Trunk Music (51 page)
Authors: Michael Connelly
“That’s enough,” Bosch said.
He reached down and took the page so that Chastain could see what was in the rest of the file.
“What you have there, Chastain, is a marriage certificate issued in Clark County, Nevada, attesting to my marriage to Eleanor Wish. If that’s not good enough for you, beneath it are two affidavits from my partners. They witnessed the marriage. Best man and maid of honor.”
Chastain kept his eyes on the paperwork.
“It’s over, man,” Bosch said. “You lose. So get the fuck out of my life.”
Chastain leaned back. His face was red and he had an uncomfortable smile on his face. Now he was sure the others were watching.
“You’re telling me you got married just to avoid an IAD beef?”
“No, asshole. I got married because I love somebody. That’s why you get married.”
Chastain didn’t have a reply. He shook his head, looked at his watch and shuffled some papers while trying to act as though this was just a minor interruption in his day. He did everything but look at his nails.
“Yeah, I thought you’d run out of things to say,” Bosch said. “I’ll see you around, Chastain.”
He turned to walk away but then turned back to Chastain.
“Oh, and I almost forgot, you can tell your source our deal is done with, also.”
“What source, Bosch? Deal? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Fitzgerald or whoever you get your information from at OCID.”
“I don’t —”
“Sure you do. I know you, Chastain. You couldn’t have come up with Eleanor Wish on your own. You’ve got a pipeline over there to Fitzgerald. He told you about her. It was him or one of his people. Doesn’t matter to me who. Either way I’m out of a deal I made with him. You can tell him that.”
Bosch held the shoebox up and shook it. The videotape and audiotapes rattled inside it, but he could tell Chastain had no idea what was in the box or what it meant.
“You tell him, Chastain,” he said again. “See you around.”
He finally left then, pausing only at the counter to give the secretary a thumbs-up sign. In the hallway, rather than turn left toward the elevators, he took a right and headed through the double doors of the chief of police’s office suite. The chief’s adjutant, a lieutenant in uniform, sat behind the reception desk. Bosch didn’t know him, which was good. He walked up and put the shoebox down on the desk.
“Can I help you? What’s this?”
“It’s a box, Lieutenant. It’s got some tapes the chief will want to watch and listen to. Right away.”
Bosch made a move to leave.
“Wait a minute,” the adjutant said. “Will he know what this is about?”
“Tell him to call Deputy Chief Fitzgerald. He can explain what it’s about.”
Bosch left then, not turning around when the adjutant called after him for his name. He slipped through the double doors and headed down to the elevator. He felt good. He didn’t know if anything would come of the illegal tapes he had given the police chief, but he felt that all decks were cleared. His show with the box earlier with Chastain would ensure that the word got back to Fitzgerald that this was exclusively Bosch’s play. Billets and Rider should be safe from recriminations by the OCID chief. He could come after Bosch if he wanted, but Bosch felt safe now. Fitzgerald had nothing on him anymore. No one did.
I
T WAS THEIR
first day on the beach after spending two days almost exclusively in their room. Bosch couldn’t get comfortable on the chaise lounge. He didn’t understand how people did this, just sit in the sun and bake. He was covered with lotion and there was sand caked between his toes. Eleanor had bought him a red bathing suit that he thought made him look foolish and that made him feel like a target. At least, he thought, it wasn’t one of those slingshot things some of the men on the beach were wearing.
He propped himself up on his elbows and looked around. Hawaii was unbelievable. So beautiful it was like a dream. And the women were beautiful, too. Especially Eleanor. She lay beside him on her own lounge. Her eyes were closed and there was a small smile on her face. She wore a one-piece black bathing suit that was cut high on her hips and showed off her tanned and nicely muscled legs.
“What are you looking at?” she said without opening her eyes.
“Nothing. I just…I can’t get comfortable. I think I’m going to take a walk or something.”
“Why don’t you get a book to read, Harry? You have to relax. That’s what honeymoons are about. Sex, relaxation, good food and good company.”
“Well, two out of four isn’t bad.”
“What’s wrong with the food?”
“The food’s great.”
“Funny.”
She reached out and hit him in the arm. Then she, too, propped herself up on her elbows and gazed out at the shimmering blue water. They could see the spine of Molokini rising in the distance.
“It’s so beautiful here, Harry.”
“Yes, it is.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, watching the people walking by at the water’s edge. Bosch brought his legs up, leaned forward and sat with his elbows on his knees. He could feel the sun burning into his shoulders. It was beginning to feel good.
He noticed a woman walking languidly along the edge. She had the attention of every man on the beach. She was tall and lithe and had long brownish-blond hair that was wet from the sea. Her skin was copper and she wore the smallest of bathing suits, just a few strings and triangles of black cloth.
As she passed in front of him, the glare dropped off Bosch’s sunglasses and he studied her face. The familiar lines and tilt of the jaw were there. He knew her.
“Harry,” Eleanor whispered then. “Is that…it looks like the dancer. The girl in that photo you had, the one I saw Tony with.”
“Layla,” Bosch said, not answering her but just to say the name.
“It’s her, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t used to believe in coincidences,” he said.
“Are you going to call the bureau? The money’s probably right here on the island with her.”
Bosch watched the woman moving away. Her back was to him now and from that angle it was almost as if she were naked. Just a few strings from her suit were visible. The glare came back on his glasses at this angle and his vision of her was distorted. She was disappearing in the glare and the mist coming in from the Pacific.
“No, I’m not calling anybody,” he finally said.
“Why not?”
“She didn’t do anything,” he said. “She let some guy give her money. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe she was even in love with him.”
He watched for another moment, thinking about Veronica’s last words to him.
“Anyway, who’s going to miss the money?” he said. “The bureau? The LAPD? Some fat old gangster in a Chicago suburb with a bunch of bodyguards around him? Forget it. I’m not calling anybody.”
He took one last look at her. She was far away now and as she walked she was looking out to sea, the sun holding her face. Bosch nodded to her, but of course she didn’t see this. He then lay back down on the lounge and closed his eyes. Almost immediately he felt the sun begin penetrating his skin, doing its healing work. And then he felt Eleanor’s hand on top of his. He smiled. He felt safe. He felt like nobody could ever hurt him again.
The LAPD’s organized crime unit is oddly uninterested, but Harry thinks they’re wrong. He follows the money trail from the producer’s office to Las Vegas, where he quickly finds evidence of Mafia involvement. But something about the case doesn’t add up, and Harry follows a string of odd clues—glitter in the producer’s cuffs, an over-the-counter medication in the Rolls’s glovebox—in a different direction entirely.
Just when Harry thinks he’s on firm ground, the bottom falls out. Blindsided again and again, at odds with his superiors, and overwhelmed by a romance that has cropped up in the middle of the case, Harry is as off balance as he’s ever been. When the picture finally comes into focus, Harry discovers a scheme many magnitudes more deadly than he’d imagined—with himself now one of its targets. Running on instinct and nerves, with a short fuse and everything to lose, Harry must prove himself not just by breaking the case, but by surviving it.
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