“Perfect,” he said.
McCaleb closed his eyes. He could feel his muscles vibrating with the strain. An image of his daughter appeared in his mind. She was in his arms, her eyes were watching him over the bottle and telling him not to worry or be afraid. It soothed him. He concentrated on her face and somehow thought he could even smell her hair. He felt tears going down his face and his legs started to give way. He heard the clicking of the cuffs and —
Tafero grabbed his legs and held them.
“Not yet.”
Something hard banged off McCaleb’s head and thudded on the mattress next to him. He turned his face and opened his eyes and saw it was the videotape he had gone back to borrow from Lucas, the post office security officer. He looked at the post office emblem of the flying eagle on the sticker Lucas had put on the tape for him.
“I hope you don’t mind but while you were sleeping off the chokehold I took a look at the tape on your VCR. I couldn’t find anything on it. It’s blank. Why is that?”
McCaleb felt a pang of hope. He realized that the only reason he wasn’t already dead was because of the tape. Tafero had found it and it raised too many questions. It was a break. McCaleb tried to think of a way to turn it further to his advantage. The tape was supposed to be blank. They had planned to use it as a prop when they brought Tafero in and tried to play him. It would have been part of a bluff. They would hold it up and tell him they had him on tape sending the money order. But they wouldn’t actually play it. Now McCaleb thought he might be able to still use it — but in reverse.
Tafero shoved down hard on his ankles, so hard they came close to touching McCaleb’s buttocks. McCaleb groaned from the stress on his muscles. Tafero eased back.
“I asked you a question, motherfucker. Now you fucking answer it.”
“It’s nothing. It’s supposed to be blank.”
“Bullshit. The label says ‘December twenty-second.’ It says ‘Wilcox surveillance.’ Why is it blank?”
He increased the pressure on McCaleb’s legs but not to the point of a few moments before.
“Okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you.”
McCaleb took a deep breath and tried to relax. In the moment his body was still, when the air was held in his lungs, he thought he detected a movement of the boat that was out of rhythm with the gentle rise-and-fall cycle of the marina’s wake. Somebody had stepped onto the boat. He could only think of Buddy Lockridge. And if it was him then he was most likely walking into his own doom. McCaleb started to speak quickly and loudly, hoping his voice would warn Lockridge off.
“It’s just a prop, that’s all. We were going to bluff you, tell you we had you on tape buying the money order that bought the owl. The plan, the plan was to get you to turn on Storey. We know it was his plan from the jail. You just followed orders. They want Storey more than they want you. I was going to —”
“All right, shut up!”
McCaleb was quiet. He wondered if Tafero had felt the boat move unusually or if he had heard something. But then McCaleb watched as the tape was lifted off the bed. He realized he had Tafero thinking. After a long moment of silence Tafero finally spoke.
“I think you are full of shit, McCaleb. I think this tape is out of one of those multiplex surveillance systems they use. It won’t read on a regular VCR.”
If it didn’t seem that every muscle in his body was screaming in pain, McCaleb might have smiled. He had Tafero. He was helplessly hogtied on the bed but he was playing his captor. Tafero was second-guessing his own plan.
“Who else has copies?” Tafero asked.
McCaleb didn’t answer. He started thinking that he had been wrong about the boat’s movement. Too much time had gone by. There was no one else onboard.
Tafero rapped the tape hard on the back of McCaleb’s head.
“I said who else has copies?”
There was a new note in the tone of his voice. One part confidence had been removed and replaced with one equal part fear that there was a flaw in his perfect plan.
“Fuck you,” McCaleb said. “You do what you have to do with me. Either way, you’ll be finding out who’s got copies soon enough.”
Tafero pushed down on his legs and leaned over him. McCaleb could feel his breath close to his ear.
“Listen to me, you fucking —”
There was a sudden loud crash from behind McCaleb.
“Don’t fucking move!” a voice called.
In the same instant Tafero stood up and let go of McCaleb’s legs. The sudden release of pressure coupled with the jarring noise made McCaleb startle and involuntarily flex his muscles at once. He heard the zipping sound of snap cuffs clicking in several places of his bindings. In chain reaction, the cuff around his neck pulled tight and locked. He tried to raise his legs but it was too late, the cuff was set. It was biting into his neck. He had no air. He opened his mouth but not a sound came out.
43
Harry Bosch stood in the doorway of the boat’s downstairs cabin and pointed his gun at Rudy Tafero. His eyes widened as he took in the whole room. Terry McCaleb was naked on the bed, his arms and legs bound behind him. Bosch saw that several snap cuffs had been linked together and used to bind his wrists and ankles while a leader ran from his ankles and under his wrists to a loop around his neck. He couldn’t see McCaleb’s face but saw the plastic was digging tightly into his neck and the skin was a dark rouge. He was strangling.
“Turn around,” he yelled at Tafero. “Get back against the wall.”
“He needs help, Bosch. You —”
“I said get back against the fucking wall! Now!”
He raised the gun to Tafero’s chest level to drive home the order. Tafero raised his hands and started turning to the wall.
“Okay, okay, I’m turning around.”
As soon as Tafero had turned Bosch moved quickly into the room and shoved the big man up against the wall. He glanced at McCaleb. He could see his face now. It was getting redder. His eyes were opened and bugged. His mouth was opened in a desperate but fruitless bid for air.
Bosch pushed the barrel of his gun into Tafero’s back and reached his other hand around him to check for a weapon. He pulled a handgun out of Tafero’s belt and then stepped back. He looked at McCaleb again and knew he didn’t have any time. The problem was controlling Tafero and getting to McCaleb to cut him free. He suddenly knew what needed to be done. He stepped back and brought his hands together so that the guns were side by side. He raised them over his head and brought the butts of both guns down violently into the back of Tafero’s head. The big man pitched forward, going face-first into the wood-paneled wall and then dropping to the floor motionless.
Bosch turned and dropped both guns onto the bed and quickly pulled out his keys.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on.”
His fingers scrabbling, he pulled the blade out of the penknife attached to the key chain. He reached to the plastic cuff embedded around McCaleb’s neck but couldn’t get his fingers underneath it. He shoved McCaleb onto his side and quickly worked his fingers under the cuff at the front of his neck. He slipped the blade in and sliced through the cuff, the point of the knife just nicking the skin beneath it.
A horrible sound came from McCaleb’s throat as he gulped air into his lungs and tried to speak at the same time. The words were unintelligible, lost in the instinctive urgency for oxygen intake.
“Shut up and breathe!” Bosch yelled. “Just breathe!”
There came an interior rattling sound with each breath McCaleb took. Bosch saw a vibrant red line running the circumference of his neck. He gently touched McCaleb’s neck, wanting to feel for possible damage to the trachea or larynx or the arteries. McCaleb roughly turned his head on the mattress and tried to move away.
“Just . . . cut me loose.”
The words made him cough violently into the mattress, his whole body shaking from the trauma.
Bosch used the knife to cut his hands free and then his ankles.
He saw red ligature marks on both sets of limbs. He pulled all the snap cuffs away and threw them on the floor. He looked around and saw the sweatpants and shirt on the floor. He picked them up and threw them onto the bed. McCaleb was slowly turning back to face him, his face still red.
“You . . . you . . . saved . . .”
“Don’t talk.”
There was a groan from the floor and Bosch saw Tafero start moving as he began to regain consciousness. Bosch stepped over and stood straddling him. He took his handcuffs off his belt, bent down and then violently pulled Tafero’s arms behind his back to cuff him. While he worked he talked to McCaleb.
“Hey, you want to take this guy out, tie him to the anchor and drop him over the side, it’d be fine by me. I wouldn’t even blink about it.”
McCaleb didn’t respond. He was pulling himself into a sitting position. Finished with the cuffing process, Bosch straightened up and looked down at Tafero, who had now opened his eyes.
“Stay still, shithead. And get used to those cuffs. You are under arrest for murder, attempted murder and general conspiracy to be an asshole. I think you know your rights but do yourself a favor and don’t say a word until I get the card out and read it to you.”
The moment he was done speaking Bosch became aware of a creaking sound coming from the hallway. In that second he realized someone had used his words as cover to get close to the doorway.
Things seemed to drop into a slow-motion sense of clarity. Bosch instinctively brought his left hand up to his hip but realized his gun was not there. He had left it on the bed. He started to turn to the bed but saw McCaleb sitting up, still naked, and already pointing one of the guns at the doorway.
Bosch’s eyes followed the aim of the gun to the door. A man was swinging into the opening in a crouched position, two hands on a pistol. He was taking aim at Bosch. There was a shot and wood splintered from the doorjamb. The gunman flinched and squinted his eyes. He recovered and started to level the aim of his gun. There was another shot and another and then another. The noise was deafening in the confines of the wood-paneled room. Bosch watched one bullet hit the wall and two hit the gunman in the chest, throwing him backward into the hallway wall. He sank to the floor but was still visible from the bedroom.
“No!” Tafero shouted from the floor. “Jesse, no!”
The wounded gunman was still moving but having difficulty with motor controls. With one hand he awkwardly raised the gun again and made a pathetic attempt to aim it once more at Bosch.
There was another shot and Bosch saw the gunman’s cheek explode with blood. His head snapped back against the wall behind him and he became still.
“No!” Tafero cried out again.
And then there was silence.
Bosch looked at the bed. McCaleb still held the gun aimed at the door. A cloud of blue gunpowder smoke was rising into the center of the room. The air smelled acrid and burned.
Bosch picked his gun up off the bed and went out to the hallway. He squatted down next to the gunman but didn’t need to touch him to know he was dead. During the shooting he had thought he recognized him as Tafero’s younger brother who worked in the bail bonds office. Now most of his face was gone.
Bosch got up and went into the head to grab a tissue, which he then used to take the gun out of the dead man’s grip. He carried it back into the master cabin and put it down on the night stand. The gun McCaleb had used was now lying on the bed. McCaleb stood on the other side of the bed. He had the sweatpants on and was pulling the shirt over his head. Once his head came through he looked at Bosch.
Their eyes held for a long moment. They had saved each other. Bosch finally nodded.
Tafero worked his way up into a sitting position against the wall. Blood had run out of his nose and down around both sides of his mouth. It looked like a grotesque Fu Manchu mustache. Bosch guessed that his nose had been broken when he’d gone face-first into the wall. He sat slumped against the wall, his eyes staring in horror through the doorway to the body in the hallway.
Bosch used the tissue to pick the gun up off the bed and put it next to the other one on the nightstand. He then took a cell phone out of his pocket and punched in a number. While he waited for the call to connect he looked at Tafero.
“You got your little brother killed, Rudy,” he said. “That’s too bad.”
Tafero lowered his eyes and started crying.
Bosch’s call was answered at central dispatch. He gave the address of the marina and said he was going to need a homicide team from the officer involved–shooting unit. He would need a coroner’s crew and techs from Scientific Investigation Division to respond as well. He told the dispatcher to make all notifications by landline. He didn’t want the media to get wind of the incident from a police scanner until the time was right.
He closed the phone and held it up for McCaleb to see.
“You want an ambulance? You should get checked out.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your neck looks like it could —”
“I said I’m fine.”
Bosch nodded.
“Suit yourself.”
He came around the bed and stood in front of Tafero.
“I’m going to get him out of here, put him in the car.”
He dragged Tafero to his feet and pushed him to the door. As he passed his brother’s body in the hallway Tafero let out a loud animal-like wail, a kind of sound Bosch was surprised to hear coming from such a big man.
“Yeah, it’s too bad,” Bosch said without a note of sympathy in his voice. “The kid had a bright future helping you kill people and getting people out of jail.”
He shoved Tafero toward the steps up to the salon. On the way up the gangway to the parking lot Bosch saw a man standing on the deck of a sailboat cluttered with rafts and surfboards and other junk. The man looked at Bosch and then Tafero and then back to Bosch. His eyes were wide and it was clear he recognized them, probably from the trial coverage on TV.
“Hey, I heard shots. Is Terry okay?”
“He’s going to be fine.”
“Can I go talk to him?”
“Better not. The cops are coming. Let them handle it.”
“Hey, you’re Bosch, aren’t you? From the trial?”
“Yeah. I’m Bosch.”
The man said nothing else. Bosch kept moving with Tafero.
• • •
When Bosch came back onto the boat a few minutes later McCaleb was in the galley drinking a glass of orange juice. Behind him and down the steps the splayed legs of the dead man were visible.
“A neighbor of yours out there asked about you.”
McCaleb nodded.
“Buddy.”
That’s all he said.
Bosch looked out the window and back up at the parking lot. He thought he could hear sirens in the distance but thought it might just be the wind playing sound games.
“They’re going to be here any minute,” he said. “How’s the throat? I hope you can talk, ’cause we’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”
“It’s fine. Why were you here, Harry?”
Bosch put his car keys down on the countertop. He didn’t answer for a long moment.
“I just sort of guessed you might be drawing a bead, that’s all.”
“How so?”
“You busting in on his brother at the office this morning. I figured that if he followed you, he might’ve gotten a plate or something they could trace to you here.”
McCaleb looked pointedly at him.
“And what, you were hanging out in the marina and saw Rudy but not the little brother?”
“No, I just drove down and cruised around a little. I saw Rudy’s old Lincoln parked up there in the lot and figured something was going on. I never saw the little brother — he must’ve been hiding somewhere and watching.”
“I’m thinking he was on the docks looking for an owl he could take off a boat to use at Winston’s. They were improvising tonight.”
Bosch nodded.
“Anyway, I was looking around and saw the door open on your boat and decided to check it out. I thought it was too cold a night and you were too careful a guy to sleep with the door open like that.”
McCaleb nodded.
Bosch now heard the unmistakable sound of approaching sirens and looked out the window and across the docks to the parking lot. He saw two patrol cars glide in and stop near his slickback where Tafero was locked in the back. They killed the sirens but left the blue lights flashing.
“I better go meet the boys in blue,” he said.
A Darkness More Than Night Page 37