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 door knob 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 half-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 ahead a’me.”
He was playing it smart, Bosch noticed, not coming closer than five or six feet even though he had the gun. Once Bosch was through the door, the man issued directions. They walked down a hallway, through what looked like a living room and then through another room that Bosch thought would also qualify as a living room. This one Bosch recognized by the French doors and windows. It was the room off the party lawn at Mittel’s mansion on Mount Olympus.
“Go out the door. He’s waiting for you out there.”
“What did you hit me with, man?”
“Tire iron. Hope it put a splinter in your skull, but it don’t matter if it did or didn’t.”
“Well, I think it did anyway. Congratulations.”
Bosch stopped at one of the French doors as if he expected it to be opened for him. Outside the party tent was gone. And out near the edge of the overhang he saw Mittel standing with his back turned to the house. He was silhouetted by the lights of the city extending out into infinity from below.
“Open it.”
“Sorry, I thought…never mind.”
“Yeah, never mind. Just get out there. We don’t have all night.”
Out on the lawn, Mittel turned around. Bosch could see he was holding the badge wallet with his ID in one hand and the lieutenant’s badge in the other. The gunman stopped Bosch with a hand on his shoulder, then moved back to his six-foot distance.
“So, then, Bosch is the real name?”
Bosch looked at Mittel. The former prosecutor turned political backdoor man smiled.
“Yes. That’s the real name.”
“Well, then, how do you do, Mr. Bosch?”
“It’s Detective, actually.”
“Detective, actually. You know, I was wondering about that. Because that’s what this ID card says but then this badge says something completely different. It says lieutenant. And that’s curious. Wasn’t that a lieutenant I read about in the papers? The one who was found dead and without his badge? Yes, I’m sure it was. And wasn’t his name, Harvey Pounds, the same name that you used when you were parading around here the other night? Again, I think so, but correct me if I am wrong, Detective Bosch.”
“It’s a long story, Mittel, but I am a cop. LAPD. If you want to save yourself a few years in prison, you’ll get this old fuck with the gun away from me and call me an ambulance. I’ve got a concussion, at least. It might be worse.”
Before speaking, Mittel put the badge in one of the pockets of his jacket and the ID wallet in the other.
“No, I don’t think we’ll be making any calls on your behalf. I think things have gone a little too far for humanitarian gestures like that. Speaking of the human existence, it’s a shame that your play here the other night cost an innocent man his life.”
“No. It’s a fucking crime you killed an innocent man.”
“Well, I was thinking more along the lines that it was you who killed him. I mean, of course, you are ultimately responsible.”
“Just like a lawyer, passing the buck. Should’ve stayed out of politics, Gordie. Stuck to the law. You’d probably have your own TV commercials by now.”
Mittel smiled.
“And what? Given up all of this?”
He spread his arms to take in the house and the magnificent view. Bosch followed the arc of his arm to look at the house but he was really trying to get a bead on the other man, the one with the gun. He spotted him standing five feet directly behind him, the gun at his side. He was still too far away for Bosch to risk making a move. Especially in his condition. He moved his arm slightly and felt the billiard ball nesting in the crook of his elbow. It was reassuring to him. It was all he had.
“The law is for fools, Detective Bosch. But I must correct you. I don’t really consider myself to be in politics. I consider myself to be just a fixer. A solver of problems of any kind for anyone. Political problems just happen to be my forte. But now, you see, I have to fix a problem that is neither political nor someone else’s. This one is my own.”
He raised his eyebrows as though he could hardly believe it himself.
“And that’s why I have invited you here. Why I asked Jonathan to bring you along. You see, I had an idea that if we watched Arno Conklin, our mystery party crasher of the other night would eventually show up. And I wasn’t disappointed.”
“You’re a clever man, Mittel.”
Bosch turned his head slightly so that he could see Jonathan in his peripheral vision. He was still out of reach. Bosch knew he had to draw him closer.
“Hold your ground, Jonathan,” Mittel said. “Mr. Bosch is not one to get excited about. Just a minor inconvenience.”
Bosch looked back at Mittel.
“Just like Marjorie Lowe, right? She was just a minor inconvenience. Just a nobody who didn’t count.”
“Now, that’s an interesting name to bring up. Is that what this is about, Detective Bosch?”
Bosch stared at him, too angry to speak.
“Well, the only thing I can admit to is that I did use her death to my advantage. I saw it as an opportunity, you could say.”
“I know all about it, Mittel. You used her to get control of Conklin. But eventually even he saw through your lies. It’s over now. It doesn’t matter what you do to me here, my people will be coming. You can count on it.”
“The old give-up-the-place-is-surrounded-ploy. I don’t think so. This badge business…something tells me that you’ve exceeded your bounds on this one. I think maybe this is what they call an unofficial investigation and the fact that you used a false name before and were carrying a dead man’s badge tend to bear me out…I don’t think anyone is coming. Are they?”
Bosch’s mind raced but he drew a blank and remained silent.
“I think you’re just a small-time extortionist who stumbled onto something somehow and wants a payoff to go away. Well, we’re going to give you a payoff, Detective Bosch.”
“There are people who know what I know, Mittel,” Bosch blurted. “What are you going to do, go out and kill them all?”
“I’ll take that suggestion under advisement.”
“What about Conklin? He knows the whole story. Anything happens to me, I guarantee he’ll go right to the cops.”
“As a matter of fact, you could say Arno Conklin is with the police right now. But I don’t think he’s saying much.”
Bosch dropped his head and slumped a little. He had guessed that Conklin was dead but had hoped he was wrong. He felt the billiard ball move in his sleeve and he folded his arms again to cover up.
“Yes. Apparently, the former district attorney threw himself from his window after your visit.”
Mittel stepped aside and pointed out into the lights below. Far off Bosch could see the cluster of lighted buildings that were Park La Brea. And he could see blue and red lights flashing at the base of one of the buildings. It was Conklin’s building.
“Must have been a truly traumatic moment,” Mittel continued. “He chose death rather than give in to extortion. A principled man to the end.”
“He was an old man!” Bosch yelled angrily. “Goddamnit, why?”
“Detective Bosch, keep your voice down or Jonathan will have to lower it for you.”
“You’re not getting away this time,” Bosch said in a lower, tighter, controlled voice.
“As far as Conklin goes, I assume the final declaration will be suicide. He was very sick, you know.”
“Right, a guy with no legs walks over to the window and decides to throw himself out.”
“Well, if the authorities don’t believe that, then maybe they will come up with an alternate scenario when they find your fingerprints in the room. I’m sure you obliged us by leaving a few.”
“Along with my briefcase.”
That hit Mittel like a slap across the face.
“That’s right. I left it there. And there’s enough in it to bring them up this mountain to see you, Mittel. They’ll come for you!”
Bosch yelled the last line at him as a test.
“Jon!” Mittel barked.
Almost before the word was out of Mittel’s mouth, Bosch was clubbed from behind. The impact came on the right side of the neck and he went down to his knees, careful to keep his arm bent and the heavy ball in place. He slowly, more slowly than was needed, got up. Since the impact had been on the right, he assumed that Jonathan had hit him with his gun hand.
“By providing me with the location of the briefcase, you have answered the most important question I had,” Mittel said. “The other, of course, was what was in the briefcase and how it would concern me. Now, the problem I have is that without the briefcase or the ability to get it I have no way of checking the veracity of what you tell me here.”
“So I guess you’re fucked.”
“No, Detective, I think that would more accurately describe your situation. However, I have one other question before you go off. Why, Detective Bosch? Why were you bothering with something so old and so meaningless?”
Bosch looked at him for a long time before answering.
“Because everybody counts, Mittel. Everybody.”
Bosch saw Mittel nod in the direction of Jonathan. The meeting was over. He had to make his play.
“Help!”
Bosch yelled it as loudly as he could. And he knew the gunman would make his move toward him immediately. Anticipating the same swing of the gun to the right side of the neck, Bosch spun to his right. As he moved he straightened his left arm and used the centrifugal force of the move to let the billiard ball roll down his sleeve into his hand. In continuing the move, he swung his arm up and out. And as he turned his face he saw Jonathan inches behind him, swinging his own hand down, the fingers laced around the Beretta. He also saw the surprise on Jonathan’s face as he realized his swing would surely miss and that his momentum prevented him from correcting the course.
After Jonathan’s arm went by harmlessly and he was vulnerable, Bosch’s arm arced downward. Jonathan made a last-second lunge to his left but the billiard ball in Bosch’s fist still caught him with a glancing blow to the right side of his head. It made a sound like a lightbulb popping and Jonathan’s body followed the momentum of his falling arm. He fell face first on the grass, his body on top of the gun.
Almost immediately, the man tried to get up and Bosch delivered a vicious kick to his ribs. Jonathan rolled off the gun and Bosch came down on his body with his knees, swinging his fist into the back of his head and neck two more times before realizing that he still gripped the billiard ball and that he had hurt the man enough.
Breathing as if he had just come up for air, Bosch glanced around and saw the gun. He quickly grabbed it up and looked for Mittel. But he was gone.
The slight sound of running on grass caught his attention and he looked to the far northern line of the lawn. He caught a glimpse of Mittel then, just as he disappeared into the darkness at the spot where the flat, manicured grass gave way to the rugged brush of the hilltop.
“Mittel!”
Bosch jumped up and followed. At the point where he had last seen Mittel, he found a path worn into the brush. He realized it was an old coyote trail that had been widened over time by human feet. He raced down it, the yawning drop-off to the city below no more than two feet on his right.
He saw no sign of Mittel and followed the trail along the edge of the drop-off until the house was no longer in sight behind him. Finally he stopped after coming across nothing that indicated Mittel was even near or had taken this path.
Breathing heavily, his head pounding where he was wounded, Bosch came upon a steep bluff rising off the side of the trail and saw that it was ringed with old beer bottles and other debris. The bluff was a popular lookout spot. He put the gun in his waistband and then used his hands for balance and purchase as he climbed ten feet to its top. He did a slow three-sixty-degree turn while on top of the bluff but saw nothing. He listened but the hiss of the city’s traffic precluded any chance of his hearing Mittel moving in the brush. He decided to give it up, to get back to the house and call out an air unit before Mittel could get away. They’d find him with a spotlight if the chopper could get out here quickly enough.
As he gingerly slid back down the bluff, Mittel suddenly came at him from the darkness to the right. He had been hiding behind a thick growth of brush and Spanish sword plants. He dove into Bosch’s midsection, knocking him down onto the trail, his weight on top of him. Bosch felt the man’s hands going for the gun still in his waistband. But Bosch was younger and stronger. The surprise attack was Mittel’s last card. Bosch closed his arms around him and rolled to his left. Suddenly, the weight was off and Mittel was gone.
Bosch sat up and looked about, then pulled himself over to the edge. He pulled the gun out of his waistband and then leaned over and looked down. There was only darkness when he looked directly down the side of the rugged hill. He could see the rectangular roofs of houses about a hundred and fifty yards down. He knew they were built along the twisting roads that fed off Hollywood Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. He did another complete turn and then looked down again. He didn’t see Mittel anywhere.
Bosch surveyed the scene beneath him in its entirety until his eyes caught the backyard lights flicking on behind one of the houses directly below. He watched as a man came out of the house carrying what looked like a rifle. The man slowly approached a round backyard spa platform, the rifle pointed ahead of him. The man stopped at the edge of the spa and reached to what must have been the outdoor electrical box.
The tub light came on, silhouetting the body of a man floating in a circle of blue. Even from on top of the hill Bosch could see the swirls of blood seeping from Mittel’s body. Then the voice of the man with the rifle came up the hillside intact.
“Linda, don’t come out! Just call the police. Tell them we got a body in our hot tub.”
Then the man looked up the hillside and Bosch moved back away from the edge. Immediately, he wondered why he’d had the instinctive reaction to hide.
He got up and slowly made his way back to Mittel’s house along the path. As he walked, he looked out across the city at the lights shimmering in the night and thought it was beautiful. He thought about Conklin and Pounds and then pushed the guilt out of his mind with thoughts about Mittel, about how his death finally closed the circle begun so long ago. He thought of the image of his mother in Monte Kim’s photo. Her looking timidly around the edge of Conklin’s arm. He waited for the feeling of satisfaction and triumph that he knew was supposed to come with vengeance accomplished. But none of it ever came to him. He only felt hollow and tired.
When he got back to the perfect lawn behind the perfect mansion, the man called Jonathan was gone.