“And what if we ever catch those guys?” Walling said, taking up the story. “They could deny being a part of this thing until Osama bin Laden dies in a cave of old age but who would believe them or care? There’s nothing more ingenious than framing terrorists with a crime they didn’t commit. They can never defend themselves.”
Bosch nodded.
“A perfect crime,” he said. “The only reason it blew up was because Digoberto Gonzalves checked that Dumpster. Without him we’d still be chasing Moby and El-Fayed, probably thinking that they had used Samir’s place as a safe house.”
“So, what do we do now, Bosch?”
Bosch shrugged but then answered anyway.
“I say we set up a classic rattrap. Put them both in rooms, ring the bell and say the first one who talks gets the deal. I’d bet on Alicia. She’ll break and give him up, probably blame him for everything, say she was acting under his influence and control.”
“Something tells me you’re right. And the truth is, I don’t think Maxwell was smart enough to pull this off. I worked with-”
Her cell phone started buzzing. She took it out of her pocket and looked at the screen.
“It’s Jack.”
“Find out where Maxwell is.”
She answered the call and first replied to a few questions about Bosch’s status, telling Brenner that he was okay but was losing his voice because his throat hurt. Bosch got up for another bottle of water but listened from the kitchen. Walling casually steered the call toward Maxwell.
“Hey, where’s Cliff, by the way? I wanted to talk to him about that thing with Bosch in the hallway. I didn’t like what he-”
She stopped and listened to the answer and Bosch saw her eyes immediately become alert. Something was wrong.
“When was that?” she asked.
She listened again and stood up.
“Listen, Jack, I’ve got to go. I think Bosch is about to be discharged. I’ll check in as soon as I’m clear here.”
She closed the phone and looked at Bosch.
“I can’t stand lying to him. He won’t forget it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said there were too many agents at the recovery scene-just about everybody came out from downtown and they were standing around waiting on the radiation team. So Maxwell volunteered to go pick up the witness at the Mark Twain. Nobody had gotten around to it because I’d pulled off the original pickup team.”
“He went alone?”
“That’s what Jack said.”
“How long ago?”
“A half hour.”
“He’s going to kill him.”
Bosch started moving quickly toward the door.
TWENTY
BOSCH DROVE THIS TIME. On the way toward Hollywood he told Walling that Jesse Mitford had no phone in his room. The Mark Twain wasn’t much when it came to full service. Instead, Bosch called the watch commander at Hollywood Division and asked him to send a patrol car to the hotel to check on the witness. He then called information and was connected to the front desk at the Mark Twain.
“Alvin, this is Detective Bosch. From this morning?”
“Yeah, yeah. What’s up with you, Detective?”
“Has anyone come in asking for Stephen King?”
“Mmm, nope.”
“In the last twenty minutes have you buzzed in anybody who looked like a cop or who wasn’t a tenant there?”
“No, Detective. What’s going on?”
“Listen, I need you to go up to that room and tell Stephen King to get out of there and then to call me on my cell.”
“I got nobody to watch the desk, Detective.”
“It’s an emergency, Alvin. I need to get him out of there. It will take you less than five minutes. Here, write this down. My number is three-two-three, two-four-four, five-six-three-one. You got it?”
“I got it.”
“Okay, go. And if anybody but me comes in there looking for him, say he checked out, took a refund and left. Go, Alvin, and thanks.”
Bosch closed the phone and looked over at Rachel. His face showed his lack of confidence in the deskman.
“I think the guy’s a tweaker.”
Bosch increased his speed and tried to concentrate on driving. They had just turned south on Cahuenga off Barham. He was thinking that, depending on traffic in Hollywood, they could get to the Mark Twain in another five minutes. This conclusion made him shake his head. With a half-hour lead Maxwell should already be at the Mark Twain. He wondered if he had slipped in the back way and already gotten to Mitford.
“Maxwell may have already gone in through the back,” he told Walling. “I’m going to come in from the alley.”
“You know,” Walling said, “maybe he’s not going to hurt him. He’ll pick him up and talk to him, judge for himself if he saw enough at the overlook that he’d be a threat.”
Bosch shook his head.
“No way. Maxwell’s got to know that once the cesium was found, his plan was going down the toilet. He’s got to take action against all threats. First the witness, then Alicia Kent.”
“Alicia Kent? You think he’d make a move against her? This whole thing is because of her.”
“Doesn’t matter now. Survival instincts take over now and she’s a threat. It goes with the territory. You cross the big line to be with her. You cross it again to save your-”
Bosch stopped talking as a sudden realization thudded in his chest. He cursed out loud and pinned the accelerator as they came out of the Cahuenga Pass. He cut across three lanes of Highland Avenue in front of the Hollywood Bowl and made a screeching U-turn in front of oncoming traffic. He punched it, and the car fishtailed wildly as he headed toward the southbound entrance to the Hollywood Freeway. Rachel grabbed the dashboard and a door handle to hold on.
He flicked on the siren and the blue lights that flashed in the front grille and back window of the car. He yelled his response to Walling.
The freeway was moving pretty well and the siren helped open it up further. Bosch figured Maxwell could have already gotten to downtown, depending on what kind of traffic he encountered.
Rachel opened her phone and started punching in numbers. She tried number after number but no one was answering.
