The other man nodded.
“Heard you lost a client today.”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about,” Marconi said. “We’ve got a problem here. We-”
“How did you know where I was?”
“I’ve had some fellows watching it for me. We kind of figured you’d be back. Once you left that note, especially.”
They had obviously followed him and he wondered when that had started. His mind then jumped to another conclusion and he suddenly knew what the meeting was all about.
“Where’s Eleanor Wish?”
“Eleanor Wish?” Marconi looked at Torrino and then back at Bosch. “I don’t know her. But I suppose she’ll turn up.”
“What do you want, Marconi?”
“I just wanted this chance to talk, that’s all. Just a little calm conversation. We’ve got a problem here and maybe we can work it out. I want to work with you, Detective Bosch. Do you want to work with me?”
“Like I said, what do you want?”
“What I want is to straighten this out before it gets too far out of hand. You are going down the wrong road here, Detective. You are a good man. I had you checked out. You’ve got ethics and I appreciate that. Whatever you do in life, you need a code of ethics. You have that. But you are on the wrong road here. Tony Aliso, I had nothing to do with that.”
Bosch smirked and shook his head.
“Look, Marconi, I don’t want your alibi. I’m sure it’s airtight but I could care less. You can still pull a trigger from three hundred fifty miles away. It’s been done from farther away, know what I mean?”
“Detective Bosch, there is something wrong here. Whatever that rat bastard is telling you, it’s a lie. I’m clean on Tony A., my people are clean on Tony A., and I’m simply giving you this opportunity to make it right.”
“Yeah, and how do I do that? Just kick Lucky loose so you can pick him up outside the jail in your limo here, take him for a ride out into the desert? Think we’ll ever see Lucky again?”
“You think you’ll ever see that lady ex-FBI agent again?”
Bosch stared at him a moment, letting his anger build up until he felt a slight tremor tick in his neck. Then, in one quick move, he pulled his gun and leaned across the space between the seats. He grabbed the thick gold braided chain around Marconi’s neck and jerked him forward. He pressed the barrel deep into Marconi’s cheek.
“Excuse me?”
“Easy now, Detective Bosch,” Torrino said then. “You don’t want to do something rash.”
He put a hand on Bosch’s arm.
“Take your hand off me, you asshole.”
Torrino removed his hand and raised it along with his other one in a surrendering gesture.
“I just want to calm things down a little here, that’s all.”
Bosch leaned back into his seat but kept his gun in his hand. The muzzle had left a ring of skin indentation and gun oil on Marconi’s cheek. He wiped it away with his hand.
“Where is she, Marconi?”
“I just heard she wanted to get away for a few days, Bosch. No need to overreact like that. We’re friends here. She’ll be back. In fact, now that I know you’re so, uh, attached to her, I’ll personally guarantee she’ll be back.”
“In exchange for what?”
Hackett was still on duty at the Metro jail. Bosch told him he had to talk to Goshen for a couple of minutes in regard to a security issue. Hackett hemmed and hawed about it being against regulations to set up an after-hours visit but Bosch knew it was done on occasion for the locals, against the rules or not. Eventually Hackett gave way and took Bosch to a room lawyers used to interview clients and told him to wait. Ten minutes later, Hackett waltzed Goshen into the room and cuffed one wrist to the chair he was placed in. Hackett then folded his arms and stood behind the suspect.
“Sergeant, I need to talk to him alone.”
“Can’t do it. It’s a security issue.”
“We’re not going to talk anyway,” Goshen interjected.
“Sergeant,” Bosch said. “What I tell this man, whether he chooses to talk to me or not, could put you in danger if it becomes known you have this knowledge. Know what I mean? Why add that potential danger to your list? Five minutes. It’s all I want.”
Hackett thought a moment and without a word left them alone.
“Pretty smooth, Bosch, but I’m not talking to you. Weiss said you might try a backdoor run. He said you’d want to try to get into the candy jar before it’s time. I’m not playing with you. Get me to L.A., sit me in front of the people who can deal, and then we’ll deal. Everybody will get what they want then.”
“Shut up and listen, you stupid fuck. I don’t give a shit about any deal anymore. The only deal I’m worried about now is whether to keep you alive or not.”
Bosch saw he had his attention now. He waited a few moments to turn the squeeze up and then began.
“Goshen, let me explain something to you. In all of Las Vegas there is exactly one person I care about. One. You take her out of the picture and the whole place could dry up and blow away and I really wouldn’t worry about it. But there’s that one person I care about. And out of all the people in this place, she’s the one that your employer decides to grab and hold against me.”
Goshen’s eyes narrowed in concern. Bosch was talking about his people. Goshen knew exactly what was coming.
“So the deal I’m talking about is this,” Bosch said. “You for her. Joey Marks said if you never get to L.A., then my friend comes back. And vice versa. You understand what I’m telling you?”
Goshen looked down at the table and slowly nodded.
“Do you?”
Bosch pulled his gun and pointed it three inches from the big man’s face. Goshen went cross-eyed looking at the barrel’s black hole.
“I could blow your shit away right here. Hackett would come in here and I’d tell him you made a move for my gun. He’d go along. He set the meeting up here. It’s against the rules. He’d have to go along.”
Bosch withdrew the gun.
“Or tomorrow. This is how it goes tomorrow. At the airport we’re waiting for our flight. There’s a commotion over at the machines. Somebody’s won a big fucking jackpot and my partner and I make the mistake of looking over there. Meantime, somebody-maybe it’s your pal Gussie-puts a six-inch stiletto in your neck. End of you, my friend comes home.”
“What do you want, Bosch?”
Bosch leaned across to him.
“I want you to give me the reason not to do it. I don’t give a shit about you, Goshen, dead or alive. But I’m not going to let any harm befall her. I’ve made mistakes in my life, man. I once got somebody killed that shouldn’t have been killed. You understand that? It’s not going to happen again. This is redemption, Goshen. And if I have to give a piece of shit like you up to get it, I’ll do it. There’s only one alternative. You know Joey Marks, where would he have her?”
“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know.”
Goshen rubbed a hand over his scalp.
“Think, Goshen. He’s done this kind of thing before. It’s routine for you people. Where would he hold somebody he doesn’t want anyone to find?”
“There was…there’s a couple of safe houses he uses. He’d, uh,…I think for this he’d use the Samoans.”
“Who are they?”
“These two big fuckers he uses. Samoans. They’re brothers. Their names are too hard to say. We call them Tom and Jerry. They’ve got one of the safe houses. Joey would use their place for this. The other place is mostly for counting cash, putting up people from Chicago.”
“Where is the house with the Samoans?”
“It’s in North Vegas, not too far from Dolly’s, actually.”
On a piece of notebook paper Bosch gave him, Goshen drew a crude map with directions to the house.
