The Last Coyote

by Michael Connelly

  “Wait a minute.”

  The room tilted slightly then righted itself.

  “What is it?”

  “Wait a minute.”

  Without another word Bosch stood up and went out the door. He quickly went down the hall to the men’s room by the water fountain. There was someone in front of one of the sinks shaving but Bosch didn’t take the time to look at him. He pushed through one of the stall doors and vomited into the toilet, barely making it in time.

  He flushed the toilet but the spasm came again and then again until he was empty, until he had nothing left inside but the image of Pounds naked and dead, tortured.

  “You okay in there, buddy?” a voice said from outside the stall.

  “Just leave me alone.”

  “Sorry, just asking.”

  Bosch stayed in the stall a few more minutes, leaning against the wall. Eventually, he wiped his mouth with toilet paper and then flushed it down. He stepped out of the stall unsteadily and went to the sink. The other man was still there. Now he was putting on a tie. Bosch glanced at him in the mirror but didn’t recognize him. He bent over the sink and rinsed his face and mouth out with cold water. He then used paper towels to dry off. He never looked at himself once in the mirror.

  “Thanks for asking,” he said as he left.

  Irving looked as if he hadn’t moved while Bosch was gone.

  “Are you all right?”

  Bosch sat down and took out his cigarettes.

  “Sorry, but I’m gonna smoke.”

  “You already have been.”

  Bosch lit up and took a deep drag. He stood up and walked to the trash can in the corner. There was an old coffee cup in it and he took it to use as an ashtray.

  “Just one,” he said. “Then you can open the door and air the place out.”

  “It’s a bad habit.”

  “In this town so is breathing. How did he die? What was the fatal injury?”

  “The autopsy was this morning. Heart failure. The strain on him was too much, his heart gave way.”

  Bosch paused a moment. He felt the beginning of his strength coming back.

  “Why don’t you tell me the rest of it?”

  “There is no rest of it. That’s it. There was nothing there. No evidence on the body. No evidence in the car. It had been wiped clean. There was nothing to go on.”

  “What about his clothes?”

  “They were there in the trunk. No help. The killer kept one thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “His shield. The bastard took his badge.”

  Bosch just nodded and averted his eyes. They were both silent for a long time. Bosch couldn’t get the images out of his mind and he guessed Irving was having the same problem.

  “So,” Bosch finally said, “looking at what had been done to him, the torture and everything, you immediately thought of me. That’s a real vote of confidence.”

  “Look, Detective, you had put the man’s face through a window two weeks earlier. We had gotten an added report from him that you had threatened him. What—”

  “There was no threat. He—”

  “I don’t care if there was or wasn’t. He made the report. That’s the point. True or false, he made the report, therefore, he felt threatened by you. What were we supposed to do, ignore it? Just say, ‘Harry Bosch? Oh, no, there’s no way our own Harry Bosch could do this,’ and go on? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “All right, you’re right. Forget it. He didn’t say anything at all to his wife before leaving?”

  “Only that someone called and he had to go out for an hour to a meeting with a very important person. No name was mentioned. The call came in about nine Friday night.”

  “Is that exactly how she said he said it?”

  “I believe so. Why?”

  “Because if he said it in that way, then it sounds like two people may be involved.”

  “How so?”

  “It just sounds as though one person called him to set up a meeting with a second person, this very important person. If that person had made the call, then he would have told the wife that so and so, the big important guy, just called and I have to go meet him. See what I mean?”

  “I do. But whoever called could have also used the name of an important person as bait to draw Pounds out. That actual person may not have been involved at all.”

  “That’s also true. But I think that whatever was said, it would have to have been convincing to get Pounds out at night, by himself.”

  “Maybe it was someone he already knew.”

  “Maybe. But then he probably would have told his wife the name.”

  “True.”

  “Did he take anything with him? A briefcase, files, anything?”

  “Not that we know of. The wife was in the TV room. She didn’t see him actually go out the door. We’ve been over all of this with her, we’ve been all over the house. There’s nothing. His briefcase was in his office at the station. He didn’t even take it home with him. There’s nothing to go on. To be honest, you were the best candidate and you’re clear now. It brings me back to my question. Could what you’ve been doing have had anything to do with this?”

  Bosch could not bring himself to tell Irving what he thought, what he knew in his gut had happened to Pounds. It wasn’t the guilt that stopped him, though. It was the desire to keep his mission to himself. In that moment he realized that vengeance was a singular thing, a solo mission, something never to be spoken of out loud.

  “I don’t know the answer,” he said. “I told Pounds nothing. But he wanted me to go down. You know that. The guy’s dead but he was an asshole and he wanted me to go down. So he’d have had his ear to the ground for anything about me. A couple people have seen me around in the last week. Word could’ve gotten back to him and he could’ve blundered into something. He wasn’t much of an investigator. He could’ve made a mistake. I don’t know.”

  Irving looked at him through dead eyes. Bosch knew he was trying to determine how much was true and how much was bullshit. Bosch spoke first.

  “He said he was going to meet someone important.”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, Chief, I don’t know what McKittrick told you about the conversation I had out there with him, but you know there were important people involved back…you know, with my mother. You were there.”

  “Yes, I was there, but I wasn’t part of the investigation, not after the first day.”

  “Did McKittrick tell you about Arno Conklin?”

  “Not today. But back then. I remember once when I asked him what was happening with the case, he told me to ask Arno. He said Arno was running interference for someone on it.”

  “Well, Arno Conklin was an important person.”

  “But now? He’s an old man if he’s even still alive.”

  “He’s alive, Chief. And you have to remember something. Important men surround themselves with important men. They’re never alone. Conklin may be old but there could be someone else who isn’t.”

  “What are you telling me, Bosch?”

  “I’m telling you to leave me alone. I have to do this. I’m the only one who can. I’m telling you to keep Brockman and everybody else away from me.”

  Irving stared at him a long moment and Bosch could tell he didn’t know which way to go with this. Bosch stood up.

  “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “You’re not telling me everything.”

  “It’s better that way.”

  He stepped through the door into the hallway, remembered something and then stepped back into the room with Irving.

  “How am I going to get home? You brought me here.”

  Irving reached over to the phone.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  BOSCH WENT THROUGH he fifth-floor door to the Internal Affairs Division and found no one behind the counter. He waited a few moments for Toliver to show up since Irving had just ordered him to drive Bosch home, but the young IAD detective never showe
d. Bosch figured it was just one more mind game they were trying to play with him. He didn’t want to walk around the counter and have to find Toliver so he just yelled his name out. Behind the counter was a door that was slightly ajar and he was reasonably sure Toliver heard the call.

  But the person who stepped through the door was Brockman. He stared at Bosch for a long moment without saying anything.

  “Look, Brockman, Toliver is supposed to run me home,” Bosch said to him. “I don’t want anything else to do with you.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s too bad.”

  “Just get Toliver.”

  “You better watch out for me, Bosch.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll be watching.”

  “Yeah, and you won’t see me coming.”

  Bosch nodded and looked past him to the door where he expected Toliver to step out any moment. He just wanted to diffuse the situation and get his ride home. He considered walking out and catching a cab, but he knew in rush hour it would probably cost him fifty bucks. He didn’t have it on him. Plus, he liked the idea of having an IAD shine chauffeur him home.

  “Hey, killer?”

  Bosch looked back at Brockman. He was getting tired of this.

  “What’s it like to fuck another killer? Must really be something, to go all the way to Florida for it.”

  Bosch tried to stay cool but he felt his face betray himself. For he suddenly knew who and what Brockman was talking about.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Brockman’s face lit up with a bully’s delight as he read Bosch’s surprised look.

  “Oooh, baby! She didn’t even bother telling you, did she?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Bosch wanted to reach over the counter and drag Brockman across it but at least outwardly he maintained his cool.

  “Tell you what? I’ll tell you what. I think your whole story stinks and I’m going to bust it open. Then Mr. Clean upstairs isn’t going to be able to protect you.”

  “He said you were told to leave me alone, that I was clear.”

  “Fuck him and fuck you. When I come in with your alibi in a bag, he’s not going to have a choice but to cut you loose.”

  Toliver stepped through the doorway behind the counter. He was holding a set of car keys in his hands. He stood silently behind Brockman with his eyes down.

  “First thing I did was run her on the computer,” Brockman said. “She’s got a record, Bosch. You didn’t know that? She’s a killer, just like you. Takes one to know one, I guess. Nice couple.”

  Bosch wanted to ask a thousand questions but he wouldn’t ask any of this man. He felt a deep void opening inside as he began jettisoning his feelings for Jazz. He realized that she had left all the signs out for him but he hadn’t read them. Even so, the feeling that descended on him with the strongest grip was one of betrayal.

  Bosch pointedly ignored Brockman and looked at Toliver.

  “Hey, kid, you going to give me a ride or what?”

  Toliver moved around the counter without answering.

  “Bosch, I already got you on an association beef,” Brockman said. “But I’m not satisfied.”

  Bosch went to the hallway door and opened it. It was against LAPD regulations to associate with known criminals. Whether Brockman could make a charge like that stick was the least of Bosch’s worries. He headed out the door with Toliver following. Before it closed Brockman yelled after them.

  “Give her a kiss for me, killer.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  AT FIRST, BOSCH sat silently next to Jerry Toliver on the ride back to his house. He had a waterfall of thoughts dropping through his mind and decided to simply ignore the young IAD detective. Toliver left the police scanner on and the sporadic chatter was the only thing resembling conversation in the car. They had caught the crest of the evening commute out of downtown and were moving at an excruciatingly slow pace toward the Cahuenga pass.

  Bosch’s guts ached from the wracking convulsions of nausea of an hour earlier and he kept his arms crossed in front of him as if he were cradling a baby. He knew he had to compartmentalize his thoughts. As much as he was confused and curious about what Brockman had alluded to in regard to Jasmine, he knew he had to put it aside. At the moment, Pounds and what had happened to him were more important.

  He tried to piece together the chain of events and the conclusion he drew was obvious. His stumbling into the party at Mittel’s and delivery of the photocopy of the Times clip had set off a reaction that ended with the murder of Harvey Pounds, the man whose name he had used. Though he had given Mittel only the name at the party, it was somehow traced back to the real Pounds, who was then tortured and killed.

  Bosch guessed that it was the DMV calls that had doomed Pounds. Fresh from receiving the threatening news clip at the fund-raiser from a man who had introduced himself as Harvey Pounds, Mittel likely would have put his lengthy arm out to find out who this man was and what his purpose was. Mittel had connections from L.A. to Sacramento to Washington, D.C. He could have quickly found out that Harvey Pounds was a cop. Mittel’s campaign financing work had put a good number of legislators in seats in Sacramento. He would certainly have the connections in the capital city to find out if anyone was running traces on his name. And if he had that done, then he would have learned that Harvey Pounds, an LAPD lieutenant, had inquired not only about him but about four other men who would be of vital interest to him as well. Arno Conklin, Johnny Fox, Jake McKittrick and Claude Eno.

  True, all the names were involved in a case and conspiracy almost thirty-five years old. But Mittel was at the center of that conspiracy and the snooping around by Pounds would be more than enough, Bosch believed, for someone of his position to take some kind of action to find out what Pounds was doing.

  Because of the approach the man he thought was Pounds had made at the party, Mittel had probably concluded he was being set upon by a chiseler, an extortionist. And he knew how to eliminate the problem. Like Johnny Fox had been eliminated.

  That was the reason Pounds had been tortured, Bosch knew. For Mittel to make sure the problem went no further than Pounds, he had to know who else knew what Pounds knew. The problem was that Pounds didn’t know anything himself. He had nothing to give. He was tormented until his heart could take it no longer.

  A question that remained unanswered in Bosch’s mind was what Arno Conklin knew of all this. He had not yet been contacted by Bosch. Did he know of the man who approached Mittel? Did he order the hit on Pounds or was it solely Mittel’s reaction?

  Then Bosch saw a bump in his theory that needed refining. Mittel had come face to face with him posing as Harvey Pounds at the fund-raiser. The fact that Pounds was tortured before he died indicated that Mittel was not present at the time, or he would have seen that they were brutalizing the wrong man. Bosch wondered now if they understood that they had, in fact, killed the wrong man, and if they would be looking for the right one.

  He mulled over the point that Mittel could not have been there and decided that it fit. Mittel was not the type to get involved in the blood work. He’d have no problem calling the shots, he just wouldn’t want to see them fired. Bosch realized the surfer in a suit had also seen him at the party and, therefore, could not have been directly involved in the killing of Harvey Pounds, either. That left the man Bosch had seen through the French doors at the house. The man with the wide body and thick neck whom he had seen Mittel show the newspaper clip to. The man who had slipped and fallen while coming down the driveway for Bosch.

  Bosch realized that he didn’t know how close he had come to being where Pounds was now. He reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and started to light one.

  “Do you mind not smoking?” Toliver asked, his first words of the thirty-minute journey.

  “Yeah, I do mind.”

  Bosch finished lighting the smoke and put his Bic away. He lowered the window.

  “There. You happy? The exhaust fumes are worse than the smoke.
”

  “It’s a nonsmoking vehicle.”

  Toliver tapped his finger on a plastic magnet that was on the dashboard ashtray cover. It was one of the little doodads that were distributed when the city passed a widespread antismoking law that forbade the practice in all city buildings and allowed for half of the department’s fleet to be declared nonsmoking vehicles. The magnet showed a cigarette in the middle of a red circle with a slash through it. Beneath the circle it said THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING. Bosch reached over, peeled the magnet off and threw it out the open window. He saw it bounce once on the pavement and stick on the door of a car one lane over.