'Go on. Five minutes.'
Bosch went inside and grabbed a suitcase from the top shelf of the hallway closet. First he put his second gun in it, then he dumped in as much of the clothing from the bedroom closet as he could. He walked the overstuffed suitcase out to the carport, then came back inside for another load. He opened the drawers of his bureau and dumped them on the bed, then wrapped everything in the bedclothes and carried that out as well.
He went past the five-minute mark but Gowdy didn't come in after him. Bosch could hear him working with a hammer on the front door.
After ten minutes he had a large stack of belongings gathered in the carport. Included there was the box in which he kept his keepsakes and photos, a fireproof box containing his financial and personal records, a stack of unopened mail and unpaid bills, the stereo and two boxes containing his collection of jazz and blues LPs and CDs. Looking at the pile of belongings, he felt forlorn. It was a
lot to fit into a Mustang, but he knew it wasn't much to show for almost forty-five years on the planet.
'That it?'
Bosch turned around. It was Gowdy. He was holding a hammer in one hand and a steel latch in the other. Bosch saw a keyed lock was hooked through one of the belt loops on his pants.
'Yeah,' Bosch said. 'Do it.'
He stepped back and let the inspector go to work. The hammering had just begun when his phone rang. He had forgotten about Keisha Russell.
He had the phone in his jacket pocket instead of his briefcase now. He took it out and flipped it open.
'Yeah, it's Bosch.'
'Detective, it's Dr Hinojos.'
'Oh ... Hi.'
'Something wrong?'
'No, uh, yeah, I was expecting somebody else. I've got to keep this line open for a few minutes. I've got a call coming in. Can I call you back?'
Bosch looked at his watch. It was five minutes until six.
'Yes,' Hinojos said. 'I'll be at the office until six-thirty. I want to talk to you about something, and to see how you fared on the sixth floor after I left.'
'I'm fine, but I'll call you back.'
As soon as he flipped the phone closed, it rang again in his hand.
'Bosch.'
'Bosch, I'm up against it and don't have time for bullshit.' It was Russell. She also didn't have time to identify herself. 'The story is that the investigation into the killing of Harvey Pounds has turned inward and detectives spent several hours with you today. They searched your home and they believe you are the prime suspect.'
'Prime suspect? We don't even use those words, Keisha.
Now I know you're talking to one of those squints in IAD. They wouldn't know how to run a homicide investigation if the doer came up and bit them on their shiny ass.'
'Don't try to deflect what we're talking about here. It's really simple. Do you or don't you have a comment on the story for tomorrow's paper? If you want to say something, I have just enough time to get it in the first run.'
'On the record, I have no comment.'
'And off?'
'Off the record, not for attribution or any use at all, I can tell you that you're full of shit, Keisha. Your story is wrong. Flat-out wrong. If you run it as you have just summarized it for me, you will have to write another one tomorrow correcting it. It will say I am not a suspect at all. Then, after that, you'll have to find another beat to cover.'
'And why is that?' she asked haughtily.
'Because this is a smear orchestrated by Internal Affairs. It's a plant. And when it is read tomorrow by everybody else in the department they'll know it is and they'll know you fell for it. They won't trust you. They'll think you're just a front for people like Brockman. No one that it is important for you to have a source relationship with will want to have that relationship with you. Including me. You'll be left covering the police commission and rewriting the press releases out of media relations. And then, of course, whenever Brockman wants to cream somebody else, he'll pick up the phone and call.'
There was silence on the line. Bosch looked up at the sky and saw it turning pink with the start of sunset. He looked at his watch. It was one minute until her deadline.
'You there, Keisha?'
'Bosch, you're scaring me.'
'You should be scared. You got about a minute to make a big decision.'
'Let me ask you this. Did you attack Pounds two weeks ago and throw him through a window?'
'On or off the record?'
'It doesn't matter. I just need an answer. Quick!'
'Off the record, that's more or less accurate.'
'Well, that would seem to make you a suspect in his death. I don't see -'
'Keisha, I've been out of the state for three days. I got back today. Brockman brought me in and talked to me for less than an hour. My story checked and I was kicked free. I'm not a suspect. I'm talking to you from the front of my house. You hear that hammering? That's my house. I've got a carpenter here. Are prime suspects allowed to go home at night?'
'How can I confirm all of this?'
'Today? You can't. You've got to pick. Brockman or me. Tomorrow, you can call Assistant Chief Irving and he'll confirm — if he is willing to talk to you.'
'Shit! Bosch, I can't believe this. If I go to my editor at deadline and tell him a story that they had budgeted for the front page since the three o'clock meeting is not a story ... I might be looking for a new beat and a new paper to cover it for.'
'There's other news in the world, Keisha. They can find something for the front page. This will pay off for you in the long run, anyway. I'll spread the word about you.'
There was a brief silence while she made her decision.
'I can't talk. I have to get in there and grab him. Goodbye, Bosch. I hope I'm still working here the next time we talk.'
She was gone before he could say good-bye.
He walked up the street to the Mustang and drove it down to the house. Gowdy had finished with the latches and both doors now had locks on them. The inspector was out at his car using the front hood as a desk. He was
writing on a clipboard and Bosch guessed he was moving slowly so as to make sure Bosch left the property. Bosch started loading his pile of belongings into the Mustang. He didn't know where he was going to take himself.
He put the thought of his homelessness aside and began thinking about Keisha Russell. He wondered if she would be able to stop the story so late in the game. It had probably taken on a life of its own. Like a monster in the newspaper's computer. And she, its Dr Frankenstein, would likely have little power over stopping it.
When he had everything in the Mustang, he waved a salute to Gowdy, got in and drove down the hill. Down at Cahuenga he didn't know which way to turn because he still didn't know where he should go. To the right was Hollywood. To the left was the Valley. Then he remembered the Mark Twain. In Hollywood, only a few blocks from the station on Wilcox, the Mark Twain was an old residence hotel with efficiencies that were generally clean and neat — a lot more so than the surrounding neighborhood. Bosch knew this because he had stashed witnesses there on occasion. He also knew that there were a couple of units that were two-room efficiencies with private baths. He decided he would go for one of them and turned right. The phone rang almost as soon as he had made the decision. It was Keisha Russell.
'You owe me big time, Bosch. I killed it.'
He felt relief and annoyance at the same time. It was typical thinking for a reporter.
