The Black Echo

by Michael Connelly

  “I remember,” Wish said.

  “But Dixie was different. I was working the late shift in the task force offices that day and I caught the call. I went and talked to her. She told me that this john she’d picked up on Hollywood near Spa Row, you know, near the Scientology mansion, took her to this garage apartment in Silver Lake. She said that while the guy was getting naked she wanted to use the toilet. So she goes in and while she’s running the water she looks through the cabinet below the sink, probably to see if there is anything worth lifting. But she sees all these little bottles and compacts and all this women’s stuff. She looks at it all and she just puts it all together. Just like that. Bingo; this has to be the guy. So she gets a case of total creeps and bails out. She comes out of the bathroom and the guy’s in the bed. She just hauls ass through the front door.

  “The thing is, we hadn’t put out all the stuff about the makeup. Or, actually, the asshole that was the media leak didn’t put out everything. See, we knew that the guy was keeping the victims’ stuff. They were found with their purses but there were no cosmetics — you know, lipstick, compacts, things like that. So when Dixie told me about what was in the bathroom cabinet she got my attention. I knew she was legit.

  “And that is the point where I screwed up. It was 3 A.M. by the time I was done talking to Dixie. Everybody on the task force had gone home and I was left there thinking that this guy might realize Dixie made him and clear out. So I went there alone. I mean, Dixie went with me to show me the place, but then she never left the car. Once we were there, I saw a light on above the garage, which was behind this rundown house off of Hyperion. I called for patrol backup, and while I’m waiting I see the guy’s shadow going back and forth across the window. Something tells me he is getting ready to bug out and take all the stuff from the cabinet with him. And we had no evidence from the eleven bodies. We needed the stuff that was in the bathroom cabinet. The other consideration was, what if he has someone up there? You know, a replacement for Dixie. So I went up. Alone. You know the rest.”

  Wish said, “You went in without a warrant and shot him when he was reaching under the pillow on the bed. You later told the shooting team that you believed it was an emergency situation. There had been enough time for him to go out and get another prostitute. You said that gave you the authority to come through the door without a warrant. You said you fired because you believed the suspect was reaching for a weapon. It was one shot, upper torso from fifteen or twenty feet, if I remember the report. But the Dollmaker was alone, and under the pillow was only his toupee.”

  “Only his rug,” Bosch said. He shook his head like a Monday-morning quarterback. “The shooting team cleared me. We connected him to two of the bodies through the hair from the toupee, and the makeup in the bathroom was traced to eight of the victims. There was no doubt. It was him. I was clear, but then the shooflies started in on it. A Lewis and Clarke expedition. They ran down Dixie and got her to sign a statement saying she told me beforehand that he put his hair under the pillow. I don’t know what they used against her, but I can imagine. IAD’s always had a hard-on for me. They don’t like anybody who’s not a hundred percent part of the family. Anyway, the next thing I know they are bringing departmental charges against me. They wanted to fire me and take Dixie to a grand jury to get criminal charges. It was like there was blood in the water and two fat white sharks.”

  He stopped there but Eleanor continued. “The IAD detectives misjudged things, though, Harry. They didn’t realize that public opinion would be with you. You were known in the newspapers as the cop who broke the Beauty Shop Slasher and Dollmaker cases. A character in a TV show. They couldn’t take you down without a lot of public scrutiny and embarrassment for the department.”

  “Someone reached down from above them and put a stop to the grand jury move,” Bosch said. “They had to settle for a suspension and my demotion to Hollywood homicide.”

  Bosch had his fingers on the stem of his empty wine glass and was absentmindedly turning the glass on the table.

  “Some settlement,” he said after a while. “And those two IAD sharks are still swimming around out there, waiting for the kill.”

  They sat silently for a while then. He was waiting for her to ask the question she had asked once before. Had the whore lied? She never asked it, and after a while she just looked at him and smiled. And he felt as if he had just passed the test. She started gathering the plates off the table. Bosch helped her in the kitchen and when the work was done, they stood close, drying their hands on the same dish towel, and lightly kissed. Then, as if following the same secret signals, they pressed themselves against each other and kissed with the kind of hunger lonely people have.

  “I want to stay,” Bosch said after momentarily breaking away.

  “I want you to stay,” she said.

  Arson’s stoned eyes were shiny and reflected the neon night. He sucked hard on the Kool and held the precious smoke in. The cigarette had been dipped in PCP. A smile cracked across his face as the jet streams of smoke escaped his nostrils. He said, “You’re the only shark I ever heard of being used as bait. Get it?”

  He laughed and took another deep drag before handing the cigarette to Sharkey, who waved it away because he’d had enough. Mojo took it then.

  “Yeah, I’m getting tired of this shit,” Sharkey said. “You take a turn for once.”

  “Chill out, man, you’re the only one can get away with it, man. Mojo and me, man, we just don’t play the part good as you. Besides, we got our part. You ain’t big enough to pound these faggots.”

  “Well, whyn’t we do the 7-Eleven again?” Sharkey said. “I don’t like this not knowing who it is. I like it at the 7-Eleven. We pick our meat, they don’t pick me.”

  “No way,” Mojo spoke up then. “We go back there, we don’t know if that last guy reported it to the sheriff’s or not. We have to stay clear a there awhile. They’re probly watching the place from the same parking lot we did.”

  Sharkey knew they were right. He just thought that being out on Santa Monica on the queer stroll was getting too close to the real thing. Next thing, he guessed, the two dopers will not feel like charging in. They’ll want him to go through with it, get the money that way. That was when he would split these guys, he knew.

  “Okay,” he said, stepping off the curb. “Don’t fuck me up.”

  He started to cross the street. Arson yelled after him, “BMW or better!”

  As if I need to be told, Sharkey thought. He walked a half block toward La Brea and then leaned against the door of a closed print shop. He was still a half block from Hot Rod’s, an adult bookstore that offered twenty-five-cent all-male peeps. But he was close enough to catch the eye of somebody walking out. If the eye was looking. He looked back the other way and saw the glow of the joint in the darkness of the driveway where Arson and Mojo sat on their bikes.

  Sharkey hadn’t been standing there ten minutes when a car, a new Grand Am, pulled to the curb and the electric window glided down. Sharkey was going to blow this one off, remembering BMW or better, until he saw the glint of gold and stepped closer. His adrenaline kicked up a notch. The wrist the driver had draped over the steering wheel was adorned with a Rolex Presidential. If it was real, Arson knew where they could get $3,000 for it. A grand apiece, not to mention what else the meat might have at home or in his wallet. Sharkey looked the man over. The guy looked like a straight, a businessman. Dark hair, dark suit. Mid-forties, not too big. Sharkey might even be able to take him alone. The man smiled at Sharkey and said, “Hey, howya doin’?”

  “Not bad. What’s up?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just out for a ride. You want to take a ride?”

  “Where to?”

  “No place special. I know a place we can go. Be alone.”

  “You got a hundred dollars on you?”

  “No, but I’ve got fifty dollars for night baseball.”

  “Pitching or catching?”

  “I’m a pitch
er. And I brought my own glove.”

  Sharkey hesitated and glanced toward the driveway where he had seen the glow from the Kool. It was gone now. They must be ready to move. He looked back at the watch.

  “That’s cool,” he said, and got in the car.

  The car headed west past the alley driveway. Sharkey held himself from looking, but he thought he heard the revving and popping sound of their bikes. They were following.

  “Where we going?” he asked.

  “Uh, I can’t go home with you, my friend. But I know a place we can go. Nobody will bother us.”

  “Cool.”

  They stopped at the light at Flores, which made Sharkey think of the guy from the other night. They were near his place. Arson was hitting harder, it seemed. This would have to stop soon or they would kill someone. He hoped the man with the Rolex would give it up peaceably. There was no telling what those two would do. Stoked on PCP, they would be ready for battle and blood.

  Suddenly the car lurched through the intersection. Sharkey noticed the light was still red.

  “What’s going on?” he said sharply.

  “Nothing. I’m tired of waiting, is all.”

  Sharkey thought there would be nothing suspicious about looking back now. He turned and saw only cars waiting back at the intersection. No motorbikes. Those bastards, he thought. He felt a dampness beginning on his scalp and the first tremblings of fear. The car turned right after Barnie’s Beanery and up the hill to Sunset. Then they went east to Highland and the man with the Rolex steered north again.

  “Have we been together before?” the man asked. “You seem familiar. I don’t know, maybe we’ve just seen each other around.”

  “No, I’ve never — I don’t think so.”

  “Look at me.”

  “What?” Sharkey said, startled by the question and the man’s sharp tone. “Why?”

  “Look at me. You know me? Have you seen me before?”

  “What is this, a credit card commercial? I said no, man.”

  The man turned the car off the street into the east parking lot of the Hollywood Bowl. It was deserted. He drove quickly and without saying another word to the darkened north end. Sharkey thought, If this is your quiet little spot, then that ain’t no real Rolex you got on your wrist, pal.

  “Hey, what are we doing, man?” Sharkey said. He was thinking of a way to bail out of this. He was pretty sure Arson and Mojo, stoned as they were, were lost. He was alone with this guy and he wanted to scratch it.

  “The bowl is closed,” Rolex said. “But I got a key to the dressing rooms, see? We just take the tunnel under Cahuenga and then near where it comes up, there is a little walkway we take back around. There won’t be anyone around. I work there. I know.”

  For a moment, Sharkey considered trying to take the guy alone, then decided he couldn’t do it. Unless there was a way of taking him by surprise. He would see. The man turned the car engine off and opened his door. Sharkey opened his own door, got out and looked across the dark expanse of the empty parking lot. He was looking for the two lights of the motorbikes, but there weren’t any. I’ll take this guy out on the other side, he decided. He would make his move. Either hit and run, or just run.

  They headed toward the sign that said Pedestrian Expressway. There was a concrete outbuilding with an open doorway and then stairs. As they walked down the whitewashed steps, the man with the Rolex put his hand on Sharkey’s shoulder and then clamped it on the back of his neck in a fatherly manner. Sharkey could feel the cold metal of the watch’s wristband.

  The man said, “You sure we don’t know each other, Sharkey? Maybe seen each other?”

  “No, man, I’m telling you, I haven’t been with you.”

  They were about halfway through the tunnel when Sharkey realized he hadn’t told the man his name.

  PART V

  THURSDAY, MAY 24

  It had been a long time for him. And in Eleanor’s bedroom, Harry Bosch was clumsy in the way of a man who is overly self-conscious and out of practice. As with most first times he had had, it wasn’t good. She directed him with her hands and whispers. And afterward he felt like apologizing but didn’t. They held each other and lightly dozed, the smell of her hair in his face. The same apple scent he had encountered in his kitchen the night before. Bosch was infatuated with her and wanted to breathe the smell of her hair every minute. After a while he kissed her awake and they made love again. This time he needed no directions and she didn’t need her hands. When they were done, Eleanor whispered to him, “Do you think you can be alone in this world and not be lonely?”

  He didn’t answer at first, and she said, “Are you alone or are you lonely, Harry Bosch?”

  He thought about that for some time, while her fingers gently traced the tattoo on his shoulder.

  “I don’t know what I am,” he finally whispered. “You get so used to things the way they are. And I’ve always been alone. I guess that makes me lonely. Until now.”

  They smiled in the dark and kissed, and soon he heard her deep, sleeping breaths. Much later, Bosch got up from the bed, pulled on his pants and went out on the balcony to smoke. On Ocean Park Boulevard there was no traffic and he could hear the ocean’s noise from nearby. The lights were out in the apartment next door. They were out everywhere except on the street. He could see that the jacaranda trees along the sidewalk were shedding their flowers. They had fallen like a violet snow on the ground and the cars parked along the curb. Bosch leaned on the railing and blew smoke into the cool night wind.

  When he was on his second cigarette he heard the door behind him slide open and then felt her hands come around his waist as she embraced him from behind.

  “What’s wrong, Harry?”

  “Nothing, just thinking. You better watch out. Carcinogen alert. You ever heard of the draft risk easement?”

  “Assessment, Harry, not easement. What are you thinking about? Is this how it is most nights for you?”

  Bosch turned around in her arms and kissed her forehead. She was wearing a short robe of pink silk. He rubbed his thumb up and down the nape of her neck. “Almost no night is like this. I just couldn’t sleep. I guess I was thinking about a lot of things.”

  “About us?” She kissed his chin.

  “I guess.”

  “And?”

  He brought his hand around to her face and traced the outline of her jaw with his fingers.

  “I was wondering how you got this little scar here.”

  “Oh . . . that is from when I was a girl. My brother and I, we were riding on a bike and I was on the handlebars. And we went down this hill, it was called Highland Avenue — this was when we lived in Pennsylvania — and he lost control. The bike started weaving and I was so scared because I knew we were going to crash. And just as he really lost it and we were going down, he yelled, ‘Ellie, you’ll be all right!’ Just like that. And because he had yelled that, he was right. I cut my chin but I didn’t even cry. I always thought that was something, that he would try to yell something to me rather than worry about himself at a moment like that. But that was my brother.”

  Bosch dropped his hands from her face. He said, “I was also thinking that what happened between us was nice.”

  “I think so, too, Harry. Nice for a couple of nighthawks. Come back to bed now.”

  They went back in. Bosch first went into the bathroom and used his finger as a toothbrush and then crawled back under the sheet with her. The blue glow of a digital clock on the bedtable said 2:26 and Bosch closed his eyes.

  When he opened them again the clock said 3:46 and there was an obnoxious chirping sound coming from somewhere in the room. He realized he was not in his own room. Then he remembered he was in Eleanor Wish’s room. As he finally got oriented he saw her shadowy figure stooped next to the bed, her hands going through the pile of his clothes.

  “Where is it?” she said. “I can’t find it.”

  Bosch reached for his pants, traced his hands along the belt unt
il he found the pager and turned it off without having to fumble with it. He had done it many times in the dark before.

  “Jesus,” she said. “That was rude.”

  Bosch swung his legs over the side of the bed, gathered the sheet around his waist and sat up. He yawned and then warned her that he was going to turn on the light. She said go ahead, and when the light came on it hit him like a diamond burst between his eyes. When his vision cleared, she was standing in front of him naked, looking down at the digital readout of the pager in his hand. Bosch finally looked down at the number but didn’t recognize it. He wiped a hand across his face and rustled his hair. There was a telephone on the bedtable and he pulled it onto his lap. He dialed the number and then fumbled with his hands in his clothes for a cigarette, which he put in his mouth but didn’t light.

  Eleanor noticed her nakedness and walked over to a lounge chair to get her robe. After it was on she went into the bathroom and closed the door. Bosch heard water running. The other end of the line was picked up halfway through the first ring. Jerry Edgar didn’t answer with a hello, just “Harry, where you at?”

  “I’m not home. What is it?”

  “This kid you were looking for, the one on the nine one one call, you found him, right?”

  “Yeah, but we’re looking for him again.”