The Concrete Blonde

by Michael Connelly

  Bremmer started the conversation during the four blocks to Parker Center.

  “That Money Chandler is something else, isn’t she? She really knows how to play a jury.”

  “You think she’s got it, don’t you?”

  “It’s going to be close, Harry. I think. But even if it’s one of those statement verdicts that are popular these days against the LAPD, she’ll get rich.”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “You haven’t been in federal court before have you?”

  “No. I try not to make it a habit.”

  “Well, in a civil rights case, if the plaintiff wins—in this case, Chandler—then the defendant—in this case the city is paying your tab—has to pay the lawyer’s fees. I guarantee you, Harry, that in her closing argument tomorrow Money will tell those jurors that all they need to do is make a statement that you acted wrongly. And even damages of a dollar make that statement. The jury will see that as the easy way out. They can say you were wrong and only give a dollar in damages. They won’t know, because Belk is not allowed to tell them, that even if the plaintiff wins a dollar, Chandler bills the city. And that won’t be a dollar. More like a couple hundred thousand of them. It’s a scam.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, that’s the justice system.”

  Bremmer pulled into the lot and Bosch pointed out his Caprice in one of the front rows.

  “You going to be all right to drive?” Bremmer asked.

  “No problem.”

  Bosch was about to close the door when Bremmer stopped him.

  “Hey, Harry, we both know I can’t reveal my source. But I can tell you who it isn’t. And I’ll tell you it is not someone you’d expect. You know? Edgar and Pounds, if that’s who you think it is, forget it. You’d never guess who it was, so don’t bother. Okay?”

  Bosch just nodded and shut the door.

  21

  After fumbling to find the right one, Bosch put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. He briefly considered whether he should try to drive or whether he should go get coffee from the cafeteria first. He looked up through the windshield at the gray monolith that was Parker Center. Most of the lights were on but he knew the offices had emptied. The lights of the squad rooms were always left on to give the appearance that the fight against crime never sleeps. It was a lie.

  He thought of the couch that was kept in one of the RHD interrogation rooms. That was also an alternative to driving. Unless, of course, it was already taken. But then he thought of Sylvia and how she had come to court despite what he had said about not wanting her there. He wanted to get home to her. Yes, he thought, home.

  He put his hand on the key but then dropped it away again. He rubbed his eyes. They were tired and there were so many thoughts swimming in the whiskey. There was the sound of the tenor sax floating there, too. His own improvisational riff.

  He tried to think of what Bremmer had just said, that Bosch would never guess who the source was. Why had he said it that way? He found that more tantalizing than wondering who his source actually was.

  It didn’t matter, he told himself. All would be over soon. He leaned his head against the side window, thinking about the trial and his testimony. He wondered how he had looked up there, all eyes on him. He never wanted to be in that position again. Ever. To have Honey Chandler cornering him with words.

  Whoever fights monsters, he thought. What had she told the jury? About the abyss? Yes, where monsters dwell. Is that where I dwell? In the black place? The black heart, he remembered then. Locke had called it that. The black heart does not beat alone. In his mind he replayed the vision of Norman Church being knocked upright by the bullet and then flopping helplessly naked on the bed. The look in the dying man’s eyes stayed with him. Four years later and the vision was as clear as yesterday. Why was that, he wanted to know. Why did he remember Norman Church’s face and not his own mother’s? Do I have the black heart, Bosch asked himself. Do I?

  The darkness came up on him then like a wave and pulled him down. He was there with the monsters.

  • • •

  There was a sharp rap on the glass. Bosch abruptly opened his eyes and saw the patrolman next to the car holding his baton and flashlight. Harry quickly looked around and grabbed the wheel and put his foot on the brake. He didn’t think he had been driving that badly, then he realized he hadn’t been driving at all. He was still in the Parker Center lot. He reached over and rolled the window down.

  The kid in the uniform was the lot cop. The lowest-rated cadet in each academy class was first assigned to watch the Parker Center lot during P.M. watch. It was a tradition but it also served a purpose. If the cops couldn’t prevent car break-ins and other crime in the parking lot of their own headquarters, then it begged the question, where could they stop crime?

  “Detective, are you all right?” he said as he slid his baton back into the ring on his belt. “I saw you get dropped off and get in your car. Then when you didn’t leave I wanted to check.”

  “Yes,” Bosch managed to say. “I’m, uh, fine. Thanks. I musta dozed off there. Been a long day.”

  “Yes, they all are. Be careful now.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay driving?”

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He waited until the cop walked away before starting the car. Bosch looked at his watch and figured he had slept for no more than thirty minutes. But the nap, and the sudden waking, had refreshed him. He lit a cigarette and pulled the car out onto Los Angeles Street and took it to the Hollywood Freeway entrance.

  As he drove north on the freeway he rolled the window down so the cool air would keep him alert. It was a clear night. Ahead of him, the lights of the Hollywood Hills ascended into the sky where spotlights from two different locations behind the mountains cut through the darkness. He thought it was a beautiful scene, yet it made him feel melancholy.

  Los Angeles had changed in the last few years, but then there was nothing new about that. It was always changing and that was why he loved it. But riot and recession had left a particularly harsh mark on the landscape, the landscape of memory. Bosch believed he would never forget the pall of smoke that hung over the city like some kind of supersmog that could not be lifted by the evening winds. The TV pictures of burning buildings and looters unchecked by the police. It had been the department’s darkest hour and it still had not recovered.

  And neither had the city. Many of the ills that led to such volcanic rage were still left untended. The city offered so much beauty and yet it offered so much danger and hate. It was a city of shaken confidence, living solely on its stores of hope. In Bosch’s mind he saw the polarization of the haves and have-nots as a scene in which a ferry was leaving the dock. An overloaded ferry leaving an overloaded dock, with some people with a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock. The boat was pulling further away and it would only be so long before those in the middle would fall in. Meanwhile, the ferry was still too crowded and it would capsize at the first wave. Those left on the dock would certainly cheer this. They prayed for the wave.

  He thought of Edgar and what he had done. He was one of those about to fall in. Nothing could be done about it. He and his wife, whom Edgar could not bring himself to tell about their precarious position. Bosch wondered if he had done the right thing. Edgar had spoken of the time that would come when Bosch would need every friend he could get. Would it have been wiser to bank this one, to let Edgar go, no harm no foul? He didn’t know, but there was still time. He would have to decide.

  As he drove through the Cahuenga Pass he rolled the window back up. It was getting cold. He looked up into the hills to the west and tried to spot the unlighted area where his dark house sat. He felt glad that he wasn’t going up there tonight, that he was going to Sylvia.

  • • •

  He got there at 11:30 and used his own key to get in. There was a light on in the kitchen but the res
t of the place was dark. Sylvia was asleep. It was too late for the news and the late-night talk shows never held his interest. He took his shoes off in the living room so as to not make any noise and went down the hall to her bedroom.

  He stood still in the complete darkness, letting his eyes adjust.

  “Hi,” she said from the bed, though he could not yet see her.

  “’Lo.”

  “Where have you been, Harry?”

  She said it sweetly and with sleep still in her voice. It was not a challenge or a demand.

  “I had to do a few things, then I had a few drinks.”

  “Hear any good music?”

  “Yeah, they had a quartet. Not bad. Played a lot of Billy Strayhorn.”

  “Do you want me to fix you something?”

  “Nah, go to sleep. You have school tomorrow. I’m not that hungry anyway and I can get something if I want it.”

  “C’mere.”

  He made his way to the bed and crawled across the down quilt. Her hand came up and around his neck and she pulled him down into a kiss.

  “Yes, you did have a few drinks.”

  He laughed and then so did she.

  “Let me go brush my teeth.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  She pulled him down again and he kissed her mouth and neck. She had a milky sweet smell of sleep and perfume about her that he liked. He noticed that she was not wearing a nightgown, though she usually did. He put his hand under the covers and traced the flatness of her stomach. He brought it up and caressed her breasts and then her neck. He kissed her again and then pushed his face into her hair and neck.

  “Sylvia, thank you,” he whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For coming today and being there. I know what I said before but it meant something to see you when I looked out there. It meant a lot.”

  That was all he could say about it. He got up then and went into the bathroom. He stripped off his clothes and carefully hung them on hooks on the back of the door. He would have to wear them again in the morning.

  He took a quick shower, then shaved and brushed his teeth with the second set of toiletries he kept in her bathroom. He looked in the mirror as he brushed his damp hair back with his hands. And he smiled. It might have been the residue of the whiskey and beer, he knew. But he doubted it. It was because he felt lucky. He felt that he was neither on the ferry with the mad crowd nor left behind on the dock with the angry crowd. He was in his own boat. With just Sylvia.

  • • •

  They made love the way lonely people do, silently, with each trying too hard in the dark to please the other until they were almost clumsy about it. Still, there was a healing sense about it for Bosch. Afterward, she lay next to him, her finger tracing the outline of his tattoo.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Just stuff.”

  “Tell me.”

  He waited a few moments before answering.

  “Tonight I found out somebody betrayed me. Somebody close. And, well, I was just thinking that maybe I’d had it wrong. That it really wasn’t me who was betrayed. It was himself. He had betrayed himself. And maybe living with that is punishment enough. I don’t think I need to add to it.”

  He thought about what he had said to Edgar at the Red Wind and decided he would have to stop him from going to Pounds for the transfer.

  “Betrayed how?”

  “Uh, consorting with the enemy, I guess you’d call it.”

  “Honey Chandler?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Not too bad, I guess. It’s just that he did it that matters. It hurts, I guess.”

  “Is there anything you can do? Not to him, I mean. I mean to limit the damage.”

  “No. Whatever damage there is, it’s already done. I only figured out it was him tonight. It was by accident, otherwise I probably would have never even thought of him. Anyway, don’t worry about it.”

  She caressed his chest with the tips of her fingernails.

  “If you’re not worried, I’m not.”

  He loved her knowing the boundaries of how much she could ask him, and that she didn’t even think to ask him who it was he was talking about. He felt totally comfortable with her. No worries, no anxieties. It was home to him.

  He was just beginning to fall off when she spoke again.

  “Harry?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Are you worried about the trial, how the closing arguments will go?”

  “Not really. I don’t like being in the fishbowl, sitting at that table while everybody gets their chance to explain why they think I did what I did. But I’m not worried about the outcome, if that’s what you mean. It doesn’t mean anything. I just want it to be over and I don’t really care anymore what they do. No jury can sanction what I did or didn’t do. No jury can tell me I was right or wrong. You know? This trial could last a year and it wouldn’t tell them everything about that night.”

  “What about the department? Will they care?”

  He told her what Irving had told him that afternoon about what effect the trial’s outcome would have. He didn’t say anything about what the assistant chief had said about knowing his mother. But Irving’s story crossed through his mind and for the first time since he had been in bed he felt the need for a cigarette.

  But he didn’t get up. He put the urge out of his mind and they lay quietly for a while after that. Bosch kept his eyes open in the dark. His thoughts were now about Edgar and then they segued to Mora. He wondered what the vice cop was doing at the same moment. Was he alone in the dark? Was he out looking?

  “I meant what I said earlier today, Harry,” Sylvia said.

  “What’s that?”

  “That I want to know all about you, your past, the good and the bad. And I want you to know about me. . . . Don’t ignore this. It could hurt us.”

  Her voice had lost some of its sleepy sweetness. He was silent and closed his eyes. He knew this one thing was more important to her than anything. She had been the loser in a past relationship where the stories of the past were not used as the building blocks of the future. He brought his hand up and rubbed his thumb along the back of her neck. She always smelled powdery after sex, he thought, yet she had not even gotten up to go into the bathroom. This was a mystery to him. It took him a while to answer her.

  “You have to take me without a past. . . . I’ve let it go and don’t want to go back to examine it, to tell it, to even think about it. I’ve spent my whole life getting away from my past. You understand? Just because a lawyer can throw it at me in a courtroom doesn’t mean I have to . . .”

  “What, tell me?”

  He didn’t answer. He turned his body into her and kissed and embraced her. He just wanted to hold her, to pull back away from this cliff.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you,” he said.

  She pulled herself closer to him and put her face in the crook of his neck. Her arms held him tightly, as if maybe she was scared.

  It was the first time he had said it to her. It was the first time he had said it to anyone as far back as he could remember. Maybe he had never said it. It felt good to him, almost like a palpable presence, a warm flower of deep red opening in his chest. And he realized he was the one who was a little bit scared. As if by simply saying the words he had taken on a great responsibility. It was scary yet exciting. He thought of himself in the mirror, smiling.

  She held herself pressed against him and he could feel her breath against his neck. In a short while her breathing became more measured as she fell asleep.

  Lying awake, Bosch held her like that until well into the night. Now sleep would not come to him and with the insomnia came realities that robbed him of the good feelings he had only minutes before. He had thought about what she had said about betrayal and trust. And he knew that the pledges they spoke to each other this night would founder if built on deception. H
e knew what she had said was true. He would have to tell her who he was, what he was, if the words he had spoken were ever to be more than words. He thought about what Judge Keyes had said about words being beautiful and ugly on their own. Bosch had spoken the word love. He knew now that he must make it either ugly or beautiful.

  The bedroom’s windows were on the east side of the house and the light of dawn was just beginning to cling to the edges of the blinds when Bosch finally closed his eyes and slept.

  22

  Bosch looked rumpled and worn-out when he entered the courtroom Friday morning. Belk was already there, scribbling on his yellow pad. He looked up and appraised him as Bosch sat down.

  “You look like shit and smell like an ashtray. And the jury will know that’s the same suit and tie you wore yesterday.”

  “A clear sign I’m guilty.”

  “Don’t be such a smartass. You never know what may turn a juror one way or the other.”

  “I don’t really care. Besides, you’re the one who has to look good today, right, Belk?”

  This was not an encouraging thing to say to a man at least eighty pounds overweight who broke out in flop sweat every time the judge looked at him.

  “What the hell do you mean you don’t care? Everything is on the line today and you waltz in looking like you slept in your car and say you don’t care.”

  “I’m relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit.”

  “Why now, Bosch, when I could have settled this for five figures two weeks ago?”

  “Because I realize now that there are things more important than what twelve of my so-called peers think. Even if, as peers, they wouldn’t give me the time of day on the street.”

  Belk looked at his watch and said, “Leave me alone, Bosch. We start in ten minutes and I want to be ready. I’m still working on my argument. I’m going to go shorter than even Keyes demanded.”