Trunk Music

by Michael Connelly

  “I don’t want the cops. I don’t want to go through all of that. I just want this to end.”

  Bosch looked at her a long moment.

  “Jerry, you got him?” he asked.

  “I got him.”

  Bosch went to Eleanor and grabbed her arm and led her back into the house. When they were in the alcove by the kitchen and far enough away that the men outside could not hear them, he stopped and looked at her.

  “Eleanor, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want—”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No, I’m—”

  “Did they rape you? Tell me the truth.”

  “No, Harry. It is nothing like that. I just want this to end here.”

  “Listen to me, we can take down Marks, his lawyer and those three assholes out on the porch. That’s why I’m here. Marks told me he had you.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Harry. You can’t touch Marks on this. What did he really tell you? And who’s your witness going to be? Me? Look at me. I’m a convicted felon, Harry. Not only that, I used to be one of the good guys. Just think what a mob lawyer can do with that.”

  Bosch didn’t say anything. He knew she was right.

  “Well, I’m not going to put myself through that,” she said. “I got a dose of reality when they jerked me out of my home and took me down to Metro. I’m not going to go to bat for them on this. Now can you get me out of here?”

  “As long as you are sure. You can’t change your mind once we’re out of here.”

  “I’m as sure as I’ll ever be.”

  Bosch nodded and led her out to the porch.

  “It’s your lucky day, boys,” he said to the three thugs. Then to Edgar he said, “We’re pulling out of here. We’ll talk about it later.”

  Edgar just nodded. Bosch went one by one to the Samoans and put their own cuffs on their wrists and then took off the others. When he was done, he held the key up in front of the smaller of the two giants and then tossed it into the pool. He went over to the fence that ran behind the pool and took down a long pole with a net attached to the end of it. He fished his gun off the bottom and handed it to Eleanor to hold. He then returned to Gussie, who was dressed completely in black. Edgar was still standing to his right, holding the gun against his temple.

  “Almost didn’t recognize you without the tux, Gussie. Will you give Joey Marks a message?”

  “Yeah. What?”

  “Fuck you. Just tell him that.”

  “He’s not going to like that.”

  “I don’t really care. He’s lucky I don’t leave him three bodies here as a message.”

  Bosch looked over at Eleanor.

  “Anything you want to say or do?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then we’re outta here. Only thing is, Gussie, we’re one set of cuffs short. That’s too bad for you.”

  “There’s rope in the—”

  Bosch hit him on the bridge of the nose with the butt end of his gun, crushing whatever bone had not been broken in their earlier scuffle. Gussie dropped heavily to his knees, then pitched forward, his face making a thud on the porch tile.

  “Harry! Jesus!”

  It was Edgar. He looked shocked by the sudden violence.

  Bosch just looked at him a moment and said, “Let’s go.”

  When they got to Eleanor’s apartment, Bosch backed the car up nearly to the door and popped the trunk.

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” he said. “Jerry, you stay out here, watch for anybody coming. Eleanor, you can fill the trunk with whatever you can fit in there. That’s about all you can take.”

  She nodded. She understood. Las Vegas was over for her. She could no longer stay, not with what had happened. Bosch wondered if she also understood that it was all because of him. Her life would still be as it had been if he had not wanted to reach out to her.

  They all got out of the car and Bosch followed Eleanor into the apartment. She studied the broken door for a moment until he told her he had done it.

  “Why?”

  “Because when I didn’t hear from you I thought…I thought something else.”

  She nodded again. She understood that, too.

  “There’s not a lot,” she said, looking around the place. “Most of this stuff I don’t care about. I probably won’t even need the whole trunk.”

  She went into the bedroom, took an old suitcase out of the closet and started filling it with clothes. When it was full, Bosch took it out and put in the trunk. When he came back in, she was filling a box from the closet with her remaining clothes and other personal belongings. He saw her put a photo album in the box and then she went to the bathroom to clear the medicine cabinet.

  In the kitchen all she took was a wine bottle opener and a coffee mug with a picture of the Mirage hotel on it.

  “Bought this the night I won four hundred sixty-three dollars there,” she said. “I was playing the big table and I was way in over my head but I won. I want to remember that.”

  She put that in the top of the full box and said, “That’s it. That’s all I have to show for my life.”

  Bosch studied her a moment and then took the box out to the car. He struggled a bit, getting it to fit in next to the suitcase. When he was done, he turned around to call to Eleanor that they must go and she was already standing there, holding the framed print of The Nighthawks, the Edward Hopper painting. She was holding it in front of her like a shield.

  “Will this fit?”

  “Sure. We’ll make it fit.”

  At the Mirage, Bosch pulled into the valet circle again and saw the chief valet frown as he recognized the car. Bosch got out, showed the man his badge quickly so that he might not notice it wasn’t a Metro badge, and gave him twenty dollars.

  “Police business. I’ll be twenty-thirty minutes tops. I need the car here because when we leave we’re going to have to really book.”

  The man looked at the twenty in his hand as if it were human feces. Bosch reached into his pocket, pulled out another twenty and gave it to him.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay. Leave me the keys.”

  “No. No keys. Nobody touches the car.”

  Bosch had to take the picture out of the trunk to get to Eleanor’s suitcase and a gun kit he kept there. He then repacked the trunk and lugged the suitcase inside, waving off an offer of help from a doorman. In the lobby, he put the case down and looked at Edgar.

  “Jerry, thanks a lot,” he said. “You were there, man. Eleanor’s going to change and then I’m going to shoot her out to the airport. I probably won’t be back until late. So let’s just meet here at eight o’clock tomorrow and we’ll go to court.”

  “Sure you don’t need me for the airport run?”

  “No, I think we’re fine. Marks won’t try anything now. And if we’re lucky, Gussie won’t be waking up for another hour or so anyway. I’m going to go check in.”

  He left Eleanor there with him and went to the desk. There was no wait. It was late. After giving the clerk his credit card, he looked back at Eleanor saying her good-bye to Edgar. He put out his hand and she shook it but then she pulled him into an embrace. Edgar disappeared into the crowd of the casino.

  Eleanor waited until they were in his room before she spoke.

  “Why am I going to the airport tonight? You said you doubted they would do anything.”

  “Because I want to make sure you’re safe. And tomorrow I won’t be able to worry about it. I’ve got court in the morning and then I’m driving Goshen to L.A. I have to know you’re safe.”

  “Where am I going to go?”

  “You could go to a hotel but I think my place would be better, safer. You remember where it is?”

  “Yes. Up off Mulholland?”

  “Yeah. Woodrow Wilson Drive. I’ll give you the key. Take a cab from the airport and I’ll be there by tomorrow night.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know. We’
ll figure it out.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed and Bosch came around and sat next to her. He put his arms around her shoulders.

  “I don’t know if I could live in L.A. again.”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Don’t kiss me. I need to take a shower.”

  He kissed her again and then pulled her back onto the bed. They made love differently this time. They were more tender, slower. They found each other’s rhythm.

  Afterward, Bosch took the first shower and then while Eleanor bathed he used oil and a rag from his gun kit to clean the Glock that had been thrown into the pool. He worked the action and trigger several times to make sure the weapon was working properly. Then he filled the clip with fresh ammunition. He went to the closet and took a plastic laundry bag off the shelf, put the gun inside it and shoved it beneath a stack of clothes in Eleanor’s suitcase.

  After her shower Eleanor dressed in a yellow cotton summer dress and twined her hair into a French braid. Bosch liked watching her do it with such skill. When she was ready, he closed the suitcase and they left the room. The head valet came up to Bosch as he was putting the suitcase into the trunk.

  “Next time, thirty minutes is thirty minutes. Not an hour.”

  “Sorry ’bout that.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it. I could’ve lost my job, man.”

  Bosch ignored him and got in the car. On the way to the airport he tried to compose his thoughts into articulate sentences that he could recite to her but it wasn’t working. His emotions were too much of a jumble.

  “Eleanor,” he finally said. “Everything that’s happened, it’s my fault. And I want to try to make it up to you.”

  She reached over and put her hand on his thigh. He put his hand on top of hers. She didn’t say anything.

  At the airport, Bosch parked in front of the Southwest terminal and got her suitcase out of the trunk. He locked his own gun and badge in the trunk so he could go through the airport’s metal detector without a problem.

  There was one last flight to L.A., leaving in twenty minutes. Bosch bought her a ticket and checked her bag. The gun would cause no problem as long as the bag was checked. He then escorted her to the terminal, where there was already a line of people making their way down the jetway.

  Bosch took the key to his house off his keychain, gave it to her and told her the exact address.

  “It’s not the same as you might remember it,” he said. “The old place got wrecked in the earthquake. It’s been rebuilt and it’s not all the way done. But it will be all right. The sheets, uh, I probably should’ve washed them a few days ago but didn’t have time. There’s fresh ones in the hallway closet.”

  She smiled.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll figure everything out.”

  “Uh, listen, like I said before, I don’t think that you’ve got anything to worry about anymore but just in case, you’ve got the Glock in your suitcase. That’s why I checked it.”

  “You cleaned it while I was in the shower, didn’t you? I thought I smelled the oil when I came out.”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think I’ll need it anyway.”

  “Probably not.”

  She looked over at the line. The last people were boarding. She had to go.

  “You’re being very good to me, Harry. Thank you.”

  He frowned.

  “Not good enough. Not enough to make up for everything.”

  She went up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Good-bye, Harry.”

  “Good-bye, Eleanor.”

  He watched her hand in her ticket and go through the door to the jetway. She didn’t look back and there was a whisper in the back of his mind telling him he might never see her again. But he shut it off and walked back through the nearly deserted airport. Most of the slot machines stood mute and ignored. Bosch felt a deep sense of loneliness engulf him.

  The only hitch in Thursday morning’s court proceedings occurred before they started, when Weiss came out of lockup after conferring with his client and quickly went into the hall to find Bosch and Edgar conferring with Lipson, the local prosecutor who would handle the extradition hearing. Gregson had not made the trip from the L.A. County DA’s office. Weiss and Lipson had given him their assurances that Luke Goshen was going to waive any objection to being brought back to California.

  “Detective Bosch?” Weiss said. “I was just in with my client and he asked me to get him some information before the hearing. He said he wanted an answer before he gave any waiver. I don’t know what it’s about, but I hope you haven’t been in contact with my client.”

  Bosch put a concerned yet puzzled look on his face.

  “What’s he want to know?”

  “He just wanted to know how last night worked out, whatever that means. I’d like to know what is going on here.”

  “Just tell him everything is fine.”

  “What is fine, Detective?”

  “If your client wants to tell you, he can tell you. Just deliver the message.”

  Weiss stalked away, heading back toward the lockup door.

  Bosch looked at his watch. It was five till nine and he figured the judge wouldn’t come out to the bench at the crack of nine. None of them ever did. He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes.

  “I’m going outside to have a smoke,” he told Edgar.

  Bosch took the elevator down and went out to the front of the courthouse to have his cigarette. It was warm out and he thought the day would probably be another scorcher. With Las Vegas in September it was pretty much guaranteed. He was glad he’d be leaving soon. But he knew the ride through the desert during the heat of the day would be rough.

  He didn’t notice Mickey Torrino until the lawyer was a few feet away from him. He, too, was smoking a cigarette before going in to handle the day’s business of mob-related legal work. Bosch nodded his greeting as did Torrino.

  “I guess you heard by now. No deal.”

  Torrino looked around to see if they were being watched.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective.”

  “Yeah, I know. You guys never know anything.”

  “I do know one thing and that’s that you are making a mistake on this one. In case you care about things like that.”

  “I don’t think so. At least not in the big picture. We might not have the real shooter but we have the guy who set it up. And we’re going to get the guy who ordered it. Who knows, maybe we’ll get the whole crew. Who you going to work for then, Counselor? That is, if we don’t get you, too.”

  Torrino smirked and shook his head as if he were dealing with a foolish child.

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with here. It’s not going to play. You’ll be lucky if you get to keep Goshen. At best you’ve got only him. That’s all.”

  “You know, Lucky keeps making noises about being set up. He, of course, thinks it’s us putting him in the frame and I know that’s bullshit. But I keep thinking, ‘What if there is a frame?’ I mean, I have to admit that him keeping that gun is hard to figure, though I’ve seen even dumber moves in my time. But if there is a frame and we didn’t do it, who did? Why would Joey Marks frame his own guy when that guy’s just going to roll over and put the finger back on Joey? Doesn’t make sense. At least, from Joey’s point of view. But then I started thinking, What if you were Joey’s righthand man, say his lawyer, and you wanted to be the big shot, the one who makes the calls? See what I’m talking about here? This’d be a nice little way of getting rid of your nearest competitor and Joey at the same time. How would that play, Counselor?”

  “If you ever repeat that bullshit story to anyone, you will be very, very sorry.”

  Bosch took a step toward him so that their faces were only a foot apart.

  “If you ever threaten me again, you will be very, very sorry. If anything ever happens to Ele
anor Wish again, I will hold you personally responsible, asshole, and sorry is not the right word for how you will be then.”

  Torrino stepped back, loser in the staring contest. Without another word he walked away from Bosch and toward the courthouse doors. As he opened the heavy glass door, he looked back at Bosch, then disappeared inside.

  When Bosch got back to the third floor, he met Edgar as he was coming quickly out of the courtroom, followed by Weiss and Lipson. Bosch looked at the hallway clock. It was five after nine.