Trunk Music

by Michael Connelly

  “I never said it was anything more than a hunch. But I still think it all fits. It even fits better since we got here. Last week I found a matchbook in Aliso’s room at the Mirage. It was from La Fuentes. Whether they show or not, I say Tony’s got a box in that bank.”

  “Well, I’m thinking about sending Don here in to ask about that. We might be able to call an end to this and stop wasting our time if we find out there’s no box.”

  “Well, it’s your call.”

  “You got that right.”

  A couple more minutes of tense silence went by.

  “What about Powers?” Lindell asked.

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t see him here, either, Bosch. When you got here this morning, you were all hot and heavy about him comin’ out here to find her and blast her full of holes. So where is he?”

  “I don’t know, Lindell. But if we’re smart enough to figure this out, so is he. I wouldn’t doubt it if he knew from tailing Tony where the box was all along and just left that out of our little conversation.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me, either. But I still say it’d be stupid for him to come here. He’s got to know we have a fix on this.”

  “Stupid isn’t the word. It’s suicidal. But I don’t think he cares. He just wants her to go down. And if he takes a bullet, too, then that’s the way it goes. Like I told you before, he was ready to do the kamikaze scene at the station when he thought she was there.”

  “Well, let’s just hope he’s cooled down a little since—”

  “There!” Baker barked out.

  Bosch followed his pointing finger toward the far corner of the lot, where a white limousine had just pulled in and was moving slowly toward the bank.

  “Jesus,” Lindell said. “Don’t tell me he is this stupid.”

  All limos looked basically the same to Bosch but somehow Lindell and Baker had recognized the car.

  “Is that Joey Marks?”

  “It’s his limo. He likes those big whitewalls. It’s the wop in him. I just can’t—he can’t be in there. He’s not going to waste two years of my fucking life making this pickup, is he?”

  The limo stopped in the lane in front of the bank. There was no further movement.

  “You got this, La Fuentes?” Lindell asked.

  “Yeah, we got it,” came a whispered reply, though there was clearly no way anyone in that van could be overheard by someone in the limo.

  “Uh, one, two and three, standby,” Lindell continued. “Looks like we might have the fox in the henhouse. Air Jordan, you take five until further. I don’t want you swinging over and spooking anybody.”

  This brought a chorus of rogers from the three other ground units and the helicopter.

  “On second thought, three, why don’t you come on up by the southwest entrance and stand by there for me,” Lindell said.

  “Roger that.”

  Finally, the door to the limo opened, but it was on the side blocked from Bosch’s view. He waited, not breathing, and after a beat Captain John Felton emerged from the limo.

  “Bingo,” the whisper came over the radio.

  Felton then leaned back into the open door and reached in. Veronica Aliso now emerged, Felton’s hand tightly around her arm. Following her, another man emerged at the same time the trunk opened automatically. While this second man, who was wearing gray pants and a shirt with an oval name tag sewn above the breast pocket, went to the trunk, Felton bent down and said something to someone still inside the limo. He never took his hand off Veronica’s arm.

  Bosch caught only a glimpse of Veronica’s face then. Though he was an easy thirty yards from her, he could see the fear and weariness. It had probably been the longest night of her life.

  The second man pulled a heavy red toolbox from the trunk and followed behind as Felton walked Veronica toward the bank, his arm still gripping her and his head swiveling as he looked about. Bosch saw Felton’s focus linger on the van and then finally look away. The paint job had probably been the deciding factor. It had been a nice touch.

  As they walked alongside the old Cadillac, Felton bent down to look at the man working under the hood. Satisfied he was not a threat, Felton straightened up and went on to the glass doors of the bank. Before they disappeared inside, Bosch saw that Veronica was clutching a cloth bag of some kind. Its dimensions were not discernible because it appeared to be empty and folded over on itself.

  Bosch didn’t breathe again until they were no longer in sight.

  “Okay,” Lindell said to the visor. “We’ve got three. Felton, the woman, and the driller. Anybody recognize him?”

  The radio was silent for a few seconds and then a lone voice answered.

  “I’m too far away but I thought it looked like Maury Pollack. He’s a safe-and-lock man who’s worked for Joey’s crew before.”

  “Okay,” Lindell said. “We’ll check him later. I’m sending Baker in now to open a new account. Wait five and then, Conlon, you go in next. Check your sets now.”

  They went through a quick check of the radio sets Baker and Conlon were wearing under their clothes with wireless earpieces and wrist mikes. They checked out and Baker got out of the car and walked briskly along the sidewalk in front of the other stores toward the bank.

  “Okay, Morris,” Lindell said. “Take a walk. Try the Radio Shack.”

  “Roger.”

  Bosch watched as an agent he recognized from the pre-dawn meeting started crossing the lot from a car parked near the southwest entrance to the lot. Morris and Baker crossed paths ten feet apart but didn’t acknowledge each other or even glance at the limo, which still sat with its engine idling in the lane in front of the bank.

  It took about an hour for the next five minutes to go by. It was hot out but Bosch was mainly sweating from the anxiety of waiting and wondering what was going on. There had been only one transmission from Baker once he was inside. He had whispered that the subjects were in the safe deposit vault.

  “Okay, Conlon, go,” Lindell ordered at the five-minute mark.

  Bosch soon saw Conlon walking along the storefronts from the direction of the bagel shop. He went into the bank.

  And then there was nothing for the next fifteen excruciating minutes. Finally, Lindell spoke just to break the silence.

  “How we doin’ out there. Everybody chipper?”

  There was a chorus of microphone clicks signaling an affirmative response. Just as the radio had gone silent again, Baker’s voice came up in an urgent whisper.

  “They’re coming out, coming out. Something’s wrong.”

  Bosch watched the bank doors and in a moment Felton and Veronica came out, the police captain’s hand still firmly on her arm. The driller followed behind, lugging his red toolbox.

  Felton didn’t look around this time. He just walked with purpose toward the limo. He carried the bag now and it did not appear to Bosch to have grown in size. If Veronica’s face looked fearful and tired before, it now looked even more distorted by fright. It was hard for Bosch to tell at this distance, but it looked like she was crying.

  The door to the limo was opened from within as the threesome retraced their path alongside the old Cadillac and were getting near.

  “All right,” Lindell said to the listening agents. “On my call we go in. I’ll take the front of the limo, three, you are in behind me. One and two, you got the back. Standard vehicular stop. La Fuentes, I want you people to come up and clear the limo. Do it quick. If there’s shooting, everybody watch the cross fire. Watch the cross fire.”

  As the rogers were coming in, Bosch was watching Veronica. He could tell she knew she was going to her death. The look on her face was vaguely reminiscent of what Bosch had seen on her husband’s face. That certain knowledge that the game was up.

  As he watched, he suddenly saw the trunk of the Cadillac spring open behind her. And from it, as if propelled by the same taut steel, jumped Powers. In a loud, wild-animal voice that Bosch heard clearly and would nev
er forget, Powers yelled one word as he hit the ground.

  “Veronica!”

  As she, Felton and the driller turned to the origin of the sound, Powers raised his hands, both of them holding weapons. In that instant Bosch saw the glint of his own gun, the satin-finished Smith & Wesson, in the killer cop’s left hand.

  “Gun!” Lindell yelled. “Everybody in! Everybody in!”

  He jerked the car into gear and slammed his foot on the gas pedal. The car jerked forward and started screaming toward the limo. But Bosch knew there was nothing they could do. They were too far away.

  He watched the scene unfold with a grim fascination, as if he were watching a slow-motion scene from a Peckinpah movie.

  Powers began firing both guns, the shells ejecting and arcing away over both his shoulders as he stepped toward the limo. Felton made an attempt to go inside his jacket for his own gun but he was cut down in the fusillade, the first to drop. Then Veronica, standing perfectly still, facing her killer and making no move to run or shield herself, was hit and went down, dropping to the pavement, where Bosch couldn’t see her because the limo blocked his view.

  Powers kept coming and firing. The driller dropped his toolbox, raised his hands and started stepping backward away from the line of fire. Powers apparently ignored him. Bosch couldn’t tell if he was shooting at Veronica’s fallen body or into the open door of the limo. The limo took off, its tires spinning at first without purchase before it finally started to move, the rear door still open. But almost immediately, its driver failed to negotiate the left turn in the parking lane and the big car crashed into a row of parked cars. The driver jumped out and started running in the direction of the bagel shop.

  Powers seemed to pay the fleeing driver no mind. He had reached the spot where Felton had fallen to the ground. He dropped Bosch’s gun on the police captain’s chest and reached down for the bag, which was on the ground next to Felton’s hand.

  It seemed that Powers did not realize the bag was empty until he had actually picked it up off the ground and held it. And as he was making this discovery, the doors of the van behind him were opened and four agents carrying shotguns were coming out. The agent in the T-shirt was coming around the side of the Cadillac, the handgun he had hidden in the engine compartment now pointed at Powers.

  A squealing tire from one of the approaching bureau cars drew Powers’s attention away from the empty duffel bag. He dropped it and turned on the five agents behind him. He raised both his hands again, though he only had one gun this time.

  The agents opened fire and Bosch watched as Powers was literally lifted off the ground by the force of the impact and onto the front hood of a full-sized pickup truck that probably belonged to a bank customer. Powers landed on his back. His hand lost its grip on the remaining gun and it clattered off the hood to the ground. As loud as the eight seconds of shooting had been, the silence that followed the gun falling to the ground seemed even louder.

  Powers was dead. Felton was dead. Giuseppe Marconi, aka Joseph Marconi, aka Joey Marks, was dead—his body sprawled and awash in blood on the soft leather seats in the back of his limousine.

  When they got to Veronica Aliso, she was alive but dying. She had been hit with two rounds in the upper chest, and the bubbles in the froth of blood in her mouth indicated her lungs had been shredded. While the FBI agents ran about securing and containing the scene, Bosch and Rider went to Veronica.

  Her eyes were open but losing their moisture. They were moving all around as if searching for someone or something that wasn’t there. Her jaw started to work and she said something but Bosch couldn’t hear. He crouched down over her and turned his ear to her mouth.

  “Can you…get me ice?” she whispered.

  Bosch turned and looked at her. He didn’t understand. She started to speak again and he turned his ear to her mouth again.

  “…the pavement…so hot. I…I need ice.”

  Bosch looked at her and nodded.

  “It’s coming. It’s coming. Veronica, where’s the money?”

  He bent over her, realizing that she was right, the pavement was now burning the palms of his hands. He could barely make out her words.

  “At least they don’t…they don’t get it.”

  She started coughing then, a deep wet cough, and Bosch knew her chest was full of blood and it wouldn’t be long before she drowned. He couldn’t think of what to do or say to this woman. He realized they were probably his own bullets in her and that she was dying because they had fucked up and let Powers get away. He almost wanted to ask her to forgive him, to say she understood how things could go so wrong.

  He looked away from her and across the lot. He could hear sirens approaching. But he had seen enough gunshot wounds to know she wasn’t going to need the ambulance. He looked back down at her. Her face was very pale and going slack. Her lips moved once more and he bent to listen. This time her voice was no more than a desperate rasp in his ear. He could not understand her words and he whispered in her ear to say it again.

  “…et my gergo…”

  He turned his head to look at her, the confusion in his eyes. He shook his head. An annoyed expression crossed her face.

  “Let,” she said clearly, using the last of her strength. “Let…my daughter go.”

  Bosch kept his eyes locked on hers as that last line ran through his mind. Then, without thinking about it, he nodded once to her. And as he watched, she died. Her eyes lost their focus and he could tell she was gone.

  Bosch stood up and Rider studied his face.

  “Harry, what did she say?”

  “She said…I’m not sure what she said.”

  Bosch, Edgar and Rider stood leaning against the trunk of Lindell’s car, watching as a phalanx of FBI and Metro people continued to descend on the crime scene. Lindell had ordered the entire shopping center closed and marked off with yellow tape, a move that prompted Edgar to comment, “When these guys throw a crime scene, they really throw a crime scene.”

  Each of them had already given a statement. They were no longer part of the investigation. They were merely witnesses to the event and now observers.

  The special agent in charge of the Las Vegas field office was on the scene directing the investigation. The bureau had brought in a motor home that had four separate interview rooms in it and agents were taking statements in them from witnesses to the shooting. The bodies were still there, now covered in yellow plastic on the pavement and in the limo. That splash of bright color made for good video for the news helicopters circling overhead.

  Bosch had been able to pick up pieces of information from Lindell on how things stood. The ID number on the Cadillac in which Powers had hidden for at least the four hours it was under observation by the FBI was traced to an owner in Palmdale, California, a desert town northeast of Los Angeles. The owner was already on file with the bureau. He was a white supremacist who had held antigovernment rallies on his land the last two Independence Days. He was also known to have sought to contribute to the defense funds of the men charged with bombing the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City two years before. Lindell told Bosch that the SAIC had ordered an arrest warrant for the owner on charges of conspiracy to commit murder for his role in helping Powers. It had been a nice plan. The trunk of the Caddy was lined with a thick carpet and several blankets. The chain and padlock used to hold it closed could be unhooked from the inside. Through rusted-out spots on the fenders and trunk it had been possible for Powers to watch and wait for the right moment to come out, guns ready.

  The driller, who it turned out was indeed Maury Pollack, was only too happy to cooperate with the agents. He was just happy he wasn’t one of the ones wearing a yellow plastic blanket. He told Lindell and the others that Joey Marks had picked him up that morning, told him to wear a working-man’s outfit and to bring his drill. He didn’t know what the situation was because there was little talking in the limo on the ride over. He just knew the woman was scared.

  Inside the b
ank Veronica Aliso had presented a bank officer with a copy of her husband’s death certificate, his will and a court order issued Friday in Las Vegas Municipal Court granting her, as sole heir to Anthony Aliso, access to his safe deposit box. Access was approved and the box was drilled because Mrs. Aliso said she had not been able to locate her husband’s key.

  The trouble was, Pollack said, when he drilled the box open, they found it was empty.

  “Can you imagine that?” Lindell said as he related this information to Bosch. “All of this for nothing. I was hoping to get my hands on that two mil. Of course, we’d’ve split it with L.A. Right down the middle, Bosch.”

  “Right,” Bosch said. “Did you look at the records? When was the last time Tony went into his box?”