“I was wondering if you were going to knock or stand out there all night.”
“You knew I was standing here?”
“The porch is old. It creaks. I heard it.”
“Well, I got here and then figured it was too late. I should have called first.”
“Just come in. Is anything wrong?”
Bosch came in and looked around. He didn’t answer the question.
The living room had an unmistakable beach flavor to it, right down to the bamboo-and-rattan furniture and the surfboard leaning in one corner. The only deviation was her equipment belt and holster hanging on a wall rack near the door. It was a rookie mistake leaving it out like that, but Bosch assumed she was proud of her new career choice and wanted to remind friends outside the cop world of it.
“Sit down,” she said. “I have some wine open. Would you like a glass?”
Bosch thought a moment about whether mixing wine with the beer he’d had an hour earlier would lead to a headache the next day when he knew he’d have to be focused.
“It’s red.”
“Uh, I’ll take just a little bit.”
“Got to be sharp tomorrow, huh?”
“I guess.”
She went into the kitchen while he sat down on the couch. He looked around the room and now saw a mounted fish with a long sharp point hanging over the white brick fireplace. The fish was a brilliant blue shading to black with a white and yellow underside. Mounted fish didn’t bother him the way the heads of mounted game did but he still didn’t like the eye of the fish always watching.
“You catch this thing?” he called out.
“Yeah. Off Cabo. Took me three and a half hours to bring it in.”
She then appeared with two glasses of wine.
“On fifty-pound test line,” she said. “That was a workout.”
“What is it?”
“Black marlin.”
She toasted the fish with her glass and then toasted Bosch.
“Hold fast.”
Bosch looked at her.
“That’s my new toast,” she said. “Hold fast. It seems to cover everything.”
She sat down on the chair closest to Bosch. Behind her was the surfboard. It was white with a rainbow design in a border running along the edges. It was a short board.
“So you surf the wild waves, too.”
She glanced back at the board and then at Bosch and smiled.
“I try to. Picked it up in Hawaii.”
“You know John Burrows?”
She shook her head.
“Lot of surfers in Hawaii. What beach does he surf?”
“No, I mean here. He’s a cop. He works Homicide out of Pacific Division. Lives on a walk street by the beach. Not too far from here. He surfs. On his board it says ‘To Protect and Surf.’ ”
She laughed.
“That’s cool. I like that. I’ll have to get that put on my board.”
Bosch nodded.
“John Burrows, huh? I’ll have to look him up.”
She said it with just a touch of teasing in her voice.
Bosch smiled and said, “And maybe not.”
He liked the way she kidded him like that. It all felt good to Bosch, which made him feel all the more out of sorts because of his reason for being there. He looked at his wine glass.
“I’ve been fishing all day and didn’t catch a thing,” he said. “Microfiche mostly.”
“I saw you on the news tonight,” she said. “Are you trying to put the squeeze on that guy, the child molester?”
Bosch sipped his wine to give himself time to think. She had opened the door. He now just had to step through very carefully.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, giving that reporter his criminal background. I figured you must be making some kind of play. You know, turning up the heat on him. To make him talk or something. It seems kind of risky.”
“Why?”
“Well, first of all, trusting a reporter is always risky. I know that from back when I was a lawyer and got burned. And second… and second, you never know how people are going to react when their secrets are no longer secrets.”
Bosch studied her for a moment and then shook his head.
“I didn’t give it to her,” he said. “Somebody else did.”
He studied her eyes for any kind of tell. There was nothing.
“There’s going to be trouble over it,” he added.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Still no tell.
“Why? If you didn’t give her the information, why would there…”
She stopped and now Bosch could see her put it together. He saw the disappointment fill her eyes.
“Oh, Harry…”
He tried to back out through the door.
“What? Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”
“It wasn’t me, Harry. Is that what you’re here about? To see if I’m the leak or the source or whatever you’d call it?”
She abruptly put her wine glass down on the coffee table. Red wine lapped over the edge and onto the table. She didn’t do anything about it. Bosch knew there was no use trying to avoid the collision. He had screwed up.
“Look, only four people knew…”
“And I was one of them. So you thought you’d come here undercover and find out if it was me.”
She waited for a response. Finally, all Bosch could do was nod.
“Well, it wasn’t me. And I think you should go now.”
Bosch nodded and put down his glass. He stood up.
“Look, I’m sorry. I screwed it up. I thought the best way to not mess anything up, you know, between you and me, was to…”
He made a helpless gesture with his hands as he headed to the door.
“Was to do the undercover thing,” he continued. “I just didn’t want to mess it up, that’s all. But I had to know. I think if you were me you would’ve felt the same way about it.”
He opened the door and looked back at her.
“I’m sorry, Julia. Thanks for the wine.”
He turned to go.
“Harry.”
He turned back. She came to him and reached up and grabbed the lapels of his jacket with both hands. She slowly pulled him forward and then pushed him backward, as if roughing up a suspect in slow motion. Her eyes dropped to his chest as her mind worked and she came to a decision.
She stopped shaking him but kept her grasp on his jacket.
“I can get over it,” she said. “I think.”
She looked up to his eyes and pulled him forward. She kissed him hard on the mouth for a long time and then pushed him back. She let go.
“I hope. Call me tomorrow.”
Bosch nodded and stepped through the door. She closed it.
Bosch went down the porch to the sidewalk next to the canal. He looked at the reflection of the lights of all the
