He pointed to the chair and remained standing until she finally sat. He then moved around the coffee table and sat on the couch. Its springs were shot. He sank so low in it that he had to lean forward and even then it felt like his knees were halfway up to his chest. He got out his notebook.
“I don’t like him messing around in my things,” Dorothy said, looking back over her shoulder toward the hallway.
“He’ll be careful.” Bosch took out his notebook. “You seemed to know we were coming. How’d you know that?”
“I know what she told me, is all. She said the police might come. She didn’t say anything about them coming all the way from Los Angeles.”
She said Angeles with a hard G.
“And you know why we’re here?”
“Because of Tony. She said he went and got himself killed over there.”
“Where did Gretchen go, Dorothy?”
“She did not tell me. You can ask me all the times you like but my answer’s always going to be the same. I don’t know.”
“Is that her sports car in the carport?”
“Sure is. She bought it with her own money.”
“Stripping?”
“I always said money was the same whether it was made one way or the next.”
Edgar came in then and looked at Bosch. Harry nodded for him to report.
“Looks like she was here. There’s a second bedroom. Ashtray on the nightstand’s full. There’s a space on the rod in the closet where it looks like somebody had hung up some clothes. They’re gone now. She left this.”
He held his hand out and cradled in his palm was a small oval picture frame with a photograph of Tony Aliso and Gretchen Alexander. They had their arms around each other and were smiling at the camera. Bosch nodded and looked back at Dorothy Alexander.
“If she left, why’d she leave her car here?”
“Don’t know. A taxi came for her.”
“Did she fly?”
“How could I know that if I don’t know where she was going?”
Bosch pointed a finger at her like a gun.
“Good point. Did she say when she’d be back?”
“No.”
“How old is Gretchen?”
“She’ll be twenty-three.”
“How’d she take the news about Tony?”
“Not well. She was in love and now her heart’s broken. I’m worried about her.”
“You think she might do something to hurt herself?”
“I don’t know what she might do.”
“Did she tell you she was in love, or did you just think that?”
“I just didn’t think it up, she told me. She confided in me and it was the truth. She said they were going to get married.”
“Did she know Tony Aliso was already married?”
“Yes, she knew. But he told her, he said that it was over and it was just a matter of time.”
Bosch nodded. He wondered if it was the truth. Not the truth that Gretchen might have believed, but the truth that Tony Aliso believed. He looked down at the blank page of his notebook.
“I’m trying to think if there is anything else,” he said. “Jerry?”
Edgar shook his head, then spoke.
“I guess I’d just like to know why a mother would let her daughter do that for a living. Taking her clothes off like that.”
“Jerry, I—”
“She has a talent, mister. Men came from all over the country and when they see her they keep coming back. Because of her. And I’m not her mother. I might as well have been, her own went and left her with me a long time ago. But she has a talent and I’m not talking to you two anymore. Get out of my house.”
She stood up, as if ready to physically enforce her edict if she needed to. Bosch decided to let her have her say and stood up, putting his notebook away.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” he said as he dug a business card out of his wallet. “If you hear from her, would you give her this number? And tonight she can get me at the Mirage again.”
“I’ll tell her if I hear from her.”
She took the card and followed them to the door. On the front step Bosch looked back at her and nodded.
“Thanks, Mrs. Alexander.”
“For what?”
They were quiet for a while driving back to the Strip. Eventually, Bosch asked Edgar what he thought of the interview.
“She’s a crusty old bitch. I had to ask that question. Just to see how she’d react. Other than that, I think this Layla or Gretchen is just a dead end. Just some stupid girl Tony was leading on. You know, it’s usually the strippers that are working the angles. But this time I think it was Tony.”
“Maybe.”
Bosch lit a cigarette and dropped back into silence. He was no longer thinking of the interview. As far as he was concerned, the work for the day was over and he was now thinking about Eleanor Wish.
When he got to the Mirage, Bosch swung the car into the circle in front and pulled to a stop near the front doors.
“Harry, man, what are you doing?” Edgar said. “Bullets might pop for the Mirage, but she isn’t going to dig into the company wallet for valet parking.”
“I’m just dropping you off. I’m going to go switch the cars tonight. I don’t want to go anywhere near that airport tomorrow.”
“That’s cool, but I’ll go with you, man. Nothin’ to do here but lose money on the machines.”
Bosch reached over and opened the glove box and pushed the trunk-release button.
“No, Jed, I’m going on my own. I want to think about some things. Grab your stuff outta the trunk.”
Edgar looked at him a long moment. Bosch had not called him Jed in a long time. Edgar was about to say something but apparently thought better of it. He opened the door.
“Okay, Harry. You want to grab dinner or something later?”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll call you in your room.”
“You’re the man.”
After Edgar slammed the trunk, Bosch drove back out onto Las Vegas Boulevard and then north to Sands. It was dusk and the day’s dying light was being replaced with the neon glow of the city. In ten minutes he pulled into a parking space in front of Eleanor Wish’s apartment building. He took a deep breath and got out of the car. He had to know. Why had she not answered his calls? Why had she not responded to his message?
When he got to the door, he felt his guts seize as if gripped in a huge fist. The note he had carefully folded and squeezed into the doorjamb two nights before was still there. Bosch looked down at the worn doormat and then squeezed his eyes shut. He felt a tremendous wave of the guilt he had worked so hard to bury come forth from inside. He had once made a phone call that got an innocent man killed. It had been a mistake, something he could not possibly have seen coming, but it happened just the same and he had worked hard to put it not behind him but, at least, in a place where he could live with it. But now Eleanor. Bosch knew what he would find behind the door. Asking Felton for her number and address had sent things into motion, a terrible motion that ended with her being hauled into Metro and her fragile dignity and belief that bad things were behind her being crushed.
Bosch kicked over the doormat on the off chance she had left a key. There was none. His lock picks were in the glove compartment of the car parked at the airport. He hesitated a moment, focused on a spot over the doorknob, then stepped back, raised his left leg and drove his heel into the door. It splintered along the jamb and flew open. Bosch slowly stepped into the apartment.
He noticed nothing amiss in the living room. He moved quickly into the hallway and then down into the bedroom. The bed was unmade and empty. Bosch stood there for a moment, taking it all in. He realized he hadn’t taken a breath since he had kicked in the door. He slowly exhaled and began breathing normally. She was alive. Somewhere. At least he thought so. He sat down on the bed, took out a cigarette and lit it. His feeling of relief was quickly crowded by other doubts and nagging questions. Why hadn�
��t she called? Hadn’t there been something real about what they had shared?
“Hello?”
A man’s voice came from the front of the apartment. Bosch assumed it was someone who had heard him pop the door. He stood up and headed out of the bedroom.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m back here. I’m with the police.”
He stepped into the living room and saw a man impeccably dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. It wasn’t what Bosch expected.
“Detective Bosch?”
Bosch tensed and didn’t answer.
“There’s someone outside who would like to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“He’ll tell you who he is and what his business is.”
The man walked out the front door, leaving it up to Bosch whether to follow. He hesitated a moment and did.
There was a stretch limousine in the parking lot, its engine running. The man in the black suit walked around and got into the driver’s seat. Bosch watched this for a moment and then walked toward the limo. He brought his arm up instinctively and brushed it against his coat until he felt the reassuring shape of his gun beneath it. As he did this, the rear door closest to him opened and a man with a rough, dark face beckoned to him. Bosch showed no hesitation. It was too late now.
Bosch ducked into the big car and took a seat facing the rear. There were two men sitting on the plushly padded backseat. One was the rough-faced man, who was casually dressed and slouching in his luxurious spot, and the other an older man in an expensive three-piece suit, the tie pulled tight to his neck. Sitting between the two men on a padded armrest was a small black box with a green light glowing on it. Bosch had seen such a box before. It detected electronic radio waves emitted by eavesdropping devices. As long as that green light glowed they could talk and be reasonably assured they wouldn’t be overheard and recorded.
“Detective Bosch,” the rough-faced man said.
“Joey Marks, I presume.”
“My name is Joseph Marconi.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. Marconi?”
“I thought we’d have a little conversation, that’s all. You, me and my attorney here.”
“Mr. Torrino?”
The other man nodded.
“Heard you lost a client today.”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” Marconi said. “We’ve got a problem here. We—”
“How did you know where I was?”
“I’ve had some fellows watching it for me. We kind of figured you’d be back. Once you left that note, especially.”
They had obviously followed him and he wondered when that had started. His mind then jumped to another conclusion and he suddenly knew what the meeting was all about.
“Where’s Eleanor Wish?”
“Eleanor Wish?” Marconi looked at Torrino and then back at Bosch. “I don’t know her. But I suppose she’ll turn up.”
“What do you want, Marconi?”
“I just wanted this chance to talk, that’s all. Just a little calm conversation. We’ve got a problem here and maybe we can work it out. I want to work with you, Detective Bosch. Do you want to work with me?”
“Like I said, what do you want?”
“What I want is to straighten this out before it gets too far out of hand. You are going down the wrong road here, Detective. You are a good man. I had you checked out. You’ve got ethics and I appreciate that. Whatever you do in life, you need a code of ethics. You have that. But you are on the wrong road here. Tony Aliso, I had nothing to do with that.”
Bosch smirked and shook his head.
“Look, Marconi, I don’t want your alibi. I’m sure it’s airtight but I could care less. You can still pull a trigger from three hundred fifty miles away. It’s been done from farther away, know what I mean?”
“Detective Bosch, there is something wrong here. Whatever that rat bastard is telling you, it’s a lie. I’m clean on Tony A., my people are clean on Tony A., and I’m simply giving you this opportunity to make it right.”
“Yeah, and how do I do that? Just kick Lucky loose so you can pick him up outside the jail in your limo here, take him for a ride out into the desert? Think we’ll ever see Lucky again?”
“You think you’ll ever see that lady ex-FBI agent again?”
Bosch stared at him a moment, letting his anger build up until he felt a slight tremor tick in his neck. Then, in one quick move, he pulled his gun and leaned across the space between the seats. He grabbed the thick gold braided chain around Marconi’s neck and jerked him forward. He pressed the barrel deep into Marconi’s cheek.
“Excuse me?”
“Easy now, Detective Bosch,” Torrino said then. “You don’t want to do something rash.”
He put a hand on Bosch’s arm.
“Take your hand off me, you asshole.”
Torrino removed his hand and raised it along with his other one in a surrendering gesture.
“I just want to calm things down a little here, that’s all.”
Bosch leaned back into his seat but kept his gun in his hand. The muzzle had left a ring of skin indentation and gun oil on Marconi’s cheek. He wiped it away with his hand.
“Where is she, Marconi?”
“I just heard she wanted to get away for a few days, Bosch. No need to overreact like that. We’re friends here. She’ll be back. In fact, now that I know you’re so, uh, attached to her, I’ll personally guarantee she’ll be back.”
“In exchange for what?”
Hackett was still on duty at the Metro jail. Bosch told him he had to talk to Goshen for a couple of minutes in regard to a security issue. Hackett hemmed and hawed about it being against regulations to set up an after-hours visit but Bosch knew it was done on occasion for the locals, against the rules or not. Eventually Hackett gave way and took Bosch to a room lawyers used to interview clients and told him to wait. Ten minutes later, Hackett waltzed Goshen into the room and cuffed one wrist to the chair he was placed in. Hackett then folded his arms and stood behind the suspect.
“Sergeant, I need to talk to him alone.”
“Can’t do it. It’s a security issue.”
“We’re not going to talk anyway,” Goshen interjected.
“Sergeant,” Bosch said. “What I tell this man, whether he chooses to talk to me or not, could put you in danger if it becomes known you have this knowledge. Know what I mean? Why add that potential danger to your list? Five minutes. It’s all I want.”
Hackett thought a moment and without a word left them alone.
“Pretty smooth, Bosch, but I’m not talking to you. Weiss said you might try a backdoor run. He said you’d want to try to get into the candy jar before it’s time. I’m not playing with you. Get me to L.A., sit me in front of the people who can deal, and then we’ll deal. Everybody will get what they want then.”
“Shut up and listen, you stupid fuck. I don’t give a shit about any deal anymore. The only deal I’m worried about now is whether to keep you alive or not.”
Bosch saw he had his attention now. He waited a few moments to turn the squeeze up and then began.
“Goshen, let me explain something to you. In all of Las Vegas there is exactly one person I care about. One. You take her out of the picture and the whole place could dry up and blow away and I really wouldn’t worry about it. But there’s that one person I care about. And out of all the people in this place, she’s the one that your employer decides to grab and hold against me.”
Goshen’s eyes narrowed in concern. Bosch was talking about his people. Goshen knew exactly what was coming.
“So the deal I’m talking about is this,” Bosch said. “You for her. Joey Marks said if you never get to L.A., then my friend comes back. And vice versa. You understand what I’m telling you?”
Goshen looked down at the table and slowly nodded.
“Do you?”
Bosch pulled his gun and pointed it three inches from the big man’s face. Goshen went
cross-eyed looking at the barrel’s black hole.
“I could blow your shit away right here. Hackett would come in here and I’d tell him you made a move for my gun. He’d go along. He set the meeting up here. It’s against the rules. He’d have to go along.”
Bosch withdrew the gun.
“Or tomorrow. This is how it goes tomorrow. At the airport we’re waiting for our flight. There’s a commotion over at the machines. Somebody’s won a big fucking jackpot and my partner and I make the mistake of looking over there. Meantime, somebody—maybe it’s your pal Gussie—puts a six-inch stiletto in your neck. End of you, my friend comes home.”
Trunk Music (1996) Page 24