Echo Park (29 page)

33

T
HIRTY MINUTES INTO THE DRIVE
Pratt exited the freeway in the Cahuenga Pass. He took Barham Boulevard northeast into Burbank. The traffic was still thick and Bosch had no trouble following and maintaining his distance and cover. Pratt drove past the back entrance to Universal and the front entrance to Warner Bros. He then made a few quick turns and pulled to the curb in front of a row of town houses on Catalina near Verdugo. Bosch drove on by quickly, took his first right and then another and then another. He killed his lights before taking one more right and coming up on the town houses again. He pulled to the curb a half block behind Pratt’s SUV and slid down in his seat.

Almost immediately Bosch saw Pratt standing in the street, looking both ways before crossing. But he was taking too long to do it. The street was clear but Pratt kept looking back and forth. He was looking for someone or checking to see if he had been followed. Bosch knew that the hardest thing in the world to do was to follow a cop who was looking for it. He slouched down lower in the car.

Finally, Pratt started across the street, still looking back and forth continuously, and when he got to the other curb he turned and stepped up onto it backwards. He took a few steps back, surveying the area in both directions. When his scan came to Bosch’s car his eyes held on it for a long moment.

Bosch froze. He didn’t think Pratt had seen him—he was slouched too far down—but he might have recognized the car as either an unmarked police cruiser or one of the cars specifically assigned to the Open-Unsolved Unit. If he walked down the street to check it out Bosch knew he would be caught without much of an explanation. And without a gun. Randolph had routinely confiscated his backup weapon for a ballistics analysis in regard to the shooting of Robert Foxworth.

Pratt started walking toward Bosch’s car. Bosch grabbed the door handle. If he needed to, he would bail out of the car and run toward Verdugo, where there would be traffic and people.

But suddenly Pratt stopped, his attention drawn to something behind him. He turned around and looked up the steps of the town house he had been standing in front of. Bosch tracked his eyes and saw the front door of the town house was partially open and a woman was looking out and calling to Pratt while smiling. She was hiding behind the door but one of her bare shoulders was exposed. Her expression changed as Pratt said something and signaled her back inside. She put a pout on her face and stuck her tongue out at him. She disappeared from the door, leaving it open six inches.

Bosch wished he had his camera but it was back in his car in Echo Park. However, he didn’t need photographic evidence to know that he recognized the woman in the doorway and that she was not Pratt’s wife—Bosch had met his wife at the recent squad room party when he had announced his retirement.

Pratt looked toward Bosch’s car again, hesitated but then turned back to the town house. He strode up the stairs, went through the open door and shut it behind him. Bosch waited and, as he expected, saw Pratt pull back a curtain and look out at the street. Bosch stayed down as Pratt’s eyes lingered on the Crown Vic. There was no doubt that the car had drawn Pratt’s suspicion but Bosch guessed that the lure of illicit sex had overpowered his instinct to check the car out.

There was a commotion as Pratt was grabbed from behind and he turned away from the window, and the curtain fell back into place.

Bosch immediately sat up, started the car and made a U-turn away from the curb. He took a right on Verdugo and headed toward Hollywood Way. No doubt the Crown Vic had been blown. Pratt would be actively looking for it when he came back out of the town house. But the Burbank Airport was close. Bosch figured he could dump the Crown Vic at the airport, pick up a rental car and be back to the town house in less than a half hour.

As he drove he tried to place the woman he had seen looking out the door of the town house. He used a few mind-relaxation drills he had employed back when hypnotizing witnesses was accepted by the courts. Soon he was keying in on the woman’s nose and mouth, the parts of her that had triggered his recognition center. And soon after that he had it. She was an attractive, young civilian employee of the department who worked in the office down the hall from Open-Unsolved. It was a personnel office, known by the rank and file as Hiring & Firing because it was the place where both things happened.

Pratt was fishing off the company dock, waiting out the rush hour in a Burbank shack-up spot. Not bad work if you could get it and get away with it. Bosch wondered if Mrs. Pratt knew of her husband’s extracurricular activities.

He pulled into the airport and entered the valet parking lanes, thinking that that would be fastest. The man in the red coat who took the Crown Vic from him asked when he would be returning.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said, not having considered it.

“I need to write something on the ticket,” the man said.

“Tomorrow,” Bosch said. “If I’m lucky.”

34

B
OSCH GOT BACK
to Catalina Street in thirty-five minutes. He drove his rented Taurus past the row of town houses and spotted Pratt’s Jeep still at the curb. This time he found a spot on the north side of the town house and parked there. While he slouched down in the car and watched for activity, he turned on the cell phone he had rented with the car. He called Rachel Walling’s cell number but got her voice mail. He ended the call without leaving a message.

Pratt didn’t come out until it was full-on dark outside. He stood in front of the complex beneath a streetlight and Bosch noticed he was wearing different clothes now. He had on blue jeans and a dark, long-sleeved pullover shirt. The change of attire told Bosch that the liaison with the woman from Hiring & Firing was probably more than a casual shack-up. Pratt kept clothes at her place.

Pratt once again looked up and down the street, his eyes lingering longest on the south side where earlier the Crown Vic had drawn his attention. Apparently satisfied that the car was gone and he wasn’t being watched, Pratt went to his Commander and soon pulled away from the curb. He made a U-turn and headed south to Verdugo. He then turned right.

Bosch knew that if Pratt was looking for a tail he would slow on Verdugo and watch his rearview mirror for any vehicle turning off Catalina in his direction. So he U-turned from the curb and went north a block to Clark Avenue. He turned left and gunned the car’s weak engine. He drove five blocks to California Street and took a quick left. At the end of the block he would come to Verdugo. It was a risky move. Pratt could be long gone but Bosch was playing a hunch. Seeing the Crown Vic had spooked his boss. He would be on full alert.

Bosch had called it right. Just as he got to Verdugo he saw Pratt’s silver Commander go by in front of him. He had obviously delayed on Verdugo, watching for a follower. Bosch let him get some distance and then turned right to follow.

Pratt made no evasive moves after that first effort to smoke out a tail. He stayed on Verdugo into North Hollywood and then turned south on Cahuenga. Bosch almost lost him at the turn but he went through the light on red. It was clear to him now that Pratt was not going home—Bosch knew that he lived in the opposite direction in the northern valley.

Pratt was heading toward Hollywood, and Bosch guessed that he was simply planning to join the other members of the squad at Nat’s. But halfway through the Cahuenga Pass he turned right onto Woodrow Wilson Drive and Bosch felt his pulse kick up a notch. Pratt was now heading toward Bosch’s own house.

Woodrow Wilson wound up the side of the Santa Monica Mountains, one deep curve after another. It was a lonely street and the only way to follow a vehicle was to do it without headlights and to keep at least one curve behind the brake lights of the lead car.

Bosch knew the curves intimately. He had lived on Woodrow Wilson for more than fifteen years and could make the drive half asleep—which he had done on occasion. But following Pratt, a police officer wary of a tail, was a unique difficulty. Bosch tried to stay two curves back. This meant he lost sight of the lights on Pratt’s car from time to time but never for very long.

When he was two curves away from his house, Bosch started to coast and the rental car eventually came to a stop before the final bend. Bosch got out, quietly closed the door and trotted up the curve. He stayed close to the hedge that guarded the home and studio of a famous painter who lived on the block. He edged around it until he could see Pratt’s SUV up ahead. He had pulled to the curb two houses before Bosch’s house. Pratt’s lights were now off and he seemed to be just sitting there and watching the house.

Bosch looked up at his house and saw lights on behind the kitchen and dining room windows. He could see the tail end of a car protruding from his carport. He recognized the Lexus and knew that Rachel Walling was in his home. Even as he was buoyed by the prospect of her being there waiting for him, Bosch was concerned about what Pratt was up to.

It appeared that he was doing exactly what he had been doing the night before, just watching and possibly trying to determine if Bosch was home.

Bosch heard a car coming behind him. He turned and started walking back toward his car as if he were on an evening walk. The car drove by slowly and Bosch then turned and headed back to the hedge. As the car came up behind Pratt’s Jeep, rather than pull to the side, Pratt took off again, the lights of his SUV coming on as he sped away.

Bosch turned and ran back toward his rental car. He jumped in and pulled away from the curb. As he drove he hit redial on the rental phone and soon Rachel’s line was ringing. This time she answered.

“Yes?”

“Rachel, it’s Harry. Are you in my house?”

“Yes, I’ve been wait—”

“Come outside. I’m going to pick you up. Hurry.”

“Harry, what is—”

“Just come out and bring your gun. Right now.”

He clicked off and pulled to a stop in front of his house. He could see the glow of brake lights disappearing around the curve ahead. But he knew those belonged to the car that had spooked Pratt. Pratt was farther ahead.

Bosch turned and looked at his front door, ready to hit the horn, but Rachel was coming out.

“Close the door,” Bosch yelled through the open passenger window.

Rachel pulled the door closed and hurried out to the car.

“Get in. Hurry!”

She jumped into the car and Bosch took off before she had the door closed.

“What is going on?”

He gave her the shorthand as he sped through the curves on the way up to Mulholland. He told her that his boss, Abel Pratt, was the setup man, that what had happened in Beachwood Canyon had been his plan. He told her that for the second night in a row he had been outside Bosch’s home.

“How do you know all of this?”

“I just know. I’ll be able to prove it all later. For now, it’s a fact.”

“What was he doing outside?”

“I don’t know. Trying to see if I was home, I think.”

“Your phone rang.”

“When?”

“Right before you called my cell. I didn’t answer it.”

“It was probably him. Something’s going on.”

They came around the last bend, and the four-way stop at Mulholland was ahead. Bosch saw the taillights of a large vehicle just as they disappeared to the right. Another car moved up to the stop. It was the car that had made Pratt move on. It went straight through the intersection.

“The first one must have been Pratt. He turned right.”

Bosch got to the stop and also turned right. Mulholland was the winding snake that followed the crest line of the mountains across the city. Its curves were smoother and not as deep as Woodrow Wilson’s. It was also a busier street, with plenty of night cruisers. He would be able to follow Pratt without causing much suspicion.

They quickly caught up to the vehicle that had turned and confirmed that it was Pratt’s Commander. Bosch then dropped back and for the next ten minutes tailed Pratt along the crest line. The sparkling lights of the Valley sprawled below on the north side. It was a clear night and they could see all the way to the shadowy mountains on the far side of the sprawl. They stayed on Mulholland through the intersection with Laurel Canyon Boulevard and continued west.

“I was waiting at your house to say good-bye,” Rachel suddenly said.

After a moment of silence, Bosch responded.

“I know. I understand.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“You didn’t like the way I was today, the way I went after Waits. I’m not the man you thought I was. I’ve heard it before, Rachel.”

“It’s not that, Harry. Nobody is ever the man you think they are. I can live with that. But a woman has to feel safe with a man. And that includes when they are not together. How can I feel safe when I’ve seen firsthand how you work? It doesn’t matter whether it is the way I would do it or not. I’m not talking about us cop to cop. What I’m talking about is that I could never feel comfortable and safe. I’d wonder every night if it’s the night you won’t be coming home. I can’t do that.”

Bosch realized he was giving the car too much gas. Her words had made him unconsciously press the pedal down harder. He was getting too close to Pratt. He slowed down and pulled back from the taillights a hundred yards.

“It’s a dangerous job,” he said. “I thought you more than anybody would know that.”

“I do. I do. But what I saw out there today with you was recklessness. I don’t want to have to worry about someone who is reckless. There’s enough to worry about out there without that.”

Bosch blew out his breath. He gestured toward the red lights moving in front of them.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s talk about it later. Let’s just concentrate on this for tonight.”

As if on cue, Pratt hooked a hard left onto Coldwater Canyon Drive and started dropping down toward Beverly Hills. Bosch delayed as long as he believed he could and made the same turn.

“Well, I’m still glad I’ve got you with me,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because if he ends up in Beverly Hills I won’t need to call the locals because I’m with a fed.”

“Glad I could do something.”

“You have your gun with you?”

“Always. You don’t have yours?”

“It was part of the crime scene. I don’t know when I’ll get it back. And that’s the second gun they’ve taken from me this week. It’s gotta be a record of some kind. Most guns lost during reckless gunplay.”

He looked over to see if he was getting under her skin. She showed nothing.

“He’s turning,” she said.

Bosch snapped his attention back to the road and saw the left-turn signal on the Commander blinking. Pratt made the turn and Bosch went on by. Rachel bent down so she could see out the window and up at the street sign.

“Gloaming Drive,” she said. “Are we still in the city?”

“Yeah. Gloaming goes way back in there but there’s no way out. I’ve been in there before.”

The next street down was Stuart Lane. Bosch used it to turn around in and headed back up to Gloaming.

“Do you know where he could be going?” Rachel asked.

“No idea. Another girlfriend’s place, for all I know.”

Gloaming was another curving mountain road. But that’s where the similarity to Woodrow Wilson Drive ended. The homes here ran a minimum seven figures, easy, and all had nicely manicured lawns and hedges with not so much as a leaf out of place. Bosch drove it slowly, looking for the silver Jeep Commander.

“There,” Rachel said.

She pointed out her window at a Jeep parked in the turnaround of a mansion with a French provincial design. Bosch drove by and parked two houses away. They got out and walked back.

“West Coast Choppers?”

She hadn’t been able to see the front of his shirt while he was driving.

“It helped me blend in on a case once.”

“Nice.”

“My daughter saw me in this one time. I told her it was from my dentist.”

The gate to the driveway was open. The cast-iron mailbox had no name on it. Bosch opened it and looked inside. They were in luck. There was mail, a small stack held together with a rubber band. He pulled it out and angled the top envelope toward a nearby streetlight in order to read it.

“‘Maurice’—it’s Maury Swann’s place,” he said.

“Nice,” Rachel said. “I guess I should’ve been a defense attorney.”

“You’d’ve been good working with criminals.”

“Fuck you, Bosch.”

The banter ended with a loud voice coming from behind a tall hedge that ran along the far side of the turnaround and on the left side of the house.

“I said get in there!”

There was a splash and Bosch and Walling headed toward the sound.