The Black Echo (1992) Page 24

  “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 until 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.”

  “Who’s ‘we’—you and the feebee woman?”

  Eleanor came out of the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the bed next to him.

  “Jerry, what are you calling me for?” Bosch asked. He was beginning to get a sinking feeling in his chest.

  “What’s the kid’s name?”

  Bosch was in a daze. It had been months since he had fallen so deeply asleep, only to be rousted out of it. He couldn’t remember Sharkey’s real name and he didn’t want to ask Eleanor because Edgar might hear and then know they were together. Harry looked at Eleanor and when she began to spea
k, he touched his finger to her lips and shook his head.

  “Is it Edward Niese?” Edgar spoke into the silence. “That the kid’s name?”

  The sinking feeling was gone. Bosch felt an invisible fist pressing up under his ribs and into the folds of his guts and heart.

  “Right,” he said. “That’s the name.”

  “You gave him one of your business cards?”

  “Right.”

  “Harry, you aren’t looking for him anymore.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Come on out and see for yourself. I’m over at the bowl. Sharkey’s in the pedestrian tunnel under Cahuenga. Park on the east side. You’ll see the cars.”

  The Hollywood Bowl’s east parking lot was supposed to be empty at 4:30 A.M. But as Bosch and Wish drove up Highland to the mouth of the Cahuenga Pass they saw that the north end of the lot was crowded with the usual grouping of official cars and vans that signal the violent, or at least unexpected, end of a life. There was yellow plastic crime scene tape strung in a square, boxing the entrance to the stairwell that went down to the pedestrian underpass. Bosch flashed his badge and gave his name to a uniform cop who was keeping the officers-on-the-scene list on a clipboard. He and Wish ducked under the tape and were met by the loud sound of an engine echoing from the mouth of the tunnel. Bosch knew by the sound that it was a generator making the juice for the crime scene lights. At the top step, before they began their descent, he turned to Eleanor and said, “You want to wait here? We don’t both have to go.”

  “I’m a cop, for godsake,” she said. “I’ve seen bodies before. You going to get protective of me now, Bosch? Tell you what. Want me to go down and you stay up here?”

  Startled by her abrupt change in mood, Bosch didn’t answer. He looked at her a moment longer, confused. He started down a few steps in front of her but stopped when he saw Edgar’s large body come out of the tunnel and start up the steps. Edgar saw Bosch, and then Bosch saw his eyes go over his shoulder and take Eleanor Wish in.

  “Hey, Harry,” he said. “This your new partner? You must be getting along real fine already.”

  Bosch just stared at him. Eleanor was still three steps behind and probably hadn’t heard the remark.

  “Sorry, Harry,” Edgar said just loud enough to be heard over the roar from the tunnel. “Out of line. Been a bad night. You should see who I got for a new partner, the useless fuck Ninety-eight Pounds stuck me with.”

  “I thought you were going to get—”

  “Nope. Get this: Pounds put me with Porter from autos. The guy’s a burned-out lush.”

  “I know. How’d you even get him out of bed for this?”

  “He wasn’t in bed. I had to track him down at the Parrot up in North Hollywood. It’s one of them private bottle clubs. Porter gives me the number when we’re first introduced as partners and tells me that’s where he’ll be most nights. Tells me he works a security detail there. But I called the off-duty assignments office at Parker Center to check it out and they got no record. I know the only thing he does there is booze. He must’ve been practically passed out when I called. The bartender said the pager on his belt went off but he didn’t even hear it. Harry, I think the guy could blow a point two right now if we put a Breathalyzer on him.”

  Bosch nodded and frowned the required three seconds and then put Jerry Edgar’s troubles aside. He felt Eleanor step down beside him and he introduced her to Edgar. They shook hands and smiled and Bosch said, “So, what have we got?”

  “Well, we got these on the body,” Edgar said, and he held up a clear plastic bag. There was a short stack of Polaroids in it. More nude shots of Sharkey. He hadn’t wasted any time resupplying. Edgar turned the bag and there was Bosch’s business card.

  “It looks like the kid was a hustler down in Boytown,” Edgar said, “but if you already pulled him in once you already know that. Anyway, I saw the card and figured he might be the kid from the nine one one call. If you want to come down and take a look, be my guest. We already processed the scene, so touch whatever you want. You can’t hear yourself think in there, though. Sombody went through and knocked out every light in the tunnel. Haven’t figured out whether that was the perp or the lights were knocked out before.

  “Anyway, we had to set up our own. And our cables weren’t long enough to put the generator up here. It’s in there screaming like a five-horsepower baby.”

  He turned to head back into the tunnel but Bosch reached out and touched his shoulder.

  “Jed, how’d you get the call on this?”

  “Anonymous. It wasn’t a nine one one line, so there’s no tape or trace. Came in right to the Hollywood desk. Caller was a male, that’s all the dipshit, one of those fat Explorer kids who took it, could tell us.”

  Edgar turned back into the subway. Bosch and Wish followed. It was a long hallway that curved to the right. The floor was dirty concrete, its walls were white stucco with a heavy overlay of graffiti. Nothing like a dose of urban reality as you are leaving the symphony at the bowl, Bosch thought. The tunnel was dark except for the bright splash of light that bathed the crime scene about halfway in. There Bosch could see a human form sprawled on its back. Sharkey. He could see men standing and working in the light. Bosch walked with the fingers of his right hand trailing along the stuccoed wall. It steadied him. There was an old, damp smell in the tunnel that was mixed with the new odor of gasoline and exhaust from the generator. Bosch felt beads of sweat start to form on his scalp and under his shirt. His breathing was fast and shallow. They passed the generator thirty feet in and in another thirty feet or so Sharkey was lying on the tunnel floor under the brutal light of the strobes.

  The boy’s head was propped against the tunnel wall at an unnatural angle. He seemed smaller and younger than Bosch remembered him. His eyes were half open and had the familiar glaze of the unseeing on them. He wore a black T-shirt that said Guns N Roses on it, and it was matted with his blood. The pockets of his faded jeans were pulled out and empty. At his side stood a can of spray paint in a plastic evidence bag. On the wall above his head a painted inscription read RIP Sharkey. The paint had been applied with an inexperienced hand and too much had been used. Black paint had run down the wall in thin lines, some of them into Sharkey’s hair.

  When Edgar yelled, “You want to see it?” above the din of the generator Bosch knew that he meant the wound. Because Sharkey’s head was angled forward, the throat wound was not visible. Only the blood. Bosch shook his head no.

  Bosch noticed the blood splatter on the wall and floor about three feet from the body. Porter the lush was comparing the shapes of the drops with those on splatter cards on a steel ring. A crime scene tech named Roberge was also photographing the spots. The blood on the floor was in round spots. The wall splatter drops were elliptical. You didn’t need splatter cards to know the kid had been killed right here in the tunnel.

  “The way it’s looking,” Porter said loudly to no one in particular, “somebody comes up behind him here, cuts him and pushes him down against the wall there.”

  “You only got it half right, Porter,” Edgar said. “How’s somebody come up behind somebody in a tunnel like this? He was with somebody and they did him. It was no sneak job, Porter.”

  Porter put the splatter cards in his pocket and said, “Sorry, partner.”

  He didn’t say anything else. He was fat and broken down the way many cops get when they stay on longer than they should. Porter could still wear a size 34 belt, but above it a tremendous gut bloomed outward like an awning. He wore a tweed sport coat with a frayed elbow. His face was gaunt and as pallid as a flour tortilla, behind a drinker’s nose that was large, misshapen and painfully red.

  Bosch lit a cigarette and put the burnt match in his pocket. He crouched down like a baseball catcher next to the body and lifted the bag containing the paint can and hefted it. It was almost full, and that confirmed what he already knew, already feared. It was he who had killed Sharkey. In a way, at least. Bosch had
tracked him down and made him valuable, or potentially valuable, to the case. Someone could not allow this. Bosch squatted there, elbows on knees, holding cigarette to mouth, smoking and studying the body, making sure he would not forget it.

  Meadows had been part of this thing—the circle of connected events that had gotten him killed. But not Sharkey. He was street trash and his death here probably saved someone else’s life down the line. But he did not deserve this. In this circle he was an innocent. And that meant things were out of control and there were new rules—for both sides. Bosch signaled with his hand to Sharkey’s neck and a coroner’s investigator pulled the body away from the wall. Bosch put one hand down on the ground to balance himself and stared for a long time at the ravaged neck and throat. He did not want to forget a single detail. Sharkey’s head lolled back, exposing the gaping neck wound. Bosch’s eyes never wavered.