Bosch instinctively patted his pockets and shrugged. He had no change.
“I’d take a dollar, you know.”
“Don’t have a spare dollar.”
The homeless man dismissed him and looked into the ash can. Yellowed cigarette butts grew from the sand like a crop of cancer. He put his yellow pad under his arm and began to pick through the offerings, taking those that still had a quarter inch or more of tobacco to smoke. Every now and then he would find a nearly whole cigarette and make a clicking sound with his mouth to show his approval. He put the harvest from the ash can in the Big Gulp cup.
Happy with his findings, the man stepped back from the ash can and looked up at the statue. He looked back at Bosch and winked, then began to rock his hips in a lewd mimicry of a sexual act.
“How ’bout my girl here?” he said.
The man then kissed his hand and reached up and patted the statue.
Before Bosch could think of something to say, the pager on his belt began to chirp. The homeless man stepped back another two steps and raised his free hand as if to ward off some unknown evil. Bosch saw the look of deranged panic spread on his face. It was the look of a man whose brain synapses were spread too far apart, the connections dulled. The man turned and scurried away, out toward Spring Street, with his cup of used cigarettes.
Bosch watched him until he was gone and then pulled the pager off his belt. He recognized the number on the display. It was Lieutenant Harvey “Ninety-eight” Pounds’s direct line at the Hollywood station. He put what was left of his cigarette into the sand and went back into the courthouse. There was a bank of pay phones at the top of the escalator, near the second-floor courtrooms.
“Harry, what’s happening there?” Pounds asked.
“The usual. Just waiting around. We got a jury, so now the lawyers are in with the judge, talking about openers. Belk said I didn’t have to sit in on that, so I’m just hanging around.”
He looked at his watch. It was ten to twelve.
“They’ll be breaking for lunch soon,” he added.
“Good. I need you.”
Bosch didn’t reply. Pounds had promised he would be off the case rotation until the trial was over. A week more, maybe two, at the most. It was a promise Pounds had no choice but to make. He knew that Bosch couldn’t handle catching a homicide investigation while in federal court four days a week.
“What’s going on? I thought I was off the list.”
“You are. But we may have a problem. It concerns you.”
Bosch hesitated again. Dealing with Pounds was like that. Harry would trust a street snitch before he’d trust Pounds. There was always the spoken motive and the hidden motive. It seemed that this time the lieutenant was doing one of his routine dances. Speaking in elliptical phrases, trying to get Bosch to bite on the hook.
“A problem?” Bosch finally asked. A good noncommittal reply.
“Well, I take it you saw the paper today-the
“Yeah, I was just reading it.”
“Well, we got another note.”
“A note? What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about somebody dropping a note at the front desk. Addressed to you. And damn if it doesn’t sound like those notes you got from the Dollmaker back when all of that was going on.”
Bosch could tell Pounds was enjoying this, the stretching it out.
“If it was addressed to me, how do you know about it?”
“It wasn’t mailed. No envelope. It was just one page, folded over. Had your name on the fold. Somebody left it at the front desk. Somebody there read it, you can figure it from there.”
“What does it say?”
“Well, you’re not going to like this, Harry, the timing is god-awful, but the note says, it says basically that you got the wrong guy. That the Dollmaker is still out there. The writer says he’s the real Dollmaker and that the body count continues. Says you killed the wrong guy.”
“It’s bullshit. The Dollmaker’s letters were carried in the paper, in Bremmer’s book on the case. Anybody could pick up the style and write a note. You-”
“You take me for a moron, Bosch? I know anybody could’ve written this. But so did the writer know that. So to prove his point he included a little treasure map, I’d guess you’d call it. Directions to another victim’s body.”
A long silence filled the line while Bosch thought and Pounds waited.
“And so?” Bosch finally said.
“And so I sent Edgar out to the location this morning. You remember Bing’s, on Western?”
“Bing’s? Yeah, south of the Boulevard. Bing’s. A pool hall. Didn’t that place go down in the riots last year?”
“Right,” Pounds said. “Complete burnout. They looted and torched the place. Just the slab and three walls left standing. There’s a city demolition order against it but the owner hasn’t acted yet. Anyway, that’s the spot, according to this note we got. Note says she was buried under the floor slab. Edgar went out there with a city crew, jackhammers, the works…”
Pounds was dragging it out. What a petty asshole, Bosch thought. This time he would wait longer. And when the silence grew nervously long, Pounds finally spoke.
“He found a body. Just like the note said he would. Beneath the concrete. He found a body. That’s-”
“How old is it?”
“Don’t know yet. But it’s old. That’s why I’m calling. I need you to go out there during the lunch break and see what you can make of this. You know, is it legit as a Dollmaker victim or is some other wacko jerking us off? You’re the expert. You could go out there when the judge breaks for lunch. I’ll meet you there. And you’ll be back in time for openers.”
Bosch felt numb. He already needed another cigarette. He tried to place all of what Pounds had just said into some semblance of order. The Dollmaker-Norman Church-had been dead four years now. There had been no mistake. Bosch knew that night. He still knew it in his guts today. Church was the Dollmaker.
“So this note just appeared at the desk?”
“Desk sergeant found it on the front counter about four hours ago. Nobody saw anybody leave it. You know, a lot of people come through the front in the mornings. Plus we had change of shift. I had Meehan go up and talk to the desk uniforms. Nobody remembers jack shit about it until they found it.”
“Shit. Read it to me.”
“Can’t. SID has it. Doubt there will be any lifts, but we have to go through the motions. I’ll get a copy and have it with me at the scene, okay?”
Bosch didn’t answer.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Pounds said. “But let’s hold our horses till we see what is out there. No reason to worry yet. Might be some stunt cooked up by that lawyer, Chandler. Wouldn’t put it past her. She’s the type, she’d do anything to nail another LAPD scalp to the wall. Likes seeing her name in the paper.”
“What about the media? They heard about this yet?”
“We’ve gotten a few calls about a body being found. They must’ve gotten it off the coroner’s dispatch freek. We’ve been staying off the air. Anyway, nobody knows about the note or the Dollmaker tie-in. They just know there’s a body. The idea of it being found under the floor of one of the riot burnouts is sexy, I guess.
“Anyway, we have to keep the Dollmaker part under our hat for the time being. Unless, of course, whoever wrote it also sent copies out to the media. If he did that, we’ll hear about it by the end of the day.”
“How could he bury her under the slab of a pool hall?”
“The whole building wasn’t a pool hall. There were storage rooms in the back. Before it was
