“Not until you tell me what is really going on.”
I cracked the door.
“Okay, I can walk. I need the exercise.”
I got out and started walking toward Mulholland. Lindell threw open his door, hitting the side of the old van. He came hurrying after me.
“Listen, Bosch, listen to me.”
He caught up to me and stood in front of me, very close, forcing me to stop. He put his hands into fists and held them up in front of his chest as if he was trying to break apart a chain that was binding him.
“Harry, I’m here for me. Nobody sent me, okay? Do not drop this. Those guys down there, they were probably just throwing you a scare, that’s all.”
“Tell that to the people they’ve been holding in there. I don’t feel like disappearing, Roy. You know what I mean?”
“Bullshit. You’ve never been the kind of guy who would -”
“Hey! Asshole!”
I turned around at the sound of the voice and saw two men piling out of the sliding door of the Volkswagen van. They were bearded longhairs who looked like they belonged on Harleys, not in a hippie van.
“You dented the shit out of the door,” the second one yelled.
“How the fuck can you tell?” Lindell shot back.
Here we go, I thought. I looked past the approaching behemoths and could see a four-inch crease in the front passenger door of the Volkswagen. Lindell’s door was still open and in contact with it, the obvious culprit.
“You think it’s a joke?” said the first heavy. “How about if we put a dent in your face?”
Lindell reached behind his back and in one swift move his hand came out from under his jacket with a pistol. With his free hand he reached forward and grabbed the first heavy by the front of his shirt and pulled him forward, taking a handful of beard in the process. The gun came up and the barrel was pressed into the taller man’s throat.
“How ’bout you and David Crosby get back in that piece of shit and flower power your way the fuck out of here?”
“Roy,” I said. “Easy.”
The smell of marijuana was just now reaching us from the van. There was a long moment of silence while Lindell held eyes with the first heavy. The second stood nearby watching but unable to make a move because of the gun.
“Okay, man,” the first one finally said. “Everything’s cool. We’ll just back on out of here.”
Lindell shoved him away and dropped the gun down to his side.
“Yeah, you do that, Tiny. Back on out. Go smoke the peace pipe somewhere else.”
We watched silently while they went back to the van, the second man angrily slamming Lindell’s door so he could get into the front passenger seat of the van. The engine started and the van backed out and pulled out onto Mulholland. The requisite hand gestures were offered from both driver and passenger and then they were gone. I thought about myself just a few hours earlier giving the same salute to the camera in the cube. I knew how helpless the two men in the van felt.
Lindell turned his attention back to me.
“That was good, Roy,” I said to him. “With skills like that I’m surprised they didn’t tap you for a ninth-floor gig.”
“Fuck those guys.”
“Yeah, that’s the way I was feeling a few hours ago.”
“So then what’s it going to be, Bosch?”
He had just pulled a gun on two strangers in a near-violent collision of high-testosterone levels and already the tide had subsided. The surface was calm. The incident was off his radar screen after only one sweep. It was a trait that in the past I had most often seen in psychopaths. I wanted to give Lindell the benefit of the doubt so I chalked it up to the sort of federal arrogance I had also seen before as a genetic trait in bureau men.
“You staying or running?” he asked.
That made me angry but I tried not to show it. I cracked a smile.
“Neither,” I said. “I’m walking.”
I turned and left him there. I started walking up Mulholland toward Woodrow Wilson and home. He threw a barrage of curses at my back but that didn’t slow me down.
21
The garage door was open at Lawton Cross’s house and it looked as though it might have been left that way through the night. I had the cab drop me off in the street next to my Mercedes. It didn’t look like the car had been moved, though I had to assume it had been searched. I had left it unlocked and it still was. I put the small bag I had packed and brought with me into the backseat. I then got behind the wheel, started the engine and pulled the car into the open bay of the garage.
After I got out I went to the house’s door and pushed a button that would either ring a bell inside or close the garage door. It closed the door. I went over to the Chevy, slid my hands beneath the hood and felt for the release latch. The steel springs yawned loudly as I raised the hood. I looked down at a dusty but clean engine with a chrome air filter cowling and fan highlighting a painted red block. Lawton had obviously babied the car and had appreciated its internal as well as exterior beauty.
The documents from the investigative file that I had slipped beneath the hood the night before had survived the FBI search. They had fallen and been cradled by the web of spark plug wires on the left side of the block. As I gathered them I noticed that the car’s battery had been disconnected and I wondered when this had been done. It was a smart thing to do with a car that was not going to be used for a while. Lawton probably would have thought of doing it but would not have been able to actually do it. Maybe he had talked Danny through the procedure.
“What’s going on? What are you doing, Harry?”
I turned. Danny Cross was in the doorway to the house.
“Hello, Danny. I just came back for some things I forgot. I also need to use some of Law’s tools. I think something’s wrong with my car.”
I gestured toward the workbench and Peg-Board that lined the wall next to the Malibu. An array of tools and automotive equipment was on display. She shook her head like I had forgotten to explain the obvious.
“What about last night? They took you. I saw the handcuffs. The agents who stayed said you wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Scare tactics, Danny. That’s all that was. As you can see, I’m back.”
I closed the hood with one hand, leaving it partially sprung in the way I had found it. I walked to the Mercedes and reached the documents in through the open window to the passenger seat. I then thought better about that and opened the door, raised the floor mat and put them under it. It wasn’t a great hiding place but it would do for the moment. I closed the door and looked at Danny.
“How is Law?”
“Not good.”
“What’s wrong?”
“They were in there with him last night. They wouldn’t let me in and then they turned off the monitor so I couldn’t exactly hear everything. But they scared him. And they scared me. I want you to go, Harry. I want you to go and not come back.”
“How’d they scare you? What did they say?”
She hesitated and I knew that was part of the scare.
“They told you not to talk about it, right? Not to talk to me?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay, Danny, I don’t want to get you in trouble. What about Law? Can I talk to him?”
“He said he doesn’t want to see you anymore. That it’s caused too much trouble.”
