A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [152]
McCaleb was quiet for a moment, giving Bosch an opportunity to say something in his defense.
“That’s a lot of maybes, Terry.”
“Yeah. A lot of maybes and one guess. My guess is that somehow you knew or you figured out back when Tafero hooked up with Storey that they would have to come after you in court. So you watched Tafero and you saw him draw the bead on Gunn. You knew what was going to happen and you let it happen.”
McCaleb took another long drink of beer and put the bottle back down on the railing.
“A dangerous game, Harry. They almost pulled it off. But I guess if I hadn’t come along you would’ve figured out some way of pointing it back at them.”
Bosch continued to stare out into the darkness and say nothing.
“The one thing I hope is that you weren’t the one who tipped Tafero that Gunn was in the tank that night. Tell me you didn’t make that call, Harry. Tell me you didn’t help get him out so they could kill him like that.”
Again Bosch said nothing. McCaleb nodded.
“You want to shake somebody’s hand, Harry, shake your own.”
Bosch dropped his gaze and looked down into the darkness below the deck. McCaleb watch him closely and saw him slowly shake his head.
“We do what we have to do,” Bosch said quietly. “Sometimes you have choices. Sometimes there is no choice, only necessity. You see things happening and you know they’re wrong but somehow they’re also right.”
He was silent for a long moment and McCaleb waited.
“I didn’t make that call,” Bosch said.
He turned and looked at McCaleb. Again McCaleb could see the shining points of light in the blackness of his eyes.
“Three people — three monsters — are gone.”
“But not that way. We don’t do it that way.”
Bosch nodded.
“What about your play, Terry? Pushing past the little brother into the office. Like you didn’t think that would start some shit. You pushed the action with that little move and you know it.”
McCaleb felt his face growing hot under Bosch’s stare. He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.
“You had your own plan, Terry. So what’s the difference?”
“The difference? If you don’t see it, then you have completely fallen. You are lost.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m lost and maybe I’ve been found. I’ll have to think about it. Meantime, why don’t you just go home now. Go back to your little island and your little girl. Hide behind what you think you see in her eyes. Pretend the world is not what you know it to be.”
McCaleb nodded. He’d said what he wanted to say. He stepped away from the railing, leaving his beer, and walked toward the door to the house. But Bosch hit him with more words as he entered the house.
“You think naming her after a girl nobody cared about or loved can make up for that lost girl? Well, you’re wrong, man. Just go home and keep dreaming.”
McCaleb hesitated in the doorway and looked back.
“Good-bye, Harry.”
“Yeah, good-bye.”
McCaleb walked through the house. When he passed the reading chair where the light was on he saw the printout of his profile of Bosch sitting on the arm of the chair. He kept going. When he got to the front door he pulled it closed behind him.
47
Bosch stood with his arms folded on the deck railing and his head down. He thought about McCaleb’s words, both spoken and printed. They were pieces of hot shrapnel ripping through him. He felt a deep tearing of his interior lining. It felt as though something within had seized him and was pulling him into a black hole, that he was imploding into nothingness.
“What did I do?” he whispered. “What did I do?” He straightened up and saw the bottle on the railing, its label gone. He grabbed it and threw it as far as he could out into the darkness. He watched its trajectory, able to follow its flight because of moonlight reflecting off the brown glass. The bottle exploded in the brush