“Harry, how ’bout we go get a drink?” Rider said.
“How ’bout we go get drunk?” Bosch replied.
28
They waited until 10 : 30 Saturday morning for their charter clients to arrive but no one showed. McCaleb was sitting silently on the gunwale in the stern doing a slow burn over everything. The missing charter, his dismissal from the case, the most recent phone call from Jaye Winston, everything. Before he left the house Winston had called to apologize for how things had gone the day before. He feigned indifference and told her to forget about it. And he still didn’t tell her about Buddy Lockridge overhearing them on the boat two days earlier. When Jaye said Twilley and Friedman had decided it would be best if he returned the copies of all the documents relating to the case, he told her to tell them they could come get them if they wanted them. He said he had a charter and had to go. They abruptly said good-byes and hung up.
Raymond was bent over the stern, fishing with a little spinner reel McCaleb had gotten him after they moved to the island. He was looking through the clear water at the moving shapes of the orange garibaldi fish twenty feet below. Buddy Lockridge was sitting in the fighting chair reading the Metro section of the Los Angeles Times. He seemed as relaxed as a summer wave. McCaleb had not yet confronted him with his suspicions that he was the leak. He had been waiting for the right moment.
“Hey, Terror, you see this story?” Lockridge said. “About Bosch giving his testimony yesterday in Van Nuys court?”
“Nope.”
“Man, what they’re hinting at here is that this director’s a serial killer. Sounds like one of your old cases. And here the guy on the witness stand putting the finger on him is a —”
“Buddy, I told you, don’t talk about that. Or did you forget what I said?”
“Okay, sorry. I was just saying, if this ain’t irony I don’t know what is, that’s all.”
“Fine. Leave it at that.”
McCaleb checked his watch again. The clients should have been there at ten. He straightened up and went to the salon door.
“I’ll make some calls,” he said. “I don’t want to be waiting around all day for these people.”
At the little chart table in the boat’s salon he opened a drawer and took out the clipboard where they attached the charter reservations. There were only two pages on it. The current day’s charter and a reservation for the following Saturday. The winter months were slow. He looked at the information on the top sheet. He was unfamiliar with it because Buddy had taken the reservation. The charter was for four men from Long Beach. They were supposed to come over Friday night and stay at the Zane Grey. A four-hour charter — 10 to 2 on Saturday — and then they’d take a late ferry back to overtown. Buddy had taken the organizer’s home number and the name of the hotel as well as a deposit of half the charter fee.
He looked at the list of hotels and phone numbers taped to the chart table and called the Zane Grey first. He quickly learned that no one with the charter organizer’s name — the only one of the four names McCaleb had — was staying at the hotel. He then called the man’s home number and got his wife. She said her husband wasn’t home.
“Well, we’re kind of waiting for him on a boat over here on Catalina. Do you know if he and his friends are on their way?”
There was a long silence.
“Ma’am, you there?”
“Uh, yes, yes. It’s just that, they’re not going fishing today. They told me they canceled that trip. They’re out golfing right now. I can give you my husband’s cell phone if you would like. You could talk —”
“That’s not necessary, ma’am. Have a nice day.”
McCaleb closed his phone. He knew exactly what had happened. Neither he nor Buddy had checked the answering service that handled calls to the phone number they had placed on their charter ads in various phone books and fishing publications. He called the number now, punched in the code and, sure enough, there had been a message waiting since Wednesday. The party canceled the charter. They’d reschedule later.
“Yeah, sure,” McCaleb said.
He erased the message and closed the phone. He felt like throwing it through the glass slider at Buddy’s head but he tried to calm himself. He walked into the little galley and got a quart carton of orange juice out of the cooler. He took it out with him to the stern.
“No charter today,” he said before taking a long drink from the carton.
“Why not?” Raymond asked, his disappointment obvious.
McCaleb wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his long-sleeve T-shirt.
“They canceled.”
Lockridge looked up from the newspaper and McCaleb hit him with a laser stare.
“Well, we keep the deposit, right?” Buddy asked. “I took a two-hundred-dollar deposit on Visa.”
“No, we don’t keep the deposit because they canceled on Wednesday. We’ve both been too busy I guess to check the charter line like we’re supposed to.”
“Ah, fuck! That’s my fault.”
“Buddy, not in front of the boy. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
McCaleb continued to stare at him. He had not wanted to talk about the leak to McEvoy until after the charter because he needed Buddy’s help running a four-man fishing party. Now it didn’t matter. Now was the time.
“Raymond,” he said while still staring at Lockridge. “Do you still want to earn your money?”
“Yeah.”
“You mean ‘yes,’ don’t you?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes. Yes.”
“Okay, then reel in, hook your line and start taking these rods in and put them in the rack. Can you do that?”
“Sure.”
The boy quickly reeled in his line, took off his bait and threw it into the water. He attached the hook to one of the rod’s eyelets and then leaned it in the corner of the stern so he could take it home with him. He liked to practice his casting technique on the rear deck of the house, dropping a rubber practice weight onto the roofs and backyards below.
Raymond started taking the deep-sea rods out of the holders where Buddy had placed them in preparation for the charter. Two by two he took them into the salon and put them in the overhead racks. He had to stand on the couch to do it but it was an old couch in dire need of a new slipcover and McCaleb didn’t care about it.
“Something wrong, Terror?” Buddy tried. “It’s just a charter, man. We knew it was going to be slow this month.”
“It’s not the charter, Bud.”
“Then what? The case?”
McCaleb took a smaller gulp of juice and put the carton down on the gunwale.
“You mean the case I’m not on anymore?”
“I guess. I don’t know. You’re not on it anymore? When did that —”
“No, Buddy, I’m not on it. And there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
He waited for Raymond to move another set of rods into the salon.
“You ever read the New Times, Buddy?”
“You mean that free weekly?”
“Yeah, that free weekly. The New Times, Buddy. Comes out every Thursday. There’s always a stack in the laundry building at the marina. In fact, why am I asking this? I know you read the New Times.”
Lockridge’s eyes suddenly fell to the deck. He looked crestfallen with guilt. He brought one hand up and rubbed his face. He kept it over his eyes when he spoke.
“Terry, I’m sorry. I never thought it would get back to you. What happened?”
“What’s the matter, Uncle Buddy?”
It was Raymond in the door of the salon.
“Raymond, would you go inside and close that door for a few minutes?” McCaleb said. “You can put on the TV. I need to talk to Buddy by myself.”
The boy hesitated, staring the whole time at Buddy covering his face.
“Raymond, please. And take this back to the cooler.”
The boy finally stepped out and took the orange juice carton. He went
back in and slid the door closed. McCaleb looked back at Lockridge.
“How could you not think it would get back to me?”
“I don’t know. I just thought nobody would know.”
“Well, you were wrong. And it has caused me a lot of trouble. But most of all it’s a fucking betrayal, Buddy. I just can’t believe you would do something like this.”
McCaleb glanced at the glass door to make sure the boy wasn’t in earshot. There was no sign of Raymond. He must’ve gone down to one of the staterooms. McCaleb realized his breathing was way up. He was so angry he was hyperventilating. He had to end this and calm down.
“Does Graciela have to know about it?” Buddy asked in a pleading voice.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter what she knows. What matters is that we had this relationship and then you do something like this behind my back.”
Lockridge still hid his eyes behind his hand.
“I just didn’t think it would mean that much to you, even if you found out. It was no big deal. I’m —”
“Don’t try to mitigate it or tell me what kind of deal it is, okay? Don’t even talk to me in that pleading, whiny voice. Just shut up.”
McCaleb walked to the stern, pressing his thighs against the padded combing. His back to Lockridge, he looked up the hillside above the commercial part of the little town. He could see his house. Graciela was on the deck holding the baby. She waved and then held Cielo’s hand up in a baby wave. McCaleb waved back.
“What do you want me to do?” Buddy said from behind him. His voice was more controlled now. “What do you want me to say? I won’t do it again? Fine, I won’t do it again.”
McCaleb didn’t turn around. He continued looking up at his wife and his daughter.
“It doesn’t matter what you won’t do again. The damage is done. I have to think about this. We’re partners as well as friends. Or we were, at least. All I want now is for you to just go. I’m going inside with Raymond. Take the skiff and go back to the pier. Take a ferry back tonight. I just don’t want you around here, Buddy. Not now.”
“How will you guys get back to the pier?”
It was a desperate question with an obvious answer.
“I’ll call the water taxi.”
“We’ve got a charter next Saturday. It’s five people and —”
“I’ll worry about Saturday when I come to it. I can cancel it if I have to or turn it over to Jim Hall’s charter.”
“Terry, are you sure about this? All I did was —”
“I’m sure. Go on, Buddy. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
McCaleb turned from the view and walked past Lockridge and to the salon door. He opened it and stepped in, then slid the door closed behind him. He didn’t look back at Buddy. He went to the chart table and got an envelope out of the drawer. He slipped a five-dollar bill from his pocket into it, sealed it and wrote Raymond’s name on it.
“Hey, Raymond where are you?” he called out.
• • •
For dinner they had grilled cheese sandwiches and chili. The chili was from the Busy Bee. McCaleb had picked it up on his way up from the boat with Raymond.
McCaleb sat across the table from his wife with Raymond to his left and the baby to his right in a jumper seat perched on the table. They were eating inside as an evening fog had enshrouded the island in a chilly grip. McCaleb remained morosely quiet through the meal, as he had been through much of the day. When they had come back early, Graciela decided to keep her distance. She took Raymond for a hike in the Wrigley Botanical Garden in Avalon Canyon. McCaleb was left with the baby, who fussed most of the day. He didn’t mind, though. It took his mind off things.
Finally, at dinner, there was no avoiding each other. McCaleb had made the sandwiches so he was the last to sit down. He had barely begun eating when Graciela asked him what his trouble was.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“Raymond said you and Buddy had an argument.”
“Maybe Raymond should mind his own business.”
He looked at the boy as he said this and Raymond looked down at his food.
“That’s not fair, Terry,” Graciela said.
She was right. McCaleb knew it. He reached over and tousled the boy’s hair. It was so soft. He liked doing it. He hoped the gesture conveyed his apology.
“I’m off the case because Buddy leaked it to a reporter.”
“What?”
“We came up — I came up — with a suspect. A cop. Buddy overheard me telling Jaye Winston about my findings. He turned around and told a reporter. The reporter turned around and started making calls. Jaye and her captain think I was the leak.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would Buddy do that?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say. Actually, he did say. He said he didn’t think I’d care or that it mattered. Words to that effect. That was today on the boat.”
He gestured toward Raymond, meaning this was the tense conversation he had caught part of and told Graciela about.
“Well, did you call Jaye and tell her it was him?”
“No, it doesn’t matter. It came through me. I was dumb enough to let him on the boat. Can we talk about something else? I’m tired of thinking and talking about this.”
“Fine, Terry, what else do you want to talk about?”
He was silent. She was silent. After a long moment he started to laugh.
“I can’t think of anything right now.”
Graciela finished eating a bite of her sandwich. McCaleb looked over at Cielo, who was looking at a blue-and-white ball that was suspended over her on a wire attached to the side of her bouncer seat. She was trying to reach for it with her tiny hands but couldn’t quite make it. McCaleb could see her getting frustrated and he understood the feeling.
“Raymond, tell your father what you saw today in the gardens,” Graciela said.
She had recently begun referring to McCaleb as Raymond’s father. They had adopted him but McCaleb didn’t want to put any pressure on the boy to think of or refer to him as his father. Raymond usually called him Terry.
“We saw a Channel Islands fox,” he said now. “It was hunting in the canyon.”
“I thought foxes hunted at night and slept during the day.”
“Well, somebody woke him up then because we saw him. He was big.”
Graciela nodded, confirming the sighting.
“Pretty cool,” McCaleb said. “Too bad you didn’t get a picture.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. Graciela used her napkin to clean spittle off the baby’s chin.
“Anyway,” McCaleb said, “I’m sure you’re happy that I’m off it and things will be normal around here again.”
Graciela looked at him.
“I want you to be safe. I want the whole family to be together and safe. That’s what makes me happy, Terry.”
He nodded and finished his sandwich. She continued.
“I want you to be happy but if that means working these cases, then that is a conflict with your personal well-being as far as your health is concerned and the well-being of this family.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it anymore. I don’t think anybody will come calling on me again after this.”
He got up to clear the table. But before picking up plates he leaned over his daughter’s chair and bent the wire so that the blue-and-white ball would be within her reach.
“It’s not supposed to be like that,” Graciela said.
McCaleb looked at her.
“Yes, it is.”
29
McCaleb stayed up into the early morning hours with the baby. He and Graciela alternated nights on duty so that at least one of them got a decent night of sleep. Cielo seemed to have an almost hourly feed clock. Each time she awoke he would feed her and walk her through the dark house. He would gently pat her back until he heard her burp and then he would put her down again. In an hour the process would begin again.
A Darkness More Than Night Page 27