A Darkness More Than Night

by Michael Connelly

  He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it and took out a photo. He handed it to Bosch. The photo had taken on the contour line of the wallet. It showed a dark-haired baby in the arms of a dark-haired woman.

  “That’s my daughter, Harry. And my wife.”

  Bosch nodded and studied the photo. Both mother and child had dark hair and skin and were quite beautiful. He knew they were probably even more so to McCaleb.

  “Beautiful,” he said. “The baby looks brand-new. So tiny.”

  “She’s about four months now. That picture’s a month old, though. Anyway, I forgot to tell you yesterday at lunch. We named her Cielo Azul.”

  Bosch’s eyes came up from the photo to McCaleb’s. They held for a moment and then he nodded.

  “Nice.”

  “Yeah, I told Graciela I wanted to do it and I told her why. She thought it was a good idea.”

  Bosch handed the photo back.

  “I hope someday the kid does, too.”

  “Me, too. We call her CiCi most of the time. Anyway, remember that night up here, how you kept asking that question about the hand of God and how you couldn’t find it in anything anymore? That happened to me, too. I lost it. This kind of job . . . it’s hard not to. Then . . .”

  He held up the photo.

  “Here it is right here. I found it again. The hand of God. I see it in her eyes.”

  Bosch looked at him for a long moment and then nodded.

  “Good for you, Terry.”

  “I mean, I’m not trying to come off like . . . I mean I’m not trying to convert you or anything. I’m just saying I found that thing that was missing. And I don’t know if you’re still looking for it . . . I just wanted to say, you know, that it is out there. Don’t give up.”

  Bosch glanced away from McCaleb and out the glass doors to the darkness.

  “For some people I’m sure it is.”

  He drained his bottle and went into the kitchen to break his promise to himself to have only one. He called back to McCaleb to see if he was ready for a second but his visitor passed. As he bent into the open refrigerator he paused and closed his eyes as the cool air caressed his face. He thought about what McCaleb had just told him.

  “You don’t think you are one of them?”

  Bosch jerked up at the sound of McCaleb’s voice. He was standing in the kitchen’s doorway.

  “What?”

  “You said it was out there for some people. You don’t think you are one of them?”

  Bosch took a beer out of the refrigerator and slid it into the bottle opener mounted on the wall. He snapped the bottle open and drank deeply from it before answering.

  “What is this, Terry, twenty questions? You thinking of becoming a priest or something?”

  McCaleb smiled and shook his head.

  “Sorry, Harry. A new father, you know? I guess I want to tell the world, that’s all.”

  “That’s nice. You want to talk about Gunn now?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s go out and look at the night.”

  They walked out to the back deck and both looked at the view. The 101 was its usual ribbon of light, a glowing vein cutting through the mountains. The sky was clear, the smog having been washed out by rain the week before. Bosch could see the lights on the floor of the Valley seemingly extending into infinity. Closer to the house there was only darkness held in the brush on the hillside below. He could smell the eucalyptus from below; it was always strongest after the rain.

  McCaleb was the first to speak.

  “You’ve got a nice place here, Harry. A nice spot. You must hate having to ride down into the plague every morning.”

  Bosch looked over at him.

  “Not as long as I get a shot at the carriers every now and then. People like David Storey. I don’t mind that.”

  “And what about the ones who walk away? Like Gunn.”

  “Nobody walks away, Terry. If I believed that they did, then I couldn’t do this. Sure we might not get every one of them, but I believe in the circle. The big wheel. What goes around comes around. Eventually. I might not see the hand of God too often like you do but I believe in that.”

  Bosch put his bottle down on the railing. It was empty and he wanted another but knew he had to put on the brakes. He’d need every brain cell he could muster in court the next day. He thought about a cigarette and knew there was a fresh pack in a kitchen cabinet. But he decided to hold off on that, too.

  “Then I guess what happened with Gunn must be a confirmation of your faith in the big wheel theory.”

  Bosch didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stared out across the Valley of light.

  “Yeah,” he finally said. “I guess it does.”

  He broke his stare away and turned his back on the view. He leaned against the railing and looked at McCaleb again.

  “So what about Gunn? I thought I told you everything there was to tell yesterday. You’ve got the file, right?”

  McCaleb nodded.

  “You probably did and I do have the file. But I was just wondering if anything else came up. You know, if maybe our conversation jump-started your thinking on it.”

  Bosch sort of laughed and picked up the bottle before remembering it was empty.

  “Terry, come on, man, I’m in the middle of a trial. I’m on the stand, I’ve been chasing down an AWOL wit. I mean I stopped thinking about your investigation the minute I got up from the table at Cupid’s. What exactly do you want from me?”

  “Nothing, Harry. I don’t want anything from you that you don’t have. I just thought it might be worth a shot, is all. I’m working on this thing and scratching around for anything. I thought maybe . . . don’t worry about it.”

  “You’re a weird guy, McCaleb. I’m remembering that now. The way you used to stare at crime scene photos. You want another beer?”

  “Yeah, why not?”

  Bosch pushed off the railing and reached over for his bottle and then McCaleb’s. It was still at least a third full. He put it back down.

  “Well, finish that.”

  He went into the house and got two more beers out of the refrigerator. This time McCaleb was standing in the living room when he came back from the kitchen. He handed Bosch his empty bottle and Bosch wondered for a moment if he had finished it or poured the beer over the side of the deck. He took the empty into the kitchen and when he came back McCaleb was standing at the stereo studying a CD case.

  “This what’s playing?” he asked. “Art Pepper meets the Rhythm Section?”

  Bosch stepped over.

  “Yeah. Art Pepper and Miles’s side men. Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums. Recorded here in L.A., January 19 , 1957 . One day. The cork in the neck of Pepper’s sax was supposedly cracked but it didn’t matter. He had one shot with these guys. He made the most of it. One day, one shot, one classic. That’s the way to do it.”

  “These guys were in Miles Davis’s band?”

  “At the time.”

  McCaleb nodded. Bosch leaned close to look at the CD cover in McCaleb’s hands.

  “Yeah, Art Pepper,” he said. “When I was growing up I never knew who my father was. My mother, she used to have a lot of this guy’s records. She hung out at some of the jazz clubs where he’d play. Handsome devil, Art was. For a hype. Just look at that picture. Too cool to fool. I made up this whole story about how he was my old man and he wasn’t around ’cause he was always on the road and making records. Almost got to the point I believed it. Later on — I mean years later — I read a book about him. It said he was junk sick when they took that picture. He puked as soon as it was over and went back to bed.”

  McCaleb studied the photograph on the CD. A handsome man leaning against a tree, his sax cradled in his right arm.

  “Well, he could play,” McCaleb said.

  “Yeah, he could,” Bosch agreed. “Genius with a needle in his arm.”

  Bosch stepped over and turned the
volume up slightly. The song was “Straight Life,” Pepper’s signature composition.

  “Do you believe that?” McCaleb asked.

  “What, that he was a genius? Yeah, he was with the sax.”

  “No, I mean do you think that every genius — musician, artist, even a detective — has a fatal flaw like that? The needle in the arm.”

  “I think everybody’s got a fatal flaw, whether they’re a genius or not.”

  Bosch turned it up louder. McCaleb put his beer down on top of one of the floor speakers. Bosch picked it up and handed it back. He used his palm to wipe the wet ring off the wood surface. McCaleb turned the music down.

  “Come on, Harry, give me something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I made the journey up here. Give me something on Gunn. I know you don’t care about him — the wheel turned and he didn’t walk away. But I don’t like the way this one looked. This guy — whoever he is — is still out there. And he’s going to do this again. I can tell.”

  Bosch shook his shoulders like he still didn’t care.

  “All right, here’s something. It’s thin but it might be worth a try. When he was in the tank the night before he got put down and I checked in on him, I also talked with the Metro guys who brought him in on the DUI. They said they asked him where he’d been drinking and he said he’d come out of a place called Nat’s. It’s on the Boulevard about a block from Musso’s and on the south side.”

  “Okay, I can find it,” McCaleb said, a what-about-it tone in his voice. “What’s the connection?”

  “Well, see, Nat’s was the same place he’d been drinking that night six years ago that I first made his acquaintance. It’s where he picked up that woman, the one he killed.”

  “So he was a regular.”

  “Looks it.”

  “Thanks, Harry. I’ll check it out. How come you didn’t tell this to Jaye Winston?”

  Bosch shrugged his shoulders.

  “I guess I didn’t think about it and she didn’t ask.”

  McCaleb almost put his beer down on the speaker again but instead handed it to Bosch.

  “I might go check down there tonight.”

  “Don’t forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  “You hook the guy who did it, you shake his hand for me.”

  McCaleb didn’t respond. He looked around the place as if he had just walked in.

  “Can I use the bathroom?”

  “Down the hall on the left.”

  McCaleb headed that way while Bosch took the bottles into the kitchen and put them in the recycle bin with the others. He opened the refrigerator and saw he was down to one soldier left in the six-pack he’d bought on the way home from tricking Annabelle Crowe. He closed the refrigerator when McCaleb stepped into the room.

  “That’s a crazy fucking picture you got hanging in the hallway,” he said.

  “What? Oh, yeah. I like that picture.”

  “What’s it supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it means the big wheel keeps turning. Nobody walks away.”

  McCaleb nodded.

  “I suppose.”

  “You heading down there to Nat’s?”

  “Thinking about it. You want to go?”

  Bosch considered it even though he knew it would be foolish. He had to review half of the murder book in preparation for his continuing testimony the next morning.

  “Nah, I better do some work here. Get ready for tomorrow.”

  “Okay. How’d it go today, anyway?”

  “So far so good. But we’re playing softball right now — direct. Tomorrow the ball goes to John Reason and he throws it back inside and fast.”

  “I’ll watch the news.”

  McCaleb stepped over and stuck his hand out. Bosch shook it.

  “Be careful out there.”

  “You, too, Harry. Thanks for the beers.”

  “No problem.”

  He walked McCaleb to the door and then watched him get into a black Cherokee parked on the street. It started up right away and pulled away, leaving Bosch standing in the lighted doorway.

  Bosch locked up and turned off the living room lights. He left the stereo on. It would automatically turn off at the end of Art Pepper’s classic moment in time. It was early but Bosch was tired from the pressures of the day and the alcohol moving in his blood. He decided he would sleep now and wake up early to prepare for his testimony. He went into the kitchen and got the last bottle of beer out of the refrigerator.

  On the way down the hall to his bedroom he stopped and looked at the framed picture McCaleb had referred to. It was a print of the Hieronymus Bosch painting called The Garden of Earthly Delights. He’d had it for a long time, since he was a kid. The surface of the print was warped and scratched. It was in bad shape. It had been Eleanor who moved it from the living room to the hallway. She didn’t like it being in the place where they sat every night. Bosch never understood whether that was because of what was in the painting or because the print was old and deteriorated.

  As he looked at the landscape of human debauchery and torment depicted in the painting, Bosch thought about maybe moving it back to its spot in the living room.

  • • •

  In Bosch’s dream he was moving through dark water, unable to see his hands in front of his own face. There was a ringing sound and he pushed upward through the darkness.

  He came awake. The light was on but all was silent. The stereo was off. He started to look at his watch when the phone rang again and he quickly grabbed it off the bedside table.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, Harry, it’s Kiz.”

  His old partner.

  “Kiz, what’s up?”

  “You okay? You sound . . . out of it.”

  “I’m fine. I was just . . . I was asleep.”

  He looked at his watch. It was just after ten.

  “Sorry, Harry, I thought you’d be burning the oil, getting ready for tomorrow.”

  “I’m going to get up early and do it.”

  “Well, you did good today. We had the box on in the squad. Everybody was pulling for you.”

  “I’ll bet. How is it going down there?”

  “It’s going. In a way I’m starting over. I’ve got to prove myself to them.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be passing those guys like they’re standing still. Just like you did with me.”

  “Harry . . . , you’re the best. I learned more from you than you’ll ever know.”

  Bosch hesitated. He was genuinely touched by what she had said.

  “That’s nice of you to say, Kiz. You should call me more often.”

  She laughed.

  “Well, that’s not why I’m calling. I told a friend I’d do this. It reminds me of high school but here goes. There’s somebody that is interested in you. I said I’d check to see if you were back out in the field, if you know what I mean?”

  Bosch didn’t even have to think before answering.

  “Nah, Kiz, I’m not. I . . . I’m not giving up on Eleanor yet. I’m still hoping she’ll call or show up and maybe we can work it out. You know how it is.”

  “I do. And that’s cool, Harry. I just said I’d ask. But if you change your mind, she’s a neat lady.”

  “I know her?”

  “Yeah, you know her. Jaye Winston, over at the sheriff’s. We’re in a women’s group together. Dicks without Dicks. We got to talking about you tonight.”

  Bosch didn’t say anything. A strange constricting feeling filled his gut. He didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “Harry, you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I was just thinking about something.”

  “Well, I’ll let you go. And listen, Jaye asked me not to give you her name. You know, she just wanted to ask about you and put an anonymous feeler out. So next time you both run across each other on the job it wouldn’t be embarrassing. So you didn’t get it from me, right?”

/>   “Right. She asked you questions about me?”

  “A few. Nothing big. I hope you don’t mind. I told her she made a good choice. I said if I wasn’t, you know, the way I was, I’d be interested too.”