Trunk Music - Michael Connelly [130]
“I’ve got a gun, you fuckers!”
Bosch stood stock-still and stared at the tarp. Because it was draped over the long branch of an acacia tree, he was in a blind spot. He could not see whoever it was who had yelled. And the man who yelled probably couldn’t see him. Bosch decided to take a chance.
“I’ve got one, too,” he called back. “And a badge.”
“Police? I didn’t call the police!”
There was a hysterical tinge to the voice now, and Bosch suspected he was dealing with one of the homeless wanderers who were dumped out of mental institutions during the massive cutbacks in public assistance in the 1980s. The city was teeming with them. They stood at almost every major intersection holding their signs and shaking their change cups, they slept under overpasses or burrowed like termites into the woods on the hillsides, living in makeshift camps just yards from million-dollar mansions.
“I’m just passing through,” Bosch yelled. “You put down yours, I’ll put down mine.”
Bosch guessed that the man behind the scared voice didn’t even have a gun.
“Okay. It’s a deal.”
Bosch unsnapped the holster under his arm but left his gun in place. He walked the final few steps and came slowly around the trunk of the acacia. A man with long gray hair and beard flowing over a blue silk Hawaiian shirt sat cross-legged on a blanket under the tarp. There was a wild look in his eyes. Bosch quickly scanned the man’s hands and the surroundings within his immediate reach and saw no weapon. He eased up a bit and nodded at the man.
“Hello,” he said.
“I didn’t do nothin’.”
“I understand.”
Bosch looked around. There were folded clothes and towels under the shelter of the tarp. There was a small folding card table with a frying pan on it along with some candles and Sterno cans, two forks and a spoon, but no knife. Bosch figured the man had the knife under his shirt or maybe hidden in the blanket. There was also a bottle of cologne on the table, and Bosch could tell that it had been liberally sprinkled about the shelter. Also under the tarp were an old tar bucket filled with crushed aluminum cans, a stack of newspapers and a dog-eared paperback copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.
He stepped to the edge of the man’s clearing and squatted like a baseball catcher so they could face each other on the same level. He took a look around the outer edge of the clearing and saw that this was where the man discarded what he didn’t need. There were bags of trash and remnants of clothing. By the base of another acacia there was a brown-and-green suit bag. It was unzipped and lying open like a gutted fish. Bosch looked back at the man. He could see he wore two other Hawaiian shirts beneath the blue one on top, which had a pattern of hula girls on surfboards. His pants were dirty but had a sharper crease in them than a homeless man’s pants would usually have. His shoes were too well polished for a man of the woods. Bosch guessed that the pair he wore had made some of the prints up on the trail, the ones with the sharp-edged heels.
“That’s a nice shirt,” Bosch said.
“It’s mine.”
“I know. I just said it was nice. What’s your name?”
“Name’s George.”
“George what?”
“George whatever the hell you want it to be.”
“Okay, George whatever the hell you want it to be, why don’t you tell me about that suit bag over there and those clothes you’re wearing? The new shoes. Where did it all come from?”
“It was delivered. It’s mine now.”
“What do you mean by delivered?”
“Delivered. That’s what I mean. Delivered. They gave it all to me.”
Bosch took out his cigarettes, took one and offered the pack to the man. He waved them away.
“Can’t afford it. Take me half a day to find enough cans to buy a pack of smokes. I quit.”
Bosch nodded.
“How long you been livin’ up here, George?”
“All my life.”
“When did they kick you out of Camarillo?”
“Who told you that?”
It had been an educated guess, Camarillo being the nearest state institution.