front of the VCR. He knew they had been made. Mora was a cop. He had made the tail. The theater stop had been a scam.

He hit the play button.

This tape had not been erased. The quality of the image on it was better than Bosch had seen in the video booth at X Marks the Spot four nights earlier. The tape had all the production values of a feature-length porno tape. Framed in the TV picture was the four-poster bed on which two men were engaged in sex with a woman. Bosch watched for a moment and hit the fast forward button while the picture was still on the screen. The players in the video began a quick jerking motion that was almost comedic. Bosch watched as they changed couplings over and over. Every conceivable coupling in fast speed. Finally, he returned it to normal speed and studied the players.

The woman did not fit the Follower's mold. She wore the black wig. She was also rail-thin and young. In fact, she wasn't a woman—legally, at least. Bosch doubted she was more than sixteen years old. One of her partners was young, too, perhaps he was her age or less. Bosch couldn't be sure. He was sure, however, that the third participant was Ray Mora. His face was turned away from the camera but Bosch could tell. And he could see the gold medal, the Holy Spirit, bouncing on his chest. He turned the tape off.

“I forgot about that tape, didn't I?”

Still on his knees in front of the television, Bosch turned. Ray Mora was standing there with a gun pointed at his face.

“Hey, Ray.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Don't worry about it. Look, Ray, why don't you put—”

“Don't look at me.”

“What?”

“I don't want you to look at me! Turn around, look at the screen.”

Bosch obediently looked at the blank screen.

“You're a leftie, right? With your right hand take out your gun and slide it across the floor this way.”

Bosch carefully followed the orders. He thought he heard Mora pick the gun up off the floor.

“You fucks think I'm the Follower.”

“Look, I'm not going to lie to you, Ray, we were checking you out, that's all… . I know now, I know we're wrong. You—”

“The kosher burrito boys. Somebody ought to teach them how to follow a fucking suspect. They don't know shit … took me a while but I figured something was going down after I saw them.”

“So we're wrong about you, right, Ray?”

“You have to ask, Bosch? After what you just saw? The answer is, yeah, you got your head up your ass. Whose idea was it to check me out? Eyman? Leiby?”

Eyman and Leiby were the co-commanders of Administrative Vice.

“No. It came from me. It was my call.”

A long moment of silence followed this confession.

“Then maybe I ought to just blow your head off right here. Be within my rights, wouldn't it?”

“Look, Ray—”

“Don't!”

Bosch stopped from turning all the way and looked back at the television.

“You do that, Ray, and your life unalterably changes. You know that.”

“It did that as soon as you broke in, Bosch. Why shouldn't I just take it to the logical conclusion? Cap you and just disappear.”

“'Cause you're a cop, Ray.”

“Am I? Am I still going to be a cop if I let you go? You going to kneel there and tell me you'll make it right for me?”

“Ray, I don't know what to tell you. Those kids on the video are underage. But I only know that because of an illegal search. You end this now and put away the gun, we can work something out.”

“Yeah, Harry? Can everything go back to the way it was? The badge is all I've got. I can't give—”

“Ray. I—”

“Shut up! Just shut up! I'm trying to think.”

Bosch felt the anger hitting him in the back like rain.

“You know my secret, Bosch. How the fuck does that make you feel?”

Bosch had no answer. His mind was tumbling, trying to come up with the next move, the next sentence, when he flinched at the sound of Sheehan's voice coming over the rover in his pocket.

“We lost him. He's not in the theater.”

There was a sharp degree of urgency in Sheehan's voice.

Bosch and Mora were silent, listening.

“What do you mean, Team One?” Rollenberger's voice said.

“Who's that?” Mora asked.

“Rollenberger, RHD,” Bosch answered.

Sheehan's voice said, “The movie got out ten minutes ago. People came out but he didn't. I went in, he's gone. His car is still here but he's gone.”

“I thought one of you went in?” Rollenberger barked, his own voice tightening with panic.

“We did, but we lost him,” Sheehan said.

“Liar,” Mora said. A long moment of silence followed before he said, “Now, they'll probably start hitting the hotels, looking for me. Because to them, I'm the Follower.”

“Yes,” Bosch said. “But they know I'm here, Ray. I should call in.”

As if on cue, Sheehan's voice came from the rover.

“Team Six?”

“That's Sheehan, Ray. I'm Six.”

“Call him. Be careful, Harry.”

Bosch slowly took the radio out of his pocket with his right hand and held it up to his mouth. He pressed the transmitter.

“One, did you find him?”

“Negative. In the wind. What's on TV?”

“Nothing. There's nothing on tonight.”

“Then you ought to leave the house and help us out.”

“Already on the way,” Bosch said quickly. “Where are you at?”

“Bo—uh, Team Six, this is Team Leader, we need you to come in. We're bringing in the task force to help locate the suspect. All units will meet at the Dome parking lot.”

“Be there in ten. Out.”

He dropped his arm back to his side.

“A whole task force, huh?” Mora asked.

Bosch looked down and nodded.

“Look, Ray, that was all code. They know I went to your house. If I don't show up at the Dome in ten minutes they'll come looking for me here. What do you want to do?”

“I don't know … but I guess that gives me at least fifteen minutes to decide, doesn't it?”

“Sure, Ray. Take your time. Don't make a mistake.”

“Too late for that,” he said, almost wistfully. Then he added, “Tell you what. Take out the tape.”

Bosch ejected the tape and held it up over his left shoulder to Mora.

“No, no, I want you to do this for me, Harry. Open the bottom drawer and take out the magnet.”

That's what the hockey puck was. Bosch put the tape on top of the stand next to the TV and reached down for the magnet. Feeling its heaviness as he lifted it, he wondered if he'd have a chance, if he could maybe turn and hurl it at Mora before the vice cop got off a shot.

“You'd be dead before you tried,” Mora said, knowing his thoughts. “You know what to do with it.”

Bosch ran the magnet over the top side of the tape.

“Let's put it in and see how we did,” Mora instructed.

“Okay, Ray. Whatever you say.”

Bosch put the tape into the VCR and pushed the play button. The screen filled with the static of a dead channel. It cast a grayish shroud of dull light over Bosch. He hit the fast forward button and the static continued. The tape had been wiped clean.

“Good,” Mora said. “That ought to do it. That was the last tape.”

“No evidence, Ray. You're in the clear.”

“But you'll always know. And you'll tell them, won't you, Harry? You'll tell IAD. You'll tell the world. I'll never be clear, so don't fuckin' say I'll be clear. Everyone will know.”

Bosch didn't answer. After a moment, he thought he heard the creaking of the wood floor. When Mora spoke, he was very close behind.

“Let me give you a tip, Harry… . Nobody in this world is who they say they are. Nobody. Not when they're in their own room with the door shut and locked. And nobody knows anybody, no matter what they think… . The best you can hope for is to know yourself. And sometimes when you do, when you see your true self, you have to turn away.”

Bosch heard nothing for several seconds. He kept his eyes on the television screen and thought he could see ghosts forming and disintegrating in the static. He felt the grayish-blue glow burning behind his eyes and the start of a headache. He hoped he was going to live long enough to get it.

“You were always a good guy to me, Harry. I—”

There was a sound from the hallway, then a shout.

“Mora!”

It was Sheehan's voice. Immediately it was followed by light that flooded the room. Bosch heard the pounding of several feet on the wood floor, then there was a shout from Mora and the sound of impact as he was tackled. Bosch took his thumb off the rover's transmit button and began to throw himself to the right, out of harm's way. And in that moment, a gunshot cracked across the room, echoing, it seemed, as loudly as anything he had ever heard.

28

Once Bosch had cleared the rover channel, Rollenberger came up almost immediately.