Lost Light

by Michael Connelly

  “I take it you aren’t giving me a ride back to my car.”

  “You can take it any way you want to. Have a good day.”

  He left me there at the top of the ramp and turned around to get under the door before it reclosed on him. I watched him disappear as the steel curtain dropped. I tried to think of a clever line to throw at him but I was too damn tired and let it go.

  20

  The bureau had been in my house. That was expected. But the agents had been subtle about it. The place hadn’t been torn apart and left for me to put back together. It had been methodically searched and most things had been left exactly in place. The dining room table, where I had left the spread of files relating to Angella Benton’s murder, had been cleared. It looked like they might have even polished the empty surface with Pledge when they were through. I had been left nothing. My notes, my files, my reports were all gone and so it seemed was the case. I didn’t dwell on it. I looked at my murky reflection in the polished surface of the table for a few moments and decided I needed to sleep before making my next move.

  I grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and went out through the slider to the back deck to watch the sun come up over the hills. The cushion on the lounge chair had morning dew on it so I flipped it over and sat down. I put my legs up and leaned back into the soft comfort. There was a slight chill in the air but I still had my jacket on. I put the water bottle on the arm of the chair and tucked my hands into the pockets of the jacket. It felt good to be home after the night in the cube.

  The sun was just cresting the hills on the other side of the Cahuenga Pass. The sky was filled with diffused light as its rays refracted off the billions of microscopic particles that hung in the air. Soon I would need sunglasses but I was too dug in to get up to get them. I closed my eyes instead and soon fell asleep. I dreamt of Angella Benton, of her hands, of a woman I never knew in life but who came alive in my dreams and reached out to me.

  I woke up a couple hours later with the sun burning through my eyelids. Soon I realized that the pounding I had thought was in my head was actually coming from the front door. I got up, knocking the unopened water bottle off the arm of the lounge chair. I made a grab for it but missed. It rolled off the deck and down into the brush below. I walked to the rail and looked down. Steel pylons held my house cantilevered over the canyon. I could not see the bottle down there.

  Whoever it was out front knocked again and then I heard a muffled version of my name. I went in off the deck and crossed the living room to the front hallway. He was pounding on the door again when I finally opened it. It was Roy Lindell and he wasn’t smiling.

  “Rise and shine, Bosch.”

  He started to push by me into the house but I put my hand on his chest and pushed him backwards. I shook my head and he picked up the vibe. He pointed in the house and put a question mark in his eyes. I nodded and stepped out through the door, pulling it closed behind me.

  “Let’s take my car,” he said in a low voice.

  “Good. ’Cause mine’s in Woodland Hills.”

  His bureau car was parked illegally at the front curb. We got in and headed up Woodrow Wilson to the curve that took it around toward Mulholland. I didn’t think he was taking me anywhere. We were just driving.

  “What happened to you?” he asked. “I heard through the grapevine you got picked up last night.”

  “That’s right. By your BAM squad. They put the bam on me, you could say.”

  Lindell looked over at me and then back at the road.

  “You don’t look the worse for wear. You even got some color in your cheeks.”

  “Thanks for noticing, Roy. Now what do you want?”

  “You think they’ve got your house bugged?”

  “Prob’ly. I haven’t had time to check. What do you want? Where are we going?”

  Though I guessed I knew. Mulholland wound around the hill to an overlook with views, depending on the smog ratio, from the Santa Monica Bay to the spires of downtown.

  As expected, Lindell pulled into the small parking lot and stopped next to a Volkswagen van three decades out of place. The smog was heavy. For the most part the view dropped off just past the Capital Records building.

  “Get to the point, huh?” Lindell said, turning in his seat toward me. “Okay, I’ll get to it. What’s going on with the investigation?”

  I looked at him for a long moment, trying to gauge whether he had turned up because of Marty Gessler or as a follow-up from Special Agent Peoples. As a test to determine if I was out of it. Sure Lindell and Peoples were different animals from different floors of the federal building. But they both carried the same badge. And there was no telling what kind of pressure had been brought to bear on Lindell.

  “What’s going on is that there is no investigation.”

  “What? Are you fucking me?”

  “No, I’m not fucking you. You could say I see the light. I was made to see it.”

  “Then what are you going to do, just drop it?”

  “That’s right. I’m going to get my car and go on vacation. Vegas, I think. I got a start on the sunburn this morning. I might as well go lose my money, too.”

  Lindell smiled like he was clever.

  “Fuck you,” he said. “I know what you’re doing. You think I’ve been sent out to test you, huh? Well, fuck you.”

  “That’s nice, Roy. Can you take me back now? I need to pack a bag.”

  “Not until you tell me what is really going on.”

  I cracked the door.

  “Okay, I can walk. I need the exercise.”

  I got out and started walking toward Mulholland. Lindell threw open his door, hitting the side of the old van. He came hurrying after me.

  “Listen, Bosch, listen to me.”

  He caught up to me and stood in front of me, very close, forcing me to stop. He put his hands into fists and held them up in front of his chest as if he was trying to break apart a chain that was binding him.

  “Harry, I’m here for me. Nobody sent me, okay? Do not drop this. Those guys down there, they were probably just throwing you a scare, that’s all.”

  “Tell that to the people they’ve been holding in there. I don’t feel like disappearing, Roy. You know what I mean?”

  “Bullshit. You’ve never been the kind of guy who would —”

  “Hey! Asshole!”

  I turned around at the sound of the voice and saw two men piling out of the sliding door of the Volkswagen van. They were bearded longhairs who looked like they belonged on Harleys, not in a hippie van.

  “You dented the shit out of the door,” the second one yelled.

  “How the fuck can you tell?” Lindell shot back.

  Here we go, I thought. I looked past the approaching behemoths and could see a four-inch crease in the front passenger door of the Volkswagen. Lindell’s door was still open and in contact with it, the obvious culprit.

  “You think it’s a joke?” said the first heavy. “How about if we put a dent in your face?”

  Lindell reached behind his back and in one swift move his hand came out from under his jacket with a pistol. With his free hand he reached forward and grabbed the first heavy by the front of his shirt and pulled him forward, taking a handful of beard in the process. The gun came up and the barrel was pressed into the taller man’s throat.

  “How ’bout you and David Crosby get back in that piece of shit and flower power your way the fuck out of here?”

  “Roy,” I said. “Easy.”

  The smell of marijuana was just now reaching us from the van. There was a long moment of silence while Lindell held eyes with the first heavy. The second stood nearby watching but unable to make a move because of the gun.

  “Okay, man,” the first one finally said. “Everything’s cool. We’ll just back on out of here.”

  Lindell shoved him away and dropped the gun down to his side.

  “Yeah, you do that, Tiny. Back on out. Go smoke the peace pipe somewhere
else.”

  We watched silently while they went back to the van, the second man angrily slamming Lindell’s door so he could get into the front passenger seat of the van. The engine started and the van backed out and pulled out onto Mulholland. The requisite hand gestures were offered from both driver and passenger and then they were gone. I thought about myself just a few hours earlier giving the same salute to the camera in the cube. I knew how helpless the two men in the van felt.

  Lindell turned his attention back to me.

  “That was good, Roy,” I said to him. “With skills like that I’m surprised they didn’t tap you for a ninth-floor gig.”

  “Fuck those guys.”

  “Yeah, that’s the way I was feeling a few hours ago.”

  “So then what’s it going to be, Bosch?”

  He had just pulled a gun on two strangers in a near-violent collision of high-testosterone levels and already the tide had subsided. The surface was calm. The incident was off his radar screen after only one sweep. It was a trait that in the past I had most often seen in psychopaths. I wanted to give Lindell the benefit of the doubt so I chalked it up to the sort of federal arrogance I had also seen before as a genetic trait in bureau men.

  “You staying or running?” he asked.

  That made me angry but I tried not to show it. I cracked a smile.

  “Neither,” I said. “I’m walking.”

  I turned and left him there. I started walking up Mulholland toward Woodrow Wilson and home. He threw a barrage of curses at my back but that didn’t slow me down.

  21

  The garage door was open at Lawton Cross’s house and it looked as though it might have been left that way through the night. I had the cab drop me off in the street next to my Mercedes. It didn’t look like the car had been moved, though I had to assume it had been searched. I had left it unlocked and it still was. I put the small bag I had packed and brought with me into the backseat. I then got behind the wheel, started the engine and pulled the car into the open bay of the garage.

  After I got out I went to the house’s door and pushed a button that would either ring a bell inside or close the garage door. It closed the door. I went over to the Chevy, slid my hands beneath the hood and felt for the release latch. The steel springs yawned loudly as I raised the hood. I looked down at a dusty but clean engine with a chrome air filter cowling and fan highlighting a painted red block. Lawton had obviously babied the car and had appreciated its internal as well as exterior beauty.

  The documents from the investigative file that I had slipped beneath the hood the night before had survived the FBI search. They had fallen and been cradled by the web of spark plug wires on the left side of the block. As I gathered them I noticed that the car’s battery had been disconnected and I wondered when this had been done. It was a smart thing to do with a car that was not going to be used for a while. Lawton probably would have thought of doing it but would not have been able to actually do it. Maybe he had talked Danny through the procedure.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing, Harry?”

  I turned. Danny Cross was in the doorway to the house.

  “Hello, Danny. I just came back for some things I forgot. I also need to use some of Law’s tools. I think something’s wrong with my car.”

  I gestured toward the workbench and Peg-Board that lined the wall next to the Malibu. An array of tools and automotive equipment was on display. She shook her head like I had forgotten to explain the obvious.

  “What about last night? They took you. I saw the handcuffs. The agents who stayed said you wouldn’t be coming back.”

  “Scare tactics, Danny. That’s all that was. As you can see, I’m back.”

  I closed the hood with one hand, leaving it partially sprung in the way I had found it. I walked to the Mercedes and reached the documents in through the open window to the passenger seat. I then thought better about that and opened the door, raised the floor mat and put them under it. It wasn’t a great hiding place but it would do for the moment. I closed the door and looked at Danny.

  “How is Law?”

  “Not good.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They were in there with him last night. They wouldn’t let me in and then they turned off the monitor so I couldn’t exactly hear everything. But they scared him. And they scared me. I want you to go, Harry. I want you to go and not come back.”

  “How’d they scare you? What did they say?”

  She hesitated and I knew that was part of the scare.

  “They told you not to talk about it, right? Not to talk to me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, Danny, I don’t want to get you in trouble. What about Law? Can I talk to him?”

  “He said he doesn’t want to see you anymore. That it’s caused too much trouble.”

  I nodded and looked over at the workbench.

  “Then let me just get to my car and I’ll get out of here.”

  “Did they hurt you, Harry?”

  I looked at her. I think she really cared about the answer.

  “No, I’m all right.”

  “Okay.”

  “Uh, Danny, I need to get something from Law’s sitting room. Should I go in or can you get it for me? What would be better?”

  “What is it?”

  “The clock.”

  “The clock? Why? You gave it to him.”

  “I know. But I need it back.”

  A look of annoyance came across her face. I thought maybe the clock had been a point of argument between them, and now I was taking it back.

  “I’ll get it but I’m telling him you’re the one taking it off the wall.”

  I nodded. She went inside the house and I went around the Malibu and found a dolly leaning against the workbench. I took a pair of pliers and a screwdriver off the Peg-Board and went back to the Mercedes.

  After throwing my jacket into the car I got down on the dolly and slid under the car. It took me less than a minute to find the black box. A satellite tracker about the size of a hardback book was held to the gas tank with two industrial-size strip magnets. There was a twist to the setup I hadn’t seen before. A wire extended from the box to the exhaust pipe where it was connected to a heat sensor. When the pipe heated up, the sensor switched on the tracker, conserving the unit’s battery when the vehicle wasn’t moving. The boys on the ninth floor got the good stuff.

  I decided then to leave the box in place and slid out from underneath the car. Danny was standing there, holding the clock. She had taken the back off, exposing the camera.

  “I thought it was too heavy for just a wall clock,” she said.

  I started getting up.

  “Look, Danny . . .”

  “You were spying on us. You didn’t believe me, did you?”

  “Danny, that’s not what I want it for. Those men that came here last —”

  “But it is what you put it on that wall for. Where’s the tape?”

  “What?”

  “The tape. Where did you watch this?”

  “I didn’t. It’s digital. It’s all right there in the clock.”

  That was a mistake. As I reached for the clock she raised it up over her head and then threw it down to the concrete floor. The glass shattered and the camera broke loose from the clock shell and skittered under the Mercedes.

  “Goddamnit, Danny. It isn’t mine.”

  “I don’t care whose it is. You had no right to do that.”

  “Look, Law told me you weren’t treating him right. What was I supposed to do? Just take your word for it?”

  I got down on the floor and looked under the car. The camera was within reach and I pulled it out. The casing was badly scratched but I could not make any judgment about its interior mechanisms. I ejected the memory card the way Andre Biggar had taught me and it looked okay to me. I stood up and held it up for Danny to see.

  “This might be the only thing that keeps those men from coming back. You better
hope it’s not damaged.”

  “I don’t care. And I hope you really enjoy what you see on it. I hope you’re very proud of yourself when you watch it.”

  I had no response for that.

  “Don’t come back here ever again.”

  She turned and went into the house, her hand slapping the wall button, which brought the garage door up behind me. She closed the house’s door without looking back at me. I waited a moment to see if she would reappear and throw another verbal attack at me. But she didn’t. I pocketed the memory card and then squatted down to gather the pieces of the broken clock.