the bathroom mirror his eyes were still a colorful mess but the dilation of the pupils had evened out. It was time to go, he knew. He got dressed and left the room, briefcase in hand and carrying his ruined jacket over his arm.
At the nurses' station he pushed the elevator button and waited. He noticed one of the nurses behind the counter eyeing him. She apparently didn't readily recognize him, especially with his street clothes on.
'Excuse me, can I help you?'
'No, I'm fine.'
'Are you a patient?'
'I was. I'm leaving. Room four-nineteen. Bosch.'
'Wait a moment, sir. What are you doing?'
'I'm leaving. Going home.'
'What?'
'Just send me the bill.'
The elevator doors opened and he stepped in.
'You can't do that,' the nurse called. 'Let me get the doctor.'
Bosch raised his hand and waved good-bye.
'Wait!'
The doors closed.
He bought a newspaper in the lobby and caught a cab outside. He told the driver to take him to Park La Brea. Along the way, he read Keisha Russell's story. It was on the front page and it was pretty much an abbreviated account of what he had told her the day before. Everything was qualified with the caveat that it was still under investigation, but it was a good read.
Bosch was mentioned throughout by name as a source and main player in the story. Irving was also a named source. Bosch figured the assistant chief must have decided in the end to throw in with the truth, or a close approximation of it, once Bosch had already let it out. It was the pragmatic thing to do. This way it seemed like he had a handle on things. He was the voice of conservative reason in the story. Bosch's statements were usually followed by those from Irving cautioning that the investigation was still in its infancy and no final conclusions had been made.
The part Bosch liked best about the story were the statements from several statesmen, including most of the city council, expressing shock both at the deaths of Mittel and Conklin and at their involvement in and/or cover- up of murders. The story also mentioned that Mittel's employee, Jonathan Vaughn, was being sought by police as a murder suspect.
The story was most tenuous in regard to Pounds. It contained no mention that Bosch was suspected or known to have used the lieutenant's name or that his using it had led to Pounds's death. The story simply quoted Irving as saying the connection between Pounds and the case was sail under investigation but that it appeared that Pounds
might have stumbled onto the same trail Bosch had been
following.
Irving had held back when he talked to Russell even after threatening Bosch. Harry could only believe it was the assistant chiefs desire not to see the department's dirty laundry in print. The truth would hurt Bosch but could damage the department as well. If Irving was going to make a move against him, Bosch knew it would be inside the department. It would remain private.
Bosch's rented Mustang was still in the La Brea Lifecare parking lot. He had been lucky; the keys were in the door lock where he had left them a moment before being attacked by Vaughn. He paid the driver and went to the
Mustang.
Bosch decided to take a cruise up Mount Olympus before going to the Mark Twain. He plugged his phone into the cigarette lighter so it would recharge and headed up Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
On Hercules Drive, he slowed outside the gate in front of Mittel's grounded spaceship. The gate was closed and there was yellow police-line tape still hanging from it. Bosch saw no cars in the driveway. It was quiet and peaceful. And soon he knew that a for sale sign would be erected and the next genius would move in and think he was master of all he surveyed.
Bosch drove on. Mittel's place wasn't what he really wanted to see, anyway.
Fifteen minutes later Bosch came around the familiar turn on Woodrow Wilson but immediately found things unfamiliar. His house was gone, its disappearance as glaring in the landscape as a tooth missing from a smile.
At the curb in front of his address were two huge construction waste bins filled with splintered wood, mangled metal and shattered glass, the debris of his home. A mobile storage container had also been placed at the
curb and Bosch assumed — hoped — it contained the salvageable property removed before the house was razed.
He parked and walked over to the flagstone path that formerly had led to his front door. He looked down and all that was left were the six pylons that poked out of the hillside like tombstones. He could rebuild upon these. If he wanted.
Movement in the acacia trees near the footings of the pylons caught his eye. He saw a flash of brown and then the head of a coyote moving slowly through the brush. It never heard Bosch or looked up. Soon it was gone. Harry lost sight of it in the brush.
He spent another ten minutes there, smoking a cigarette and waiting, but he saw nothing else. He then said a silent good-bye to the place. He had the feeling he wouldn't be back.
When Bosch got to the Mark Twain, the city's morning was just starting. From his room he heard a garbage truck making its way down the alley, taking away another week's debris. It made him think of his house again, fitted nicely into two dumpsters. Thankfully, the sound of a siren distracted him. He could identify it as a squad car as opposed to a fire engine. He knew he'd get a lot of that with the police station just down the street. He moved about his two rooms and felt restless and out of it, as if life was passing by while he was stuck here. He made coffee with the machine he had brought from home and it only served to make him more jittery.
He tried the paper again but there was nothing of real interest to him except the story he had already read on the front page. He paged through the thin Metro section anyway and saw a report that the county commission chambers were being outfitted with bulletproof desk blotters that the commissioners could hold up in front of them in the event a maniac came in spraying bullets. He threw the section aside and picked up the front section again.
Bosch reread the story about his investigation and couldn't escape a growing feeling that something was wrong, that something was left out or incomplete. Keisha Russell's reporting had been fine. That wasn't the
problem. The problem was in seeing the story in words, in print. It didn't seem as convincing to him as it had been when he recounted it for her or for Irving or even for himself.
He put the newspaper aside, leaned back on the bed and closed his eyes. He went over the sequence of events once more and in doing so finally realized the problem that gnawed at him was not in the paper but in what Mittel had said to him. Bosch tried to recall the words exchanged between them on the manicured lawn behind the rich man's house. What had really been said there? What had Mittel admitted to?
Bosch knew that at that moment on the lawn, Mittel was in a position of seeming invulnerability. He had Bosch captured, wounded and doomed before him. His attack dog, Vaughn, stood ready with a gun to Bosch's back. In that situation, Bosch believed there would be no reason for a man of Mittel's ego to hold back. And, in fact, he had not held back. He had boasted of his scheme to control Conklin and others. He had freely, though indirectly, admitted that he had caused the deaths of Conklin and Pounds. But despite those admissions, he had not done the same when it came to the killing of Marjorie Lowe.
Through the fragmented images of that night, Bosch tried to recall the exact words said and couldn't quite get to them. His visual recollection was good. He had Mittel standing in front of the blanket of lights. But the words weren't there. Mittel's mouth moved but Bosch couldn't get the words. Then, finally, after working at it for a while, it came to him. He had it. Opportunity. Mittel had called her death an opportunity. Was that an acknowledgement of culpability? Was he saying he killed her or had her killed? Or was he simply admitting that her death presented an opportunity for him to take advantage of?
