Trunk Music - Michael Connelly [55]
At six he extricated himself from her unconscious embrace and got dressed. When he was ready he kissed her awake and told her he must go.
“I go back to L.A. today but I want to come back to you as soon as I can.”
She nodded sleepily.
“Okay, Bosch, I’ll be waiting.”
It was finally cool outside. He lit his first smoke of the day as he walked to his car. When he pulled onto Sands to head up to the Strip, he saw the sun was throwing a golden light on the mountains west of town.
The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticement to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. Bosch felt the same attraction that all the other grinders felt tug at them. Las Vegas was like one of the hookers on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even happily married men at least glanced their way, if only for a second, just to get an idea what was out there, maybe give them something to think about. Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town.
When he got to his room, he noticed the message light was blinking. He called the operator and was told that someone named Captain Felton had called at one and then again at two and then someone named Layla at four. There were no messages or numbers left by either of the callers. Bosch put the phone down and frowned. He figured it was too early to call Felton. But it was the call from Layla that most interested him. If it had been the real Layla who had called, then how did she know where to reach him?
He decided that it had probably been through Rhonda. The night before when he had called from Tony Aliso’s office in Hollywood, he had asked Rhonda for directions from the Mirage. She could have passed that on to Layla. He wondered why she had called. Maybe she hadn’t heard about Tony until Rhonda had told her.
Still, he decided to put Layla on a back burner for the moment. With the financial probe Kizmin Rider had opened up in L.A., the focus of the case seemed to be shifting. It was important for them to talk to Layla but his priority was to get back to L.A. He picked the phone back up and called Southwest and booked a 10:30 flight to L.A. He figured that would give him time to check in with Felton, then check out the dealership where Rider said Tony Aliso had leased his cars and still make it back to the Hollywood Division by lunchtime.
Bosch stripped off his clothes and took a long hot shower, washing the sweat of the night away. When he was done he wrapped a towel around himself and used another to wipe the fog off the mirror so he could shave. He noticed that his lower lip had swollen on one side to the size of a marble and his mustache did little to hide it. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. He wondered as he got the bottle of Visine drops out of his shaving bag if Eleanor had found a single thing about him attractive.
When he stepped back into the room to get dressed, he was greeted by a man he had never seen before sitting in the chair by the window. He was holding a newspaper, which he put down when he noticed Bosch step into the room clad only in the towel.
“It’s Bosch, right?”
Bosch looked to the bureau and saw his gun was still sitting there. It was closer to the man in the chair but Bosch thought he might be able to get to it first.
“Easy now,” the man said. “We’re in this together. I’m a cop. With Metro. Felton sent me.”
“What the fuck you doing in my room?”
“I came up, got no answer.