The Last Coyote (1995)

by Michael Connelly

  “The law is for fools, Detective Bosch. But I must correct you. I don’t really consider myself to be in politics. I consider myself to be just a fixer. A solver of problems of any kind for anyone. Political problems just happen to be my forte. But now, you see, I have to fix a problem that is neither political nor someone else’s. This one is my own.”

  He raised his eyebrows as though he could hardly believe it himself.

  “And that’s why I have invited you here. Why I asked Jonathan to bring you along. You see, I had an idea that if we watched Arno Conklin, our mystery party crasher of the other night would eventually show up. And I wasn’t disappointed.”

  “You’re a clever man, Mittel.”

  Bosch turned his head slightly so that he could see Jonathan in his peripheral vision. He was still out of reach. Bosch knew he had to draw him closer.

  “Hold your ground, Jonathan,” Mittel said. “Mr. Bosch is not one to get excited about. Just a minor inconvenience.”

  Bosch looked back at Mittel.

  “Just like Marjorie Lowe, right? She was just a minor inconvenience. Just a nobody who didn’t count.”

  “Now, that’s an interesting name to bring up. Is that what this is about, Detective Bosch?”

  Bosch stared at him, too angry to speak.

  “Well, the only thing I can admit to is that I did use her death to my advantage. I saw it as an opportunity, you could say.”

  “I know all about it, Mittel. You used her to get control of Conklin. But eventually even he saw through your lies. It’s over now. It doesn’t matter what you do to me here, my people will be coming. You can count on it.”

  “The old give-up-the-place-is-surrounded-ploy. I don’t think so. This badge business…something tells me that you’ve exceeded your bounds on this one. I think maybe this is what they call an unofficial investigation and the fact that you used a false name before and were carrying a dead man’s badge tend to bear me out…I don’t think anyone is coming. Are they?”

  Bosch’s mind raced but he drew a blank and remained silent.

  “I think you’re just a small-time extortionist who stumbled onto something somehow and wants a payoff to go away. Well, we’re going to give you a payoff, Detective Bosch.”

  “There are people who know what I know, Mittel,” Bosch blurted. “What are you going to do, go out and kill them all?”

  “I’ll take that suggestion under advisement.”

  “What about Conklin? He knows the whole story. Anything happens to me, I guarantee he’ll go right to the cops.”

  “As a matter of fact, you could say Arno Conklin is with the police right now. But I don’t think he’s saying much.”

  Bosch dropped his head and slumped a little. He had guessed that Conklin was dead but had hoped he was wrong. He felt the billiard ball move in his sleeve and he folded his arms again to cover up.

  “Yes. Apparently, the former district attorney threw himself from his window after your visit.”

  Mittel stepped aside and pointed out into the lights below. Far off Bosch could see the cluster of lighted buildings that were Park La Brea. And he could see blue and red lights flashing at the base of one of the buildings. It was Conklin’s building.

  “Must have been a truly traumatic moment,” Mittel continued. “He chose death rather than give in to extortion. A principled man to the end.”

  “He was an old man!” Bosch yelled angrily. “Goddamnit, why?”

  “Detective Bosch, keep your voice down or Jonathan will have to lower it for you.”

  “You’re not getting away this time,” Bosch said in a lower, tighter, controlled voice.

  “As far as Conklin goes, I assume the final declaration will be suicide. He was very sick, you know.”

  “Right, a guy with no legs walks over to the window and decides to throw himself out.”

  “Well, if the authorities don’t believe that, then maybe they will come up with an alternate scenario when they find your fingerprints in the room. I’m sure you obliged us by leaving a few.”

  “Along with my briefcase.”

  That hit Mittel like a slap across the face.

  “That’s right. I left it there. And there’s enough in it to bring them up this mountain to see you, Mittel. They’ll come for you!”

  Bosch yelled the last line at him as a test.

  “Jon!” Mittel barked.

  Almost before the word was out of Mittel’s mouth, Bosch was clubbed from behind. The impact came on the right side of the neck and he went down to his knees, careful to keep his arm bent and the heavy ball in place. He slowly, more slowly than was needed, got up. Since the impact had been on the right, he assumed that Jonathan had hit him with his gun hand.

  “By providing me with the location of the briefcase, you have answered the most important question I had,” Mittel said. “The other, of course, was what was in the briefcase and how it would concern me. Now, the problem I have is that without the briefcase or the ability to get it I have no way of checking the veracity of what you tell me here.”

  “So I guess you’re fucked.”

  “No, Detective, I think that would more accurately describe your situation. However, I have one other question before you go off. Why, Detective Bosch? Why were you bothering with something so old and so meaningless?”

  Bosch looked at him for a long time before answering.

  “Because everybody counts, Mittel. Everybody.”

  Bosch saw Mittel nod in the direction of Jonathan. The meeting was over. He had to make his play.

  “Help!”

  Bosch yelled it as loudly as he could. And he knew the gunman would make his move toward him immediately. Anticipating the same swing of the gun to the right side of the neck, Bosch spun to his right. As he moved he straightened his left arm and used the centrifugal force of the move to let the billiard ball roll down his sleeve into his hand. In continuing the move, he swung his arm up and out. And as he turned his face he saw Jonathan inches behind him, swinging his own hand down, the fingers laced around the Beretta. He also saw the surprise on Jonathan’s face as he realized his swing would surely miss and that his momentum prevented him from correcting the course.

  After Jonathan’s arm went by harmlessly and he was vulnerable, Bosch’s arm arced downward. Jonathan made a last-second lunge to his left but the billiard ball in Bosch’s fist still caught him with a glancing blow to the right side of his head. It made a sound like a lightbulb popping and Jonathan’s body followed the momentum of his falling arm. He fell face first on the grass, his body on top of the gun.

  Almost immediately, the man tried to get up and Bosch delivered a vicious kick to his ribs. Jonathan rolled off the gun and Bosch came down on his body with his knees, swinging his fist into the back of his head and neck two more times before realizing that he still gripped the billiard ball and that he had hurt the man enough.

  Breathing as if he had just come up for air, Bosch glanced around and saw the gun. He quickly grabbed it up and looked for Mittel. But he was gone.

  The slight sound of running on grass caught his attention and he looked to the far northern line of the lawn. He caught a glimpse of Mittel then, just as he disappeared into the darkness at the spot where the flat, manicured grass gave way to the rugged brush of the hilltop.

  “Mittel!”

  Bosch jumped up and followed. At the point where he had last seen Mittel, he found a path worn into the brush. He realized it was an old coyote trail that had been widened over time by human feet. He raced down it, the yawning drop-off to the city below no more than two feet on his right.

  He saw no sign of Mittel and followed the trail along the edge of the drop-off until the house was no longer in sight behind him. Finally he stopped after coming across nothing that indicated Mittel was even near or had taken this path.

  Breathing heavily, his head pounding where he was wounded, Bosch came upon a steep bluff rising off the side of the trail and saw that it was ringed with old
beer bottles and other debris. The bluff was a popular lookout spot. He put the gun in his waistband and then used his hands for balance and purchase as he climbed ten feet to its top. He did a slow three-sixty-degree turn while on top of the bluff but saw nothing. He listened but the hiss of the city’s traffic precluded any chance of his hearing Mittel moving in the brush. He decided to give it up, to get back to the house and call out an air unit before Mittel could get away. They’d find him with a spotlight if the chopper could get out here quickly enough.

  As he gingerly slid back down the bluff, Mittel suddenly came at him from the darkness to the right. He had been hiding behind a thick growth of brush and Spanish sword plants. He dove into Bosch’s midsection, knocking him down onto the trail, his weight on top of him. Bosch felt the man’s hands going for the gun still in his waistband. But Bosch was younger and stronger. The surprise attack was Mittel’s last card. Bosch closed his arms around him and rolled to his left. Suddenly, the weight was off and Mittel was gone.

  Bosch sat up and looked about, then pulled himself over to the edge. He pulled the gun out of his waistband and then leaned over and looked down. There was only darkness when he looked directly down the side of the rugged hill. He could see the rectangular roofs of houses about a hundred and fifty yards down. He knew they were built along the twisting roads that fed off Hollywood Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. He did another complete turn and then looked down again. He didn’t see Mittel anywhere.

  Bosch surveyed the scene beneath him in its entirety until his eyes caught the backyard lights flicking on behind one of the houses directly below. He watched as a man came out of the house carrying what looked like a rifle. The man slowly approached a round backyard spa platform, the rifle pointed ahead of him. The man stopped at the edge of the spa and reached to what must have been the outdoor electrical box.

  The tub light came on, silhouetting the body of a man floating in a circle of blue. Even from on top of the hill Bosch could see the swirls of blood seeping from Mittel’s body. Then the voice of the man with the rifle came up the hillside intact.

  “Linda, don’t come out! Just call the police. Tell them we got a body in our hot tub.”

  Then the man looked up the hillside and Bosch moved back away from the edge. Immediately, he wondered why he’d had the instinctive reaction to hide.

  He got up and slowly made his way back to Mittel’s house along the path. As he walked, he looked out across the city at the lights shimmering in the night and thought it was beautiful. He thought about Conklin and Pounds and then pushed the guilt out of his mind with thoughts about Mittel, about how his death finally closed the circle begun so long ago. He thought of the image of his mother in Monte Kim’s photo. Her looking timidly around the edge of Conklin’s arm. He waited for the feeling of satisfaction and triumph that he knew was supposed to come with vengeance accomplished. But none of it ever came to him. He only felt hollow and tired.

  When he got back to the perfect lawn behind the perfect mansion, the man called Jonathan was gone.

  Chapter Forty-three

  ASSISTANT CHIEF Irvin S. Irving stood in the open doorway of the examination suite. Bosch was sitting on the side of the padded table holding an ice pack to his head. The doctor had given it to him after putting in the stitches. He noticed Irving when he adjusted the bag in his hand.

  “How do you feel?”

  “I’ll live, I guess. That’s what they tell me, at least.”

  “Well, that’s better than you can say for Mittel. He took the high dive.”

  “Yeah. What about the other one?”

  “Nothing on him. We got his name, though. You told the uniforms Mittel called him Jonathan. So that means he’s probably Jonathan Vaughn. He’s worked for Mittel for a long time. They’re working on it, checking the hospitals. Sounds like you might’ve hurt him enough that he’d come in.”

  “Vaughn.”

  “We’re trying to do a background on him. So far, not much. He’s got no record.”

  “How long was he with Mittel?”

  “That we’re not sure of. We’ve talked to Mittel’s people at the law firm. Not what you’d call cooperative. But they say Vaughn has been around forever. He was described by most people as Mittel’s personal valet.”

  Bosch nodded and put the information away.

  “There’s also a driver. We picked him up but he isn’t saying much. A little surfer punk. He couldn’t talk if he wanted to anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “His jaw is broken. Wired shut. He won’t talk about that, either.”

  Bosch just nodded again and looked at him. There didn’t seem to be anything hidden in what he had said.

  “The doctor said you have a severe concussion but the skull is not fractured. Minor laceration.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. My head feels like the Goodyear blimp with a hole in it.”

  “How many stitches?”

  “I think he said eighteen.”

  “He said you’ll probably have headaches and keep the knot up there and the eye hemorrhages for a few days. It’ll look worse than it is.”

  “Well, nice to know he’s telling somebody what’s going on. I haven’t heard anything from him. Just the nurses.”

  “He’ll be in in a minute. He was probably waiting for you to come out of it a little more.”

  “Come out of what?”

  “You were a little dazed when we got up there to you, Harry. You sure you want to talk about this now? It can wait. You’re hurt and need to take it—”

  “I’m okay. I want to talk. You been by the scene at Park La Brea?”

  “Yes, I was there. I was there when we got the call from Mount Olympus. I’ve got your briefcase in the car, by the way. You left it there, didn’t you? With Conklin?”

  He started to nod but stopped because it made things swirl.

  “Good,” he said. “There’s something there I want to keep.”

  “The photo?”

  “You looked through it?”

  “Bosch! You must be groggy. It was found at the scene of a crime.”

  “Yeah, I know, sorry.”

  He waved off his objection. He was tired of fighting.

  “So, the crew working the scene up on the hill already told me what happened. At least, the early version based on the physicals. What I’m not clear about is what got you up there. You know, how all of this figures. You want to run it down for me or wait until maybe tomorrow?”

  Bosch nodded once and waited a moment for his mind to clear. He hadn’t tried to collect the story into one cohesive thought yet. He thought about it some more and finally gave it a shot.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Okay, I want to read you your rights first.”

  “What, again?”

  “It’s just a procedure so it doesn’t look like we’re cutting any slack to one of our own. You’ve got to remember, you were at two places tonight and at both somebody took a big fall. It doesn’t look good.”

  “I didn’t kill Conklin.”

  “I know that and we have the security guard’s statement. He says you left before Conklin took the dive. So you’re gonna be okay. You’re clear but I have to follow procedure. Now, you still want to talk?”

  “I waive my rights.”

  Irving read them to him from a card anyway and Bosch waived them again.

  “Okay, then, I don’t have a waive form. You’ll have to sign that later.”

  “You want me to tell the story?”

  “Yes, I want you to tell the story.”

  “Okay, here we go.”

  But then he stopped as he tried to put it into words.

  “Harry?”

  “Okay, here it is. In 1961 Arno Conklin met Marjorie Lowe. He was introduced by local scumbucket Johnny Fox, who made his living off making such introductions and arrangements. Usually for money. This initial meeting between Arno and Marjorie was at the St. Pat’s party at the Masonic Lodge on Cahuenga.�
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  “That’s the photo in the briefcase, right?”

  “Right. Now, at that first meeting, according to Arno’s story, which I believe, he didn’t know that Marjorie was a pro and Fox was a pimp. Fox arranged the introduction because he probably saw the opportunity and had one eye on the future. See, if Conklin knew it was a pay-to-play sort of thing, he would have walked away. He was the top county vice commando. He would have walked away.”