The Concrete Blonde

by Michael Connelly

  “Dipshit,” Sheehan said after the door was closed. “Goin’ in for a little mouth-to-ass resuscitation.”

  Everybody laughed.

  “Hey, you two,” Bosch said to Sheehan and Opelt. “Mora mentioned your little meeting at the taco stand.”

  “Shit!” Opelt exclaimed.

  “I think he bought the kosher burrito line,” Bosch said and started laughing. “Until he tasted one! He couldn’t get why you guys’d come all the way over from Parker for one of those shitty things. He threw half of his out. So if he sees you again out there, he’ll put it together. Watch your ass.”

  “We will,” Sheehan said. “That was Opelt’s idea, that kosher burrito shit. He—”

  “What? What’d you want me to say? The guy we’re watching suddenly walks up to the car and says, ‘What’s happening, boys?’ I had to think of—”

  The door opened and Rollenberger came back in. He went to his place but didn’t sit down. Instead, he put both hands on the table and sternly leaned forward as if he had just been given orders from God.

  “I’ve brought the chief up to date. He’s very pleased with everything we’ve come up with in just twenty-four hours. He is concerned about losing Mora, especially with the shrink saying we are at the end of the cycle, but he doesn’t want to change the surveillance. Adding another team doubles the chance Mora will see something. I think he’s right. It’s a very good idea to maintain status quo. We—”

  Edgar tried to hold back a laugh but couldn’t. It sounded more like a sneeze.

  “Detective Edgar, something funny?”

  “No, I think I’m getting a cold or something. Go on, please.”

  “Well, that’s it. Proceed as planned. I will inform the other surveillance teams of what Bosch has come up with. We have Rector and Heikes taking the midnight shift, then the presidents tomorrow morning at eight.”

  The presidents were a pair of RHD partners named Johnson and Nixon. They didn’t like being called the presidents, especially Nixon.

  “Sheehan, Opelt, you are back on tomorrow at four. You’ve got Saturday night, so be bright. Bosch, Edgar, still freelancing. See what you can come up with. Keep your pagers on and the rovers handy. We might need to pull everybody together on short notice.”

  “OT approved?” Edgar asked.

  “All weekend. But if you’re on the clock, I want to see the work. Only humps on this job, no freeloading. All right, that’s it.”

  Rollenberger sat down then and pulled his chair close to the table. Bosch figured it was to cover up an erection, he seemed to get off so much on being the taskmaster here. All of them but Hans Off pushed into the hallway then and headed to the elevator.

  “Who’s drinking tonight?” Sheehan asked.

  “More like, who isn’t,” Opelt answered.

  • • •

  Bosch got to his house by seven, after having only one beer at the Code Seven and finding that the alcohol was a turn-off after the overindulgence of the night before. He called Sylvia and told her there was no verdict yet. He said he was going to shower and change clothes and he would be up to see her by eight.

  His hair was still damp when she opened her door. She grabbed him as soon as he stepped in and they held each other and kissed in the entry of her house for a long time. It was only when she stepped back that he saw she was wearing a black dress with a neckline that cut deeply between her breasts and a hemline about four inches over her knees.

  “How’d it go today, the closing arguments and all?”

  “Fine. What are you all dressed up for?”

  “Because I am taking you out to dinner. I made reservations.”

  She leaned into him and kissed him on the mouth.

  “Harry, last night was the best night we’ve ever had together. It was the best night I can remember with anyone. And not because of the sex. Actually, you and I have done better.”

  “Always room for improvement. How ’bout a little practice before dinner?”

  She smiled and told him there was no time.

  They drove down through the Valley and into Malibu Canyon to the Saddle Peak Lodge. It was an old hunting lodge and the menu featured a vegetarian’s nightmare. It was all meat, from venison to buffalo. They each had a steak and Sylvia ordered a bottle of Merlot. Bosch sipped his slowly. He thought the meal and the evening were wonderful. They talked little about the case or anything else. They did a lot of looking at each other.

  When they returned to her house, Sylvia turned down the air-conditioner thermostat and built a fire in the living room fireplace. He just watched her; he had never been good at building fires that lasted. Even with the AC on sixty it got very warm. They made love on a blanket she spread out in front of the fireplace. They were perfectly relaxed and moved smoothly together.

  Afterward, he watched the fire reflect on the light sheen of sweat on her chest. He kissed her there and put his head down to listen to her heart. The rhythm was strong and it beat counterpoint to his own. He closed his eyes and started thinking of ways to guard against ever losing this woman.

  The fire was nothing but a few glowing embers when he woke up in the darkness. There was a shrill sound and he was very cold.

  “Your beeper,” Sylvia said.

  He crawled to the pile of clothes near the couch, traced the sound and cut it off.

  “God, what time is it?” she said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s scary. I remember when—”

  She stopped herself. Bosch knew it was a story about her husband that she was about to tell. She must have decided not to let his memory intrude here. But it was too late. Bosch found himself wondering if Sylvia and her husband had ever turned down the thermostat on a summer night and made love in front of the fireplace on that same blanket.

  “Aren’t you going to call?”

  “Huh? Oh. Yeah. I’m, uh, just trying to wake up.”

  He pulled his pants on and went into the kitchen. He slid the door closed so the light would not bother her. After flicking the switch he looked at the clock on the wall. It was a plate and where the numbers should be were different vegetables. It was half past the carrot, meaning one-thirty. He realized he and Sylvia had been asleep only about an hour. It had seemed like days.

  The number had an 818 area code and he didn’t recognize it. Jerry Edgar picked up after a half ring.

  “Harry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry to bother you, man, especially since you’re not home.”

  “It’s okay. What’s up?”

  “I’m on Sepulveda just south of Roscoe. I got her, man.”

  Bosch knew he was talking about the survivor.

  “What’d she say? She look at Mora’s picture?”

  “No. No, man, I don’t really have her. I’m watching her. She’s on the stroll here.”

  “Well, why don’t you pick her up?”

  “Because I’m alone. I think I could use some backup. I try to take her alone she might bite or something. You know, she’s got AIDS.”

  Bosch was silent. Through the phone he could hear cars passing Edgar.

  “Hey, man, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve called. I thought you might want to get in on this. I’ll call the Van Nuys watch commander and get a couple uniforms out here. Have a good—”

  “Forget it, I’ll be there. Give me half an hour. You been out there all night?”

  “Yeah. Went home for dinner. I’ve been looking all over. Didn’t see her till now.”

  Bosch hung up wondering if Edgar had really missed her until now or if he was just filling his overtime envelope. He walked back into the living room. The light was on and Sylvia was not on the blanket.

  She was in her bed, under the covers.

  “I gotta go out,” he said.

  “I thought that’s what it sounded like, so I decided to come in here. Nothing romantic about sleeping on the floor in front of a dead fireplace by yourself.”

  “Are you mad?”


  “Of course not, Harry.”

  He leaned over the bed and kissed her and she put her hand on the back of his neck.

  “I’ll try to get back.”

  “Okay. Can you turn the thermostat back up on your way out? I forgot.”

  • • •

  Edgar was parked in front of a Winchell’s Donuts store, apparently not realizing the comic implications of this. Bosch parked behind him and then got in his car.

  “Whereyat, Harry?”

  “Where’s she at?”

  Edgar pointed across the street and up a block and a half. At the intersection of Roscoe and Sepulveda there was a bus bench with two women sitting on it and three standing nearby.

  “She’s the one in red shorts.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I drove up to the light and eyeballed her. It’s her. Problem is, we might have a cat fight if we go over there and try to take her. All them girls are working. The Sepulveda bus line stops running at one.”

  Bosch saw the one in the red shorts and tank top lift her shirt as a car drove by on Sepulveda. The car braked but then, after a moment of driver hesitation, went on.

  “She had any business?”

  “A few hours ago she had one guy. Walked him into that alley behind the mini-mall, did him there. Other than that it’s been dry. She’s too skaggy for your discerning john.”

  Edgar laughed. Bosch thought about how Edgar had just slipped up by saying he had been watching her for a few hours. Well, he thought, at least he didn’t beep me while the fire was going.

  “So if you don’t want a cat fight, what’s the plan?”

  “I was thinking you’d drive up to Roscoe and take a left. Then come into the alley from the back way. You wait there and get down low. I’ll walk over and tell her I want the nasty and she’ll walk me back. Then we take her. But watch her mouth. She might be a spitter, too.”

  “Okay, let’s get it over with.”

  Ten minutes later Bosch was slouched behind the wheel and parked in the alley, when Edgar came walking in from the street. Alone.

  “What?”

  “She made me.”

  “Well, shit, why didn’t you just take her? If she made you there’s nothing else we can do, she’ll know I’m a cop if I try her again five minutes later.”

  “All right, she didn’t make me.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “She wouldn’t go with me. She asked if I had some brown sugar to trade and when I said no, no drugs, she said she doesn’t do colored dick. You believe that shit? I haven’t been called colored since I grew up in Chicago.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Wait here and I’ll go.”

  “Goddam whore.”

  Bosch got out of the car and over the roof said, “Edgar, cool it. She’s a whore and a hype, for Chrissake. You care about that?”

  “Harry, you have no idea what it’s like. You see the way Rollenberger looks at me? I bet he counts the rovers every time I walk out of the room. German fuck.”

  “Hey, you’re right, I don’t know what it’s like.”

  He took his jacket off and threw it in the car. Then he unbuttoned the top three buttons of his shirt and walked off toward the street.

  “Be right back. You better hide. If she sees a colored guy she might not come into the alley with me.”

  • • •

  They borrowed an interview room in the Van Nuys detective bureau. Bosch knew his way around the place because he had worked on the robbery table here after first getting his detective’s badge.

  What became immediately clear from the start was that the man Edgar had seen Georgia Stern go into the alley with earlier was not a john. He was a dealer and she had probably fixed in the alley. She might have paid for the shot with sex, but that still didn’t make the dealer a john.

  Regardless of who he was and what she did, she was on the nod when Bosch and Edgar brought her in and, therefore, was almost totally useless. Her eyes were droopy and dilated and would become fixed on objects in the distance. Even in the ten-by-ten interview room she looked as though she was staring at something a mile away.

  Her hair was rumpled and the black roots were longer than in the photo Edgar had. She had a sore on the skin below her left ear, the kind of sore addicts get from nervously rubbing the same spot over and over. Her upper arms were as thin as the legs of the chair she sat on. Her deteriorated state was heightened by the T-shirt, which was several sizes too big. The neckline drooped to expose her upper chest and Bosch could see that she used the veins in her neck when she was banging heroin from a needle. Bosch could also see that despite her emaciated condition, she still had large, full breasts. Implants, he guessed, and for a moment a vision of the concrete blonde’s desiccated body flashed to him.

  “Miss Stern?” Bosch began. “Georgia? Do you know why you’re here? Do you remember what I told you in the car?”

  “I mem’er.”

  “Now, do you remember the night the man tried to kill you? More than four years ago? A night like this? June seventeenth. Remember?”

  She nodded dreamily and Bosch wondered if she knew what he was talking about.

  “The Dollmaker, remember?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “That’s right, but we need to ask you some questions about the man anyway. You helped us draw this picture, remember?”

  Bosch unfolded the composite drawing he had taken from the Dollmaker files. The drawing looked like neither Church nor Mora, but the Dollmaker was known to wear disguises so it was reasonable to believe the Follower did as well. Even so, there was always the chance a physical feature, like maybe Mora’s penetrating eyes, would poke through the memory.

  She looked at the composite for a long time.

  “He was killed by the cops,” she said. “He deserved it.”

  Even coming from her, it felt reassuring to Bosch to hear someone say the Dollmaker got what he deserved. But he knew what she didn’t, that they weren’t dealing with the Dollmaker here.

  “We’re going to show you some pictures. You got the six-pack, Jerry?”

  She looked up abruptly and Bosch realized his mistake. She thought he was referring to beer, but a six-pack in cop terminology was a package of six mugshots which are shown to victims and witnesses. They usually contain photos of five cops and one suspect with the hope that the wit will point to the suspect and say that’s the one. This time the six-pack contained photos of six cops. Mora’s was the second one.

  Bosch lined them up on the table in front of her and she looked for a long time. She laughed.

  “What?” Bosch asked.

  She pointed to the fourth photo.

  “I think I fucked him once. But I thought he was a cop.”

  Bosch saw Edgar shake his head. The photo she had pointed to was of an undercover Hollywood Division narcotics officer named Arb Danforth. If her memory was correct, then Danforth was probably venturing off his beat into the Valley to extort sex from prostitutes. Bosch guessed that he was probably paying them with heroin stolen from evidence envelopes or suspects. What she had just said should be forwarded in a report to Internal Affairs, but both Edgar and Bosch knew without saying a word that neither of them would do that. It would be like committing suicide in the department. No street cop would ever trust them again. Still, Bosch knew Danforth was married and that the prostitute carried the AIDS virus. He decided he would drop Danforth an anonymous note telling him to get a blood test.

  “What about the others, Georgia?” Bosch said. “Look at their eyes. Eyes don’t change when somebody’s in a disguise. Look at the eyes.”

  While she bent down to look closer at the pictures Bosch looked at Edgar, who shook his head. This was going nowhere, he was saying, and Bosch nodded that he knew. After a minute or so, her head jerked as she stopped herself from nodding off.

  “Okay, Georgia, nothing there, right?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t see him?”

/>   “No. He’s dead.”

  “Okay, he’s dead. You stay here. We’re going out into the hall to talk for a minute. We’ll be right back.”

  Outside, they decided it might be worth booking her on an under-the-influence charge into Sybil Brand and trying her again when she came off the high. Bosch noted that Edgar was eager to do this and volunteered to drive her downtown to Sybil. Bosch knew this was because it would make Edgar’s OT envelope thicker, not because he wanted to get the woman into the narco unit at Sybil and get her straightened out for a while. Compassion had nothing to do with it.

  26

  Sylvia had pulled the bedroom’s heavy curtains across the blinds and the room stayed dark until well after the sun was up on Saturday morning. When Bosch awoke alone in her bed, he pulled his watch off the nightstand and saw it was already eleven. He had dreamed but when he woke the dream receded into the darkness and he couldn’t reach back to grasp it. He lay there for nearly fifteen minutes trying to bring it back, but it was gone.

  Every few minutes he would hear Sylvia make some kind of household noise. Sweeping the kitchen floor, emptying the dishwasher. He could tell she was trying to be quiet but he heard it anyway. There was the back door being opened and the splashing of water in the potted plants that lined the porch. It hadn’t rained in at least seven weeks.

  At 11:20 the phone rang and Sylvia got to it after one ring. But Bosch knew it was for him. His muscles tensed as he waited for the bedroom door to open and for her to summon him to the call. He had given Sylvia’s phone number to Edgar when they were leaving the Van Nuys Division seven hours earlier.

  But Sylvia never came and when he relaxed again he could hear parts of her conversation on the phone. It sounded like maybe she was counseling a student. After a while it sounded like she was crying.

  Bosch got up, pulled on his clothes and walked out of the bedroom while trying to smooth his hair. She was at the table in the kitchen, holding the cordless phone to her ear. She was drawing circles on the tabletop with her finger and he had been right, she was crying.