A Darkness More Than Night - Michael Connelly [74]
“Okay, I can find it,” McCaleb said, a what-about-it tone in his voice. “What’s the connection?”
“Well, see, Nat’s was the same place he’d been drinking that night six years ago that I first made his acquaintance. It’s where he picked up that woman, the one he killed.”
“So he was a regular.”
“Looks it.”
“Thanks, Harry. I’ll check it out. How come you didn’t tell this to Jaye Winston?”
Bosch shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I didn’t think about it and she didn’t ask.”
McCaleb almost put his beer down on the speaker again but instead handed it to Bosch.
“I might go check down there tonight.”
“Don’t forget.”
“Forget what?”
“You hook the guy who did it, you shake his hand for me.”
McCaleb didn’t respond. He looked around the place as if he had just walked in.
“Can I use the bathroom?”
“Down the hall on the left.”
McCaleb headed that way while Bosch took the bottles into the kitchen and put them in the recycle bin with the others. He opened the refrigerator and saw he was down to one soldier left in the six-pack he’d bought on the way home from tricking Annabelle Crowe. He closed the refrigerator when McCaleb stepped into the room.
“That’s a crazy fucking picture you got hanging in the hallway,” he said.
“What? Oh, yeah. I like that picture.”
“What’s it supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess it means the big wheel keeps turning. Nobody walks away.”
McCaleb nodded.
“I suppose.”
“You heading down there to Nat’s?”
“Thinking about it. You want to go?”
Bosch considered it even though he knew it would be foolish. He had to review half of the murder book in preparation for his continuing testimony the next morning.
“Nah, I better do some work here. Get ready for tomorrow.”
“Okay. How’d it go today, anyway?”
“So far so good. But we’re playing softball right now — direct. Tomorrow the ball goes to John Reason and he throws it back inside and fast.”
“I’ll watch the news.”
McCaleb stepped over and stuck his hand out. Bosch shook it.
“Be careful out there.”
“You, too, Harry. Thanks for the beers.”
“No problem.”
He walked McCaleb to the door and then watched him get into a black Cherokee parked on the street. It started up right away and pulled away, leaving Bosch standing in the lighted doorway.
Bosch locked up and turned off the living room lights. He left the stereo on. It would automatically turn off at the end of Art Pepper’s classic moment in time. It was early but Bosch was tired from the pressures of the day and the alcohol moving in his blood. He decided he would sleep now and wake up early to prepare for his testimony. He went into the kitchen and got the last bottle of beer out of the refrigerator.
On the way down the hall to his bedroom he stopped and looked at the framed picture McCaleb had referred to. It was a print of the Hieronymus Bosch painting called The Garden of Earthly Delights. He’d had it for a long time, since he was a kid. The surface of the print was warped and scratched. It was in bad shape. It had been Eleanor who moved it from the living room to the hallway. She didn’t like it being in the place where they sat every night. Bosch never understood whether that was because of what was in the painting or because the print was old and deteriorated.
As he looked at the landscape of human debauchery and torment depicted in the painting, Bosch thought about maybe moving it back to its spot in the living room.
• • •
In Bosch’s dream he was moving through dark water, unable to see his hands in front of his own face. There was a ringing sound and he pushed upward through the darkness.
He came awake. The light was on but all was silent. The stereo was off. He started to look at his watch when the phone rang again and he quickly grabbed it off the bedside table.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Harry, it’s Kiz.”
His old partner.
“Kiz, what’s up?”
“You okay? You sound . .