The Concrete Blonde (32 page)

He thought of Edgar and what he had done. He was one of those about to fall in. Nothing could be done about it. He and his wife, whom Edgar could not bring himself to tell about their precarious position. Bosch wondered if he had done the right thing. Edgar had spoken of the time that would come when Bosch would need every friend he could get. Would it have been wiser to bank this one, to let Edgar go, no harm no foul? He didn't know, but there was still time. He would have to decide.

As he drove through the Cahuenga Pass he rolled the window back up. It was getting cold. He looked up into the hills to the west and tried to spot the unlighted area where his dark house sat. He felt glad that he wasn't going up there tonight, that he was going to Sylvia.

He got there at 11:30 and used his own key to get in. There was a light on in the kitchen but the rest of the place was dark. Sylvia was asleep. It was too late for the news and the late-night talk shows never held his interest. He took his shoes off in the living room so as to not make any noise and went down the hall to her bedroom.

He stood still in the complete darkness, letting his eyes adjust.

“Hi,” she said from the bed, though he could not yet see her.

“'Lo.”

“Where have you been, Harry?”

She said it sweetly and with sleep still in her voice. It was not a challenge or a demand.

“I had to do a few things, then I had a few drinks.”

“Hear any good music?”

“Yeah, they had a quartet. Not bad. Played a lot of Billy Strayhorn.”

“Do you want me to fix you something?”

“Nah, go to sleep. You have school tomorrow. I'm not that hungry anyway and I can get something if I want it.”

“C'mere.”

He made his way to the bed and crawled across the down quilt. Her hand came up and around his neck and she pulled him down into a kiss.

“Yes, you did have a few drinks.”

He laughed and then so did she.

“Let me go brush my teeth.”

“Wait a minute.”

She pulled him down again and he kissed her mouth and neck. She had a milky sweet smell of sleep and perfume about her that he liked. He noticed that she was not wearing a nightgown, though she usually did. He put his hand under the covers and traced the flatness of her stomach. He brought it up and caressed her breasts and then her neck. He kissed her again and then pushed his face into her hair and neck.

“Sylvia, thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For coming today and being there. I know what I said before but it meant something to see you when I looked out there. It meant a lot.”

That was all he could say about it. He got up then and went into the bathroom. He stripped off his clothes and carefully hung them on hooks on the back of the door. He would have to wear them again in the morning.

He took a quick shower, then shaved and brushed his teeth with the second set of toiletries he kept in her bathroom. He looked in the mirror as he brushed his damp hair back with his hands. And he smiled. It might have been the residue of the whiskey and beer, he knew. But he doubted it. It was because he felt lucky. He felt that he was neither on the ferry with the mad crowd nor left behind on the dock with the angry crowd. He was in his own boat. With just Sylvia.

They made love the way lonely people do, silently, with each trying too hard in the dark to please the other until they were almost clumsy about it. Still, there was a healing sense about it for Bosch. Afterward, she lay next to him, her finger tracing the outline of his tattoo.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just stuff.”

“Tell me.”

He waited a few moments before answering.

“Tonight I found out somebody betrayed me. Somebody close. And, well, I was just thinking that maybe I'd had it wrong. That it really wasn't me who was betrayed. It was himself. He had betrayed himself. And maybe living with that is punishment enough. I don't think I need to add to it.”

He thought about what he had said to Edgar at the Red Wind and decided he would have to stop him from going to Pounds for the transfer.

“Betrayed how?”

“Uh, consorting with the enemy, I guess you'd call it.”

“Honey Chandler?”

“Yeah.”

“How bad is it?”

“Not too bad, I guess. It's just that he did it that matters. It hurts, I guess.”

“Is there anything you can do? Not to him, I mean. I mean to limit the damage.”

“No. Whatever damage there is, it's already done. I only figured out it was him tonight. It was by accident, otherwise I probably would have never even thought of him. Anyway, don't worry about it.”

She caressed his chest with the tips of her fingernails.

“If you're not worried, I'm not.”

He loved her knowing the boundaries of how much she could ask him, and that she didn't even think to ask him who it was he was talking about. He felt totally comfortable with her. No worries, no anxieties. It was home to him.

He was just beginning to fall off when she spoke again.

“Harry?”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you worried about the trial, how the closing arguments will go?”

“Not really. I don't like being in the fishbowl, sitting at that table while everybody gets their chance to explain why they think I did what I did. But I'm not worried about the outcome, if that's what you mean. It doesn't mean anything. I just want it to be over and I don't really care anymore what they do. No jury can sanction what I did or didn't do. No jury can tell me I was right or wrong. You know? This trial could last a year and it wouldn't tell them everything about that night.”

“What about the department? Will they care?”

He told her what Irving had told him that afternoon about what effect the trial's outcome would have. He didn't say anything about what the assistant chief had said about knowing his mother. But Irving's story crossed through his mind and for the first time since he had been in bed he felt the need for a cigarette.

But he didn't get up. He put the urge out of his mind and they lay quietly for a while after that. Bosch kept his eyes open in the dark. His thoughts were now about Edgar and then they segued to Mora. He wondered what the vice cop was doing at the same moment. Was he alone in the dark? Was he out looking?

“I meant what I said earlier today, Harry,” Sylvia said.

“What's that?”

“That I want to know all about you, your past, the good and the bad. And I want you to know about me… . Don't ignore this. It could hurt us.”

Her voice had lost some of its sleepy sweetness. He was silent and closed his eyes. He knew this one thing was more important to her than anything. She had been the loser in a past relationship where the stories of the past were not used as the building blocks of the future. He brought his hand up and rubbed his thumb along the back of her neck. She always smelled powdery after sex, he thought, yet she had not even gotten up to go into the bathroom. This was a mystery to him. It took him a while to answer her.

“You have to take me without a past… . I've let it go and don't want to go back to examine it, to tell it, to even think about it. I've spent my whole life getting away from my past. You understand? Just because a lawyer can throw it at me in a courtroom doesn't mean I have to …”

“What, tell me?”

He didn't answer. He turned his body into her and kissed and embraced her. He just wanted to hold her, to pull back away from this cliff.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you,” he said.

She pulled herself closer to him and put her face in the crook of his neck. Her arms held him tightly, as if maybe she was scared.

It was the first time he had said it to her. It was the first time he had said it to anyone as far back as he could remember. Maybe he had never said it. It felt good to him, almost like a palpable presence, a warm flower of deep red opening in his chest. And he realized he was the one who was a little bit scared. As if by simply saying the words he had taken on a great responsibility. It was scary yet exciting. He thought of himself in the mirror, smiling.

She held herself pressed against him and he could feel her breath against his neck. In a short while her breathing became more measured as she fell asleep.

Lying awake, Bosch held her like that until well into the night. Now sleep would not come to him and with the insomnia came realities that robbed him of the good feelings he had only minutes before. He had thought about what she had said about betrayal and trust. And he knew that the pledges they spoke to each other this night would founder if built on deception. He knew what she had said was true. He would have to tell her who he was, what he was, if the words he had spoken were ever to be more than words. He thought about what Judge Keyes had said about words being beautiful and ugly on their own. Bosch had spoken the word love. He knew now that he must make it either ugly or beautiful.

The bedroom's windows were on the east side of the house and the light of dawn was just beginning to cling to the edges of the blinds when Bosch finally closed his eyes and slept.

22

Bosch looked rumpled and worn-out when he entered the courtroom Friday morning. Belk was already there, scribbling on his yellow pad. He looked up and appraised him as Bosch sat down.

“You look like shit and smell like an ashtray. And the jury will know that's the same suit and tie you wore yesterday.”

“A clear sign I'm guilty.”

“Don't be such a smartass. You never know what may turn a juror one way or the other.”

“I don't really care. Besides, you're the one who has to look good today, right, Belk?”

This was not an encouraging thing to say to a man at least eighty pounds overweight who broke out in flop sweat every time the judge looked at him.

“What the hell do you mean you don't care? Everything is on the line today and you waltz in looking like you slept in your car and say you don't care.”

“I'm relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit.”

“Why now, Bosch, when I could have settled this for five figures two weeks ago?”

“Because I realize now that there are things more important than what twelve of my so-called peers think. Even if, as peers, they wouldn't give me the time of day on the street.”

Belk looked at his watch and said, “Leave me alone, Bosch. We start in ten minutes and I want to be ready. I'm still working on my argument. I'm going to go shorter than even Keyes demanded.”

Earlier in the trial, the judge had determined that closing arguments would be no longer than a half hour for each side. This was to be divided, with the plaintiff—in the person of Chandler—arguing for twenty minutes followed by the defendant's lawyer—Belk—delivering his entire thirty-minute argument. The plaintiff would then be allowed the last ten minutes. Chandler would have first and last word, another sign, Bosch believed, that the system was stacked against him.

Bosch looked over at the plaintiff's table and saw Deborah Church sitting there by herself, eyes focused straight ahead. The two daughters were in the first row of the gallery behind her. Chandler was not there but there were files and yellow pads laid out on the table. She was around.

“You work on your speech,” he said to Belk. “I'll leave you alone.”

“Don't be late coming back. Not again, please.”

As he had hoped, Chandler was outside smoking by the statue. She gave him a cold glance, said nothing and then took a few steps away from the ash can in order to ignore him. She had on her blue suit—it was probably her lucky suit—and the one tress of blonde hair was loose from the braid at the back of her neck.

“Rehearsing?” Bosch asked.

“I don't need to rehearse. This is the easy part.”

“I suppose.”

“What's that mean?”

“I don't know. I suppose you're freer from the constraints of law during the arguments. Not as many rules of what you can and can't say. I think that's when you'd be in your element.”

“Very perceptive.”

That was all she said. There was no indication that she knew her arrangement with Edgar had been discovered. Bosch had been counting on that when he rehearsed what he was going to say to her. After waking from his brief sleep, he had looked at the events of the night before with a fresh mind and eyes and had seen something that was missed before. It was now his intention to play her. He had thrown her the soft pitch. Now he had a curve.

“When this is over,” he said, “I'd like the note.”

“What note?”

“The note the follower sent you.”

A look of shock hit her face but was then quickly erased with the indifferent look she normally gave him. But she had not been quick enough. He had seen the look in her eyes, she sensed danger. He knew then he had her.

“It's evidence,” he said.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Detective Bosch. I need to get back inside.”

She stubbed a half-smoked cigarette with a lipstick print on the butt into the ash can, then took two steps toward the door.

“I know about Edgar. I saw you with him last night.”

That stopped her. She turned around and looked at him.

“The Hung Jury. A Bloody Mary at the bar.”

She weighed her response and then said, “Whatever he told you, I'm sure it was designed to place him in the best light. I would be careful if you are planning to go public with it.”

“I'm not going public with anything … unless you don't give me the note. Withholding evidence of a crime is a crime in itself. But I don't need to tell you that.”

“Whatever Edgar told you about a note is a lie. I told him noth—”

“And he told me nothing about a note. He didn't need to. I figured it out. You called him Monday after the body was found because you already knew about it and knew it was connected to the Dollmaker. I wondered how, and then it was clear. We got a note but that was secret until the next day. The only one who found out was Bremmer but his story said you couldn't be reached for comment. That was because you were out meeting Edgar. He said you called that afternoon asking about the body. You asked if we got a note. That was because you got a note, Counselor. And I need to see it. If it is different from the one we got, it could be helpful.”