Mora’s house was on Sierra Linda, near Sunset. Bosch pulled to the curb a half block away and watched the house as it grew dark outside. The street was mostly lined with Craftsman bungalows with full porches and dormer windows projecting from the sloping roofs. Bosch guessed it had been at least a decade since the street was as pretty as its name sounded. Many of the houses on the block were in disrepair. The one next to Mora’s was abandoned and boarded. On other properties it was clear the owners had opted for chain-link fences instead of paint the last time they had the money to make a choice. Almost all had bars over their windows, even the dormers up top. There was a car sitting on cinderblocks in one of the driveways. It was the kind of neighborhood where you could find at least one yard sale every weekend.
Bosch had the rover on low on the seat next to him. The last report he had heard was that Mora was in a bar near the Boulevard called the Bullet. Bosch had been there before and pictured it in his mind, with Mora sitting at the bar. It was a dark place with a couple of neon beer signs, two pool tables, and a TV bolted to the ceiling over the bar. It wasn’t a place to go for a quick one. There was no such thing as one drink at the Bullet. Bosch figured Mora was digging in for the evening.
As the sky turned deep purple, he watched the windows of Mora’s house but no light came on behind any of them. Bosch knew Mora was divorced but he didn’t know if he now had a roommate. Looking at the dark place from the Caprice, he doubted it.
“Team One?” Bosch said into the rover.
“Team One.”
“This is Six, how’s our boy?”
“Still bending the elbow. What are you up to tonight, Six?”
“Just hanging around the house. Let me know if you need anything, or if he starts to move.”
“Will do.”
He wondered if Sheehan and Opelt understood what he was saying and he hoped Rollenberger did not. He leaned over to the glove compartment and got his bag of picks out. He reached inside his blue plastic raid jacket and put them in the left pocket. Then he turned the rover’s volume control knob to its lowest setting and put it inside the windbreaker in the other pocket. Because it said LAPD in bright yellow letters across the back of the jacket, he wore it inside out.
He got out, locked the car and was ready to cross the street when he heard a transmission from the radio. He got his keys back out, unlocked the car and got back in. He turned the radio up.
“What’s that, One? I missed it.”
“Subject is moving. Westbound on Hollywood.”
“On foot?”
“Negative.”
Shit, Bosch thought. He sat in the car for another forty-five minutes while Sheehan radioed reports of Mora’s seemingly aimless cruising up and down Hollywood Boulevard. He wondered what Mora was doing. The cruising was not part of the profile of the second killer. The Follower, as far as they knew, worked exclusively out of hotels. That’s where he lured his victims. The cruising didn’t fit.
The radio was quiet for ten minutes and then Sheehan came up on the air again.
“He’s dropping down to the strip.”
The Sunset Strip was another problem altogether. The strip was in L.A. but directly south of it was West Hollywood, sheriff’s department jurisdiction. If Mora dropped down south and started to make some kind of move, it could result in jurisdictional problems. A guy like Hans Off was completely frightened of jurisdictional problems.
“He’s down to Santa Monica Boulevard now.”
That was West Hollywood. Bosch expected Rollenberger to come up soon on the radio. He wasn’t wrong.
“Team One, this is Team Leader. What is the subject doing?”
“If I didn’t know what this guy was into, I’d say he was cruising Boystown.”
“All right, Team One, keep an eye on him but we don’t want any contact. We’re out of bounds here. I’ll contact the sheriff’s watch office and inform.”
“We’re not planning any contact.”
Five minutes passed. Bosch watched a man walking his guard dog down Sierra Linda. He stopped to let the animal relieve itself on the burned-out lawn in front of the abandoned house.
“We’re cool,” Sheehan’s voice said. “We’re back in the country.”
Meaning back inside the boundaries of Los Angeles.
“One, what’s your twenty?” Bosch asked.
“Still Santa Monica, going east. Past La Brea -no, he’s northbound now on La Brea. He might be going home.”
Bosch slid low in his seat in case Mora came down the street. He listened as Sheehan reported that the vice cop was now eastbound on Sunset.
“Just passed Sierra Linda.”
Mora was staying out. Bosch sat back up. He listened to five minutes of silence.
“He’s going to the Dome,” Sheehan finally said.
“The Dome?” Bosch responded.
“Movie theater on Sunset just past Wilcox. He’s parked. He’s paying for a ticket and is going in. Musta just been driving around till showtime.”
Bosch tried to picture the area in his mind. The huge geodesic dome was one of Hollywood’s landmark theaters.
“Team One, this is Team Leader. I want to split you up here. One of you goes in with the subject, one stays on the car, out.”
“Roger that. Team One, out.”
The Dome was ten minutes away from Sierra Linda. Bosch figured that meant that at maximum he had an hour and a half inside the house unless Mora left the movie early.
He quickly got out of the car again, crossed the street and moved up the block to Mora’s house. The wide porch completely cloaked the front door in shadows. Bosch knocked on it and while he waited he turned to look at the house across the street. There were lights on downstairs and he could see the bluish glow of a TV on the curtains behind one of the upstairs rooms.
Nobody answered. He stepped back and appraised the front windows. He saw no warnings about security systems, no alarm tape on the glass. He looked between the bars and through the glass into what he believed was the living room. He looked up into the corners of the ceiling, searching for the dull glow of a motion detector. As he expected, there was nothing. Every cop knew the best defense was a good lock or a mean dog. Or both.
He went back to the door, opened the pouch and took out the penlight. There was black electrical tape over the end so that when he switched it on only a narrow beam of light was emitted. He knelt down and looked at the locks on the door. Mora had a dead bolt and a common key-entry knob. Bosch put the penlight in his mouth and aimed the beam at the dead bolt. With two picks, a tension wrench and a hook, he began working. It was a good lock with twelve teeth, not a Medeco but a cheaper knockoff. It took Bosch ten minutes to turn it. By then sweat had come down out of his hair and was stinging his eyes.
He pulled his shirt out of his pants and wiped his face. He also wiped the picks, which had become slippery with sweat, and took a quick look at the house across the street. Nothing seemed changed, nothing seemed amiss. The TV was still on upstairs. He turned back and put the beam on the knob. Then he heard a car coming. He cut the light and crawled behind the porch riser until it had passed.
Back at the door he palmed the knob and was working the hook in when he realized there was no pressure on the knob. He turned it and the door opened. The knob hadn’t been locked. It made sense, Bosch knew. The dead bolt was the deterrent. If a burglar got by that, the knob lock was a gimme. Why bother locking it?
He stood in the darkness of the entrance without moving, letting his eyes adjust. When he was
