Michael Connelly (58 page)

“I told you. I didn’t know him. I had one drink with him once. Just because I happened by chance to be at the same table with him they bring me in?”

She shook her head and looked away, the distress written on her face. This was the way it would always be, she now knew. The criminal record she carried would guarantee it.

“I’ve got to ask you something. I want to get this cleared up and get you out of here.”

“What?”

“Tell me about this man Terrence Quillen.”

He saw the shock in her eyes.

“Quillen? What does he— is he the suspect?”

“Eleanor, you know how this works. I can’t tell you things. You tell me. Just answer the question. Do you know Terrence Quillen?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know him?”

“He came up to me about six months ago when I was leaving the Flamingo. I had been out here four or five months. I was settling in, playing six nights a week by then. He came up to me and in his words told me what’s what. He somehow knew about me. Who I was, that I’d just gotten out. He said there was a street tax. He said I had to pay it, that all the locals paid it, and that if I didn’t there’d be trouble. He said that if I did pay it, he’d watch out for me. Be there if I ever got in a jam. You know how it goes, extortion plain and simple.”

She broke then and started to cry. It took all of Bosch’s will not to get up and try to hold her and comfort her in some way.

“I was alone,” she said. “Scared. I paid. I pay him every week. What was I supposed to do. I had nothing and nowhere to go.”

“Fuck it,” Bosch said under his breath.

He got up and squeezed around the end of the table and grabbed hold of her. He pulled her to his chest and kissed the top of her head.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” he whispered. “I promise you that, Eleanor.”

He held her there in silence for a few moments, listening to her quiet crying, until the door opened and Iverson stood there. He had a toothpick in his mouth.

“Get the fuck out of here, Iverson.”

The detective slowly closed the door.

“I’m sorry,” Eleanor said. “I’m getting you in trouble.”

“No, you’re not. It’s all on me. Everything is on me.”

A few minutes later he walked back into Felton’s office. The captain looked up at him wordlessly.

“She was paying off Quillen to leave her alone. Two hundred a week. That was all it was. The street tax. She doesn’t know anything about anything. She happened by chance to be at the same table as Aliso for about an hour Friday. She’s clean. Now kick her loose. Tell your people.”

Felton leaned back and started tapping his lower lip with the end of a pen. He was showing Bosch his deep-thinking pose.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Okay, this is the deal. You let her go and I make a call to my people.”

“And what’ll you tell ’em?”

“I’ll tell them I’ve gotten excellent cooperation from Metro out here and that we ought to run this as a joint operation. I’ll say we’re going to put the squeeze on Goshen here and go for the two-for-one sale. We’re going to go for Goshen and Joey Marks because Marks was the one who would’ve ultimately pushed the button on Tony Aliso. I’ll say it’s highly recommended that Metro take the lead out here because they know the turf and they know Marks. Do we have a deal?”

Felton tapped out another code message on his lip, then reached over and turned the phone on his desk so Bosch could have access to it.

“Make the call now,” he said. “After you talk to your CO, put me on the line. I want to talk to him.”

“It’s a her.”

“Whatever.”

A half hour later Bosch was driving a borrowed unmarked Metro car with Eleanor Wish sitting crumpled in the passenger seat. The call to Lieutenant Billets had gone over well enough for Felton to keep his end of the deal. Eleanor was kicked loose, though the damage was pretty much done. She had been able to eke out a new start and a new existence, but the underpinnings of confidence and pride and security had all been kicked out from beneath her. It was all because of Bosch and he knew it. He drove in silence, unable to even fathom what to say or how to make it better. And it cut him deeply because he truly wanted to. Before the previous night he had not seen her in five years, but she had never been far from his deepest thoughts, even when he had been with other women. There had always been a voice back there that whispered to him that Eleanor Wish was the one. She was the match.

“They’re always going to come for me,” she said in a small voice.

“What?”

“You remember that Bogart movie where the cop says, ‘Round up the usual suspects,’ and they go out and do it? Well, that’s me now. They are going to mean me. I guess I never realized that until now. I’m one of the usual suspects. I guess I should thank you for slapping me in the face with reality.”

Bosch said nothing. He didn’t know how to respond because her words were true.

In a few minutes they were at her apartment and Bosch walked her in and sat her on the couch.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“When you get a chance, look around and make sure they didn’t take anything.”

“I didn’t have anything to take.”

Bosch looked at the
Nighthawks
print on the wall above her. It was a painting of a lonely coffee shop on a dark night. A man and a woman sitting together, another man by himself. Bosch used to think he was the man alone. Now he stared at the couple and wondered.

“Eleanor,” he said. “I have to go back. I’ll come back here as soon as I can.”

“Okay, Harry, thanks for getting me out.”

“You going to be okay?”

“Sure.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Back at Metro, Iverson was waiting for Bosch before they took their first shot at Goshen. Felton had acceded to leaving Goshen for Bosch. It was still his case.

In the hallway outside the interview room, Iverson tapped Bosch on the arm to stop him before going in.

“Listen, Bosch, I just want to say I don’t know what you got going on with that woman and I guess it’s nobody’s business anymore since the captain let her go, but since we’re going to be working together on Lucky here, I thought I’d clear the air. I didn’t appreciate the way you spoke to me, telling me to get the fuck out and all.”

Bosch looked at him a minute. The detective still had a toothpick in his mouth and Bosch wondered if it was the same one from before.

“You know, Iverson, I don’t even know your first name.”

“It’s John, but people call me Ivy.”

“Well, Iverson, I didn’t appreciate the way you were sneaking around the captain’s office or the interview room. In L.A. we’ve got a name for cops who sneak around and eavesdrop and are assholes on general principle. We call ’em squints. And I don’t really care if you’re offended by me or not. You’re a squint. And you make any trouble for me from here on out and I’ll go right to Felton and make trouble for you. I’ll tell him about finding you in my room today. And if that’s not enough, I’ll tell ‘im that I won six hundred bucks on the wheel in the casino last night but the money disappeared off the bureau after you were there. Now, you want to do this interview or not?”

Iverson grabbed Bosch by the collar and shoved him against the wall.

“Don’t you fuck with me, Bosch.”

“Don’t you fuck with me,
Ivy.
”

A smile slowly cracked across Iverson’s face and he released his grip and stepped back. Bosch straightened his tie and shirt.

“Then let’s do it, cowboy,” Iverson said.

When they squeezed into the interview room, Goshen was waiting for them with his eyes closed, his legs up on the table and his hands laced behind his head. Bosch watched Iverson look down at the torn metal where the cuff ring had been attached to the table. Red flares of anger burst on his cheeks.

“Okay, asshole, get up,” Iverson ordered.

Goshen stood up and brought his cuffed hands up. Iverson got out his keys and took the cuff off one wrist.

“Let’s try this again. Sit down.”

When Goshen was back down, Iverson cuffed his wrists behind his back, looping the chain through one of the steel slats of the chair back. Iverson then kicked out a chair and sat to the side of the gangster. Bosch sat across from him.

“Okay, Houdini, you also’ve got destroying public property on your list now,” Iverson said.

“Wow, that’s bold, Iverson. Really bold. That’s like the time you came into the club and took Cinda into the fantasy booth. I think you called it interrogation. She called it something else. What’s this going to be?”

Iverson’s face now glowed with anger. Goshen puffed his chest up proudly and smirked at the detective’s embarrassment.

Bosch shoved the table into Goshen’s midsection and the big man doubled over it as his breath burst out. Bosch was up quickly and around the table. As he went, he pulled his key chain from his pocket. Then, using his elbow to keep Goshen’s chest down on the table, he flicked open the blade of his pocketknife and sawed off the big man’s ponytail. He went back to his seat and when Goshen lifted up, threw the six-inch length of hair on the table in front of him.

“Ponytails went out of style at least three years ago, Goshen. You probably didn’t hear about it.”

Iverson burst out in uproarious laughter. Goshen looked at Bosch with pale blue eyes that seemed as soulless as buttons on a machine. He didn’t say a word. He was showing Bosch he could take it. He was stand-up. But Bosch knew even he couldn’t stand up forever. Nobody can.

“You’ve got a problem, Lucky,” Iverson said. “Big problems. You—”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute. I don’t want to talk to you, Iverson. I don’t want you to talk to me. You’re a runt. I’ve got no respect for you. Understand? Anybody talks, let him talk.”

Goshen nodded to Bosch. There was a silence during which Bosch looked from him to Iverson and then back.

“Go get a cup,” Bosch said, without looking at Iverson. “We’ll be fine in here.”

“No, you—”

“Go get a cup.”

“You sure?”

Iverson looked as if he were being kicked out of the college fraternity because the boys didn’t think he fit in.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You got a rights form on you?”

Iverson got up. He took a folded piece of paper out of his coat pocket and tossed it on the table.

“I’ll be right outside the door.”

When Goshen and Bosch were alone they studied each other for a moment before Bosch spoke.

“You want a smoke?”

“Don’t play the good guy with me. Just tell me what’s what.”

Bosch shrugged off the rebuke and got up. He moved behind Goshen and took his keys out again. This time he unlocked one of the cuffs. Goshen brought his hands up and began rubbing the wrists to get circulation going. He noticed the length of hair on the table and slapped it onto the floor.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. L.A. I’ve been to a place where it doesn’t matter what they do to you, where nothing can hurt you. I’ve been there and back.”

“Everybody’s been to Disneyland, so what?”

“I’m not talking about fuckin’ Disneyland, asshole. I spent three years in the penta down in Chihuahua. They didn’t break me then, you aren’t going to do it now.”

“Let me tell you something then. In my life I’ve killed a lot of people. Just wanted you to know that up front. Time comes again, there won’t be any hesitation. None. This isn’t about good guy cops and bad guy cops, Goshen. That’s the movies. The movies where the bad guys have ponytails, I guess. But this is real life. You are nothing to me but meat. And I’m gonna put you down. That’s a given. It’s just up to you how hard and how far you want to go down.”

Goshen thought a moment.

“All right, so now we know each other. Talk to me. And I’ll take that smoke now.”

Bosch put his cigarettes and matches on the table. Goshen got one out and lit it. Bosch waited until he was done.

“I gotta advise you first. You know the routine.”

Bosch opened the piece of paper Iverson had left and read Goshen his rights. He then had the man sign his name on it.

“This is being taped, isn’t it?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay then, what’ve you got?”

“Your fingerprints were on Tony Aliso’s body. The gun we found behind the toilet will be going back to L.A. today. The prints are good to have, real good. But if the bullets they pick out of Tony’s gourd match that gun, then it’s all over. I don’t care what kind of alibi you line up or what your explanation will be or if your lawyer’s Johnnie fucking Cochran, you won’t just be meat, you’ll be one hundred percent grade A dead meat.”

“That gun ain’t mine. It’s a plant, goddamn it. You know it and I know it. And it’s not going to fly, Bosch.”

Bosch looked at him a moment and felt his face getting hot.

“You’re saying I put that there?”

“I’m saying I watched the O.J. show. Cops out here are no different. I’m saying I don’t know if it was you or Iverson or whoever, but that gun’s a fuckin’ plant, goddammit. That’s what I’m saying.”

Bosch traced a finger along the top of the table, waiting for the anger to dissipate to the point where he could control his voice.

“You hang on to that bullshit story, Goshen, and you’ll go far with it. You’ll go about ten years and then they’ll strap you down and stick a needle in your arm. At least it’s not the gas chamber anymore. They make it easy on you guys now.”

Bosch leaned back but there wasn’t a lot of room. The back of the chair hit the wall. He took out the Chap Stick and reapplied it.

“We own you now, Goshen. All you have left is one small window of opportunity. Call it a little piece of destiny still in your grasp.”

“And what window’s that?”

“You know what window, you know what I’m talking about. Guy like you doesn’t move an inch without the okay. Give us the guy you worked the hit with and the guy who told you to put Tony in the trunk. You don’t make a deal and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Goshen let out his breath and shook his head.

“Look, I did not do this. I did not!”

Bosch didn’t expect him to say anything different. It wasn’t that easy. He had to wear him down. He leaned across the table conspiratorially.