he realized he was lying chest down across the master cabin’s bed. His head was lying flat on the mattress, his left cheek down, and he was staring at the headboard. It took him a moment before he remembered that he had been on his way to visit Buddy Lockridge when he was attacked from behind.
He became completely conscious and tried to relax his aching muscles but realized he could not move. His wrists were bound behind his back and his legs were bent backward at the knees and were being held in that position by someone’s hand.
He lifted his head off the mattress and tried to turn. He couldn’t get the angle. He dropped back to the mattress and turned his head to the left. He lifted up once again and turned to see Rudy Tafero, standing next to the bed, smiling at him. With one gloved hand he was holding McCaleb’s feet, which were bound at the ankles and folded back toward his thighs.
Comprehension rushed over him. McCaleb realized he was naked and that he was bound and held in the same posture as he had seen the body of Edward Gunn. The reverse fetal pose from the painting by Hieronymus Bosch. The cold chill of terror exploded in his chest. He instinctively flexed his leg muscles. Tafero was ready for it. His feet barely moved. But he heard three clicks behind his head and became aware of the ligature around his neck.
“Easy,” Tafero said. “Easy now. Not yet.”
McCaleb stopped his movement. Tafero continued to press his ankles down toward the back of his thighs.
“You’ve seen the setup before,” Tafero said matter of factly. “This one’s a little different. I strung together a bunch of snap-cuffs, like every L.A. cop carries around in the trunk of his car.”
McCaleb understood the message. The plastic strips first invented to bundle cables together but found to be useful by police agencies faced with occasional social unrest and the need to make mass arrests. A cop can carry one set of handcuffs but hundreds of snap cuffs. String them around the wrists, slide the end through the lock. Tiny grooves in the plastic strip click and lock as the tie gets tighter. The only way to remove it is to cut it off. McCaleb realized that the clicking sound he had just heard had been a snap cuff tightening around his neck.
“So you be careful now,” Tafero said. “Hold real steady.” McCaleb put his face down into the mattress. His mind was racing, looking for the way out. He thought if he could engage Tafero he might buy some time. But time for what?
“How’d you find me?” he spoke into the mattress.
“Easy enough. My little brother followed you from my shop and got your plate. You should look around more often, make sure you aren’t being followed.”
“I’ll remember that.”
He understood the plan. It would look as if Gunn’s killer had gotten McCaleb when he had gotten too close. He turned his head again so he could see Tafero.
“It’s not going to work, Tafero,” he said. “People know. They’re not going to buy that it was Bosch.”
Tafero smiled down at him.
“You mean Jaye Winston? Don’t worry about her. I’m going to go pay her a visit when I’m done here with you. Eighty-eight-oh-one Willoughby, apartment six, West Hollywood. She was easy to find, too.”
He raised his free hand and waved the fingers as though he were playing the piano or typing.
“Let your fingers do the walking through the voters registration – I’ve got it on CD-ROM. She’s a registered Democrat, if you can believe it. A homicide cop who votes Democrat. Wonders never cease.”
“There are others. The FBI’s on this. You -”
“They’re on Bosch. Not me. I saw them today at the courthouse.”
He reached down and ticked one of the snap cuffs strung from McCaleb’s legs to his neck.
“And these, I’m sure, will help bring them directly to Detective Bosch.”
He smiled at the genius of his own plan. And McCaleb knew his thinking was sound. Twilley and Friedman would go after Bosch like a pair of dogs chasing either side of a car.
“Hold steady now.”
Tafero let go of his feet and moved out of his sight. McCaleb strained to keep his legs from unfolding. Almost immediately he felt the muscles in his legs start to burn. He knew he didn’t have the strength to hold them for long.
“Please…”
Tafero returned to view. He was holding a plastic owl in both hands, a delighted smile on his face.
“Took this off one of the boats down the dock. A little weathered but it’ll work out nice. Gonna get another one for Winston.”
He looked around the room as if looking for a place for the owl. He settled on a shelf above the built-in bureau. He placed the owl there, looked back at McCaleb once and then adjusted it so the plastic bird’s gaze was upon him.
“Perfect,” he said.
McCaleb closed his eyes. He could feel his muscles vibrating with the strain. An image of his daughter appeared in his mind. She was in his arms, her eyes were watching him over the bottle and telling him not to worry or be afraid. It soothed him. He concentrated on her face and somehow thought he could even smell her hair. He felt tears going down his face and his legs started to give way. He heard the clicking of the cuffs and -
Tafero grabbed his legs and held them.
“Not yet.”
Something hard banged off McCaleb’s head and thudded on the mattress next to him. He turned his face and opened his eyes and saw it was the videotape he had gone back to borrow from Lucas, the post office security officer. He looked at the post office emblem of the flying eagle on the sticker Lucas had put on the tape for him.
“I hope you don’t mind but while you were sleeping off the chokehold I took a look at the tape on your VCR. I couldn’t find anything on it. It’s blank. Why is that?”
McCaleb felt a pang of hope. He realized that the only reason he wasn’t already dead was because of the tape. Tafero had found it and it raised too many questions. It was a break. McCaleb tried to think of a way to turn it further to his advantage. The tape was supposed to be blank. They had planned to use it as a prop when they brought Tafero in and tried to play him. It would have been part of a bluff. They would hold it up and tell him they had him on tape sending the money order. But they wouldn’t actually play it. Now McCaleb thought he might be able to still use it – but in reverse.
Tafero shoved down hard on his ankles, so hard they came close to touching McCaleb’s buttocks. McCaleb groaned from the stress on his muscles. Tafero eased back.
“I asked you a question, motherfucker. Now you fucking answer it.”
“It’s nothing. It’s supposed to be blank.”
“Bullshit. The label says ‘December twenty-second.’ It says ‘Wilcox surveillance.’ Why is it blank?”
He increased the pressure on McCaleb’s legs but not to the point of a few moments before.
“Okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you.”
McCaleb took a deep breath and tried to relax. In the moment his body was still, when the air was held in his lungs, he thought he detected a movement of the boat that was out of rhythm with the gentle rise-and-fall cycle of the marina’s wake. Somebody had stepped onto the boat. He could only think of Buddy Lockridge. And if it was him then he was most likely walking into his own doom. McCaleb started to speak quickly and loudly, hoping his voice would warn Lockridge off.
“It’s just a prop, that’s all. We were going to bluff you, tell you we had you on tape buying the money order that bought the owl. The plan, the plan was to get you to turn on Storey. We know it was his plan from the jail. You just followed orders. They want Storey more than they want you. I was going to -”
“All right, shut up!”
McCaleb was quiet. He wondered if Tafero had felt the boat move unusually or if he had heard something. But then McCaleb watched as the tape was lifted off the bed. He realized he had Tafero thinking. After a long moment of silence Tafero finally spoke.
“I think you are full of shit, McCaleb. I think this tape is out of one of those multiplex surveillance systems they use. It won’t read on a regular VCR.”
