aquarium in San Pedro had apparently killed itself by pulling a water circulation tube out of its tank fitting with one of its tentacles. The tank emptied and the octopus died. Environmental groups were calling it suicide, a desperate protest by the octopus against its captivity. Only in LA, Bosch thought as he turned the radio off. A place so desperate even the marine life was killing itself.
He took a long shower, closing his eyes and holding his head direcdy under the spray. As he was shaving in front of the mirror after, he couldn't help but study the circles under his eyes again. They seemed even more pronounced than earlier and fit nicely with the eyes cracked with red from his drinking the night before.
He put the razor down on the edge of the sink and leaned closer to the mirror. His skin was as pale as a recycled paper plate. As he appraised himself, the thought he had was that he had once been considered a handsome man. Not anymore. He looked beaten. It seemed that age was gripping him, beating him down. He thought that he resembled some of the old men he'd seen after they were found dead in their beds. The ones in the rooming houses. The ones living in refrigerator boxes. He reminded himself more of the dead than the living.
He opened the medicine cabinet so the reflection would go away. He looked among the various items on the glass shelves and chose a squeeze bottle of Murine. He put in a heavy dose of the eye drops, wiped the excess spill off his
face with a towel and left the bathroom without closing the cabinet and having to look at himself again.
He put on his best clean suit, a gray two-piece, and a white button-down shirt. He added his maroon tie with gladiator helmets on it. It was his favorite tie. And his oldest. One edge of it was fraying but he wore it two or three times a week. He'd bought it ten years earlier when he was first assigned to homicide. He pegged it in place on his shirt with a gold tie tack that formed the number 187 — the California penal code for homicide. As he did this, he felt a measure of control come back to him. He began to feel good and whole again, and to feel angry. He was ready to go out into the world, whether or not it was ready for him.
Bosch pulled the knot of his tie tight against his throat before pulling open the back door of the station. He took the hallway to the rear of the detective bureau and then the aisle between the tables toward the front, where Pounds sat in his office behind the glass windows that separated him from the detectives he commanded. Heads at the burglary table bobbed up as he was noticed, then at the robbery and homicide tables. Bosch did not acknowledge anyone, though he almost lost a step when he saw someone sitting in his seat at the homicide table. Bums. Edgar was there at his own spot, but his back was to Bosch's path and he didn't see Harry coming through the room.
But Pounds did. Through the glass wall he saw Bosch's approach to his office and he stood up behind his desk.
The first thing Bosch noticed as he got closer was that the glass panel that he had broken just a week before in the office had already been replaced. He thought it was strange that this could happen so quickly in a department where more vital repairs — such as replacing the bullet-riddled windshield of a patrol car — normally took a month of red tape and paper pushing. But those were the priorities of this department.
'Henry!' Pounds barked. 'Come in here.'
An old man who sat at the front counter and took calls on the public line and gave general directions jumped up
and doddered into the glass office. He was a civilian volunteer, one of several who worked in the station, mainly retirees that most cops referred to collectively as members of the Nod Squad.
Bosch followed the old man in and put his briefcase down on the floor.
'Bosch!' Pounds yelped. 'There's a witness here.'
He pointed to old Henry, then out through the glass.
'Witnesses out there as well.'
Bosch could see that Pounds still had deep purple remnants of broken capillaries under each eye. The swelling was gone, though. Bosch walked up to the desk and reached into the pocket of his coat.
'Witnesses to what?'
'To whatever you're doing here.'
Bosch turned to look at Henry.
'Henry, you can leave now. I'm just going to talk to the lieutenant.'
'Henry, you stay,' Pounds commanded. 'I want you to hear this.'
'How do you know he'll remember it, Pounds? He can't even transfer a call to the right table.'
Bosch looked back at Henry again and fixed him with a stare that left no doubt who was in charge in the glass room.
'Close the door on your way out.'
Henry made a timid glance back at Pounds but then quickly headed out the door, closing it as instructed. Bosch turned back to Pounds.
The lieutenant slowly, like a cat sneaking past a dog, lowered himself into his seat, perhaps thinking or knowing from experience that there might be more safety in not being at a face-to-face level with Bosch. Harry looked down and saw that there was a book open on the desk. He reached down and turned the cover to see what it was.
'Studying for the captain's exam, Lieutenant?'
Pounds shrank back from Bosch's reach. Bosch saw it was not the captain's exam manual but a book on creating and honing motivational skills in employees. It had been written by a professional basketball coach. Bosch had to laugh and shake his head.
'Pounds, you know, you're really something. I mean, at least you're entertaining. I gotta give you that.'
Pounds grabbed the book back and shoved it in a drawer.
'What do you want, Bosch? You know you're not supposed to be in here. You're on leave.'
'But you called me in, remember?'
'I did not.'
'The car. You said you wanted the car.'
'I said turn it in at the garage. I didn't say come in here. Now get out!'
Bosch could see the rosy spread of anger on the other man's face. Bosch remained cool and took that as a sign of a declining level of stress. He brought his hand out of his pocket with the car keys in them. He dropped them on the desk in front of Pounds.
'It's parked out by the drunk tank door. You want it back, you can have it. But you take it through the checkout at the garage. That's not a cop's job. That's a job for a bureaucrat.'
Bosch turned to leave and picked up his briefcase. He then opened the door to the office with such force that it swung around and banged against one of the glass panels of the office. The whole office shook but nothing broke. He walked around the counter, saying, 'Sorry about that, Henry,' without looking at the old man, and then headed down the front hall.
A few minutes later he was standing on the curb on Wilcox, in front of the station, waiting for the cab he had
called with his portable. A gray Caprice, almost a duplicate of the car he had just turned in, pulled up in front of him and he bent down to look in. It was Edgar. He was smiling. The window glided down.
'You need a ride, tough guy?'
Bosch got in.
'There's a Hertz on La Brea near the Boulevard.'
'Yeah, I know it.'
They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Edgar laughed and shook his head.
'What?'
'Nothing ... Bums, man. I think he was about to shit his pants when you were in there with Pounds. He thought you were gonna come outta there and throw his ass outta your chair at the table. He was pitiful.'
'Shit. I should've. I didn't think of it.'
Silence came back again. They were on Sunset coming up to La Brea.
'Harry, you just can't help yourself, can you?'
'I guess not.'
