them were sitting there watching a rerun of a Mary Tyler Moore show. Bosch felt the anger building in his throat.
Bosch crouched down and tried to think of a way to get her out of there. He leaned his back against the wall and looked across the yard and the shimmering pool. He got an idea.
After taking one more glimpse through the blinds and seeing that no one had moved, Bosch went back to the corner of the house to the slab where the satellite dish sat. He put his gun back in his belt, studied the equipment for a few moments and then simply used two hands to turn the dish out of alignment and point its focus toward the ground.
It took about five minutes. Bosch figured most of this must have been spent with one or the other of the Samoans fiddling with the TV and trying to get the picture back. Finally, an outdoor floodlight came on, the back door opened and one of them stepped out onto the porch. He wore a Hawaiian shirt as big as a tent and had long dark hair that flowed over his shoulders.
When the big man got to the dish, he clearly wasn’t sure how to proceed. He looked at it for a long moment, then came around to the other side to see if this afforded him a better angle. He now had his back to Bosch.
Bosch stepped away from the corner of the house and came up behind the man. He placed the muzzle of the Glock against the small of the man’s back, though even the small of his back wasn’t small.
“Don’t move, big man,” he said in a low, calm voice. “Don’t say a word, ’less you want to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair with your piss sloshing around in a bag.”
Bosch waited. The man did not move and said nothing.
“Which are you, Tom or Jerry?”
“I’m Jerry.”
“Okay, Jerry, we’re going to walk over to the porch. Let’s go.”
They moved to one of two steel support beams that held up the porch roof. Bosch kept the gun pressed against the man’s shirt the whole time. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out Edgar’s cuffs. He handed them around the girth of the man and held them up.
“Okay, take ’em. Cuff yourself around the beam.”
He waited until he heard both cuffs click, then came around and checked them, clicking them tightly around the man’s thick wrists.
“Okay, that’s good, Jerry. Now, do you want me to kill your brother? I mean I could just walk in there and waste him and get the girl. That’s the easy way. You want me to do it that way?”
“No.”
“Then do exactly what I tell you. If you fuck up, he dies. Then you die ’cause I can’t afford to leave a witness. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, without saying his name, because I don’t trust you, just call to him and ask if the picture’s back on the TV. When he says no, tell him to come out here and help. Tell him she’ll be fine, she’s handcuffed. Do it right, Jerry, and everybody lives. Do it wrong and some people aren’t going to make it.”
“What do I call him?”
“How ’bout ‘Hey, Bro?’ That oughta work.”
Jerry did as he was told and did it right. After some back-and-forth banter, the brother stepped out onto the porch, where he saw Jerry with his back to him. Just as he realized something wasn’t right, Bosch came from the blind spot to his right rear and put the gun on him. Using his own cuffs this time, he locked the second brother, who he guessed was slightly larger than the first and had on a louder shirt, to the porch’s other support beam.
“Okay, take five, boys. I’ll be back in a minute. Oh, who has the key to the cuffs on the woman?”
They both said, “He does.”
“That’s not smart, guys. I don’t want to hurt anybody. Now who has the cuff key?”
“I do.”
The voice came from behind him, from the porch door. Bosch froze.
“Slowly, Bosch. Toss the gun into the pool and turn around real slow like.”
Bosch did what he was told and turned around. It was Gussie. And Bosch could see the delight and hate in his eyes, even in the dark. He stepped onto the porch and Bosch could see the shape of a gun in his right hand. Bosch immediately became angry with himself for not casing the house further or even asking Jerry if there was anyone other than his brother and Eleanor in the house. Gussie raised the gun and pressed its barrel against Bosch’s left cheek, just below the eye.
“See how it feels?”
“Been talking to the boss, huh?”
“That’s right. And we’re not stupid, man, you’re stupid. We knew you might try something like this. Now we gotta call him and see what he wants to do. But first off, what you’re gonna do is unhook Tom and Jerry. Right the fuck now.”
“Sure, Gussie.”
Bosch was contemplating reaching into his coat and going for his other gun but knew it was suicide as long as Gussie held his gun at point-blank range. He started slowly reaching into his pocket for his keys when he saw the movement to his left and heard the shout.
“Freeze it up, asshole!”
It was Edgar. Gussie didn’t move an inch. After a few moments of this stand-off, Bosch reached into his coat, pulled his own gun and pushed the muzzle up into Gussie’s neck. They stood there staring at each other for a long moment.
“What do you think?” Bosch finally said. “You want to try it? See if we both get one off?”
Gussie said nothing and Edgar moved in. He put the muzzle of his gun against Gussie’s temple. A smile broke across Bosch’s face and he reached up and took Gussie’s gun from him and threw it into the pool.
“I didn’t think so.”
He looked over at Edgar and nodded his thanks.
“You got him? I’ll go get her.”
“I got him, Harry. And I’m hoping he does something stupid, the big fat fuck.”
Bosch checked Gussie for another weapon and found none.
“Where’s the cuff key?” he asked.
“Fuck you.”
“Remember the other night, Gussie? You want a repeat performance? Tell me where the fucking key is.”
Bosch figured his own cuff key would fit but he wanted to make sure he got one away from Gussie. The big man finally blew out his breath and told Bosch the key was on the kitchen counter.
Bosch went inside the house, his gun out, his eyes scanning for more surprises. There was nobody. He grabbed the cuff key off the kitchen counter and went into the back den where Eleanor was. When he stepped into the room and her eyes rose to his, he saw something that he knew he would always cherish. It wasn’t something he believed he could ever put into words. The giving way of fear, the knowledge of safety. Maybe thanks. Maybe that was how people looked at heroes, he thought. He rushed to her and knelt in front of her chair so that he could unlock the cuffs.
“You okay, Eleanor?”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine. I knew, Harry. I knew you would come.”
He had the cuffs off and he just looked up at her face. He nodded and pulled her into a quick hug.
“We gotta go.”
They went out the back, where the scene did not look as if it had changed at all.
“Jerry, you got him? I’m going to find a phone and call Felton.”
“I got-”
“No,” Eleanor said. “Don’t call them. I don’t want that.”
Bosch looked at her.
“Eleanor, what are you talking about? These guys, they abducted you. If we hadn’t come here, there’s a good chance they would’ve taken you out into the desert tomorrow and planted you.”
“I don’t want the cops. I don’t want to go through all of that. I just want this to end.”
Bosch looked at her a long moment.
