his plan began.
Bosch started the rental car and pulled away from the curb, just in case Banks was watching him go. He then drove two blocks up Crows Landing, made a U-turn, and came back down to the dealership. He parked half a block short of it and on the other side of the street this time, but still with a view of Banks at his desk.
Banks never got another live customer the rest of the day. He worked the phones and computer sporadically, but it didn’t look to Bosch as though he had much success. He fidgeted nervously in his seat, repeatedly drumming his fingers on the desk and getting up and down to refill his coffee cup from the back. Twice Bosch saw him sneak a pour out of a pint bottle taken from a desk drawer into his coffee.
At 6 P.M. Banks and the rest of the staff closed shop and left the dealership en masse. Bosch knew that Banks lived north of Modesto in Manteca, so he pulled away from the curb, drove past the dealership, and then turned around so he would be in position to follow him home.
Banks pulled out in a silver Toyota and started north as expected. But then he surprised Bosch by taking a left on Hatch Road and vectoring away from the 99. At first Bosch thought Banks was following a shortcut, but soon it became apparent that was not the case. He’d have been home already if he’d just jumped on the freeway.
Bosch followed him into a neighborhood that was a mixture of industrial and residential. On one side were lower-income and middle-class homes jammed together as tight as teeth, while on the other side, there was a steady procession of junkyards and auto-crushing operations.
Bosch had to fall back on Banks for fear he would be noticed. He lost sight of him when Hatch Road started bending along with the shape of the nearby Tuolumne River.
He sped up and came around a bend but the Toyota was gone. He kept going, increasing his speed, and realized too late that he had just driven by a VFW post. On a hunch he slowed down and turned around. He drove back to the VFW and pulled into the lot. He immediately saw the silver Toyota parked around behind the building, as if hidden. Bosch guessed that Banks was stopping for a drink on his way home and didn’t want anyone to know it.
It was dimly lit when Bosch walked into the bar. He stood still for a moment while his eyes adjusted so he could look for Banks. He didn’t have to.
“Well, look who it is.”
Bosch turned to his left and there was Banks, sitting by himself on a barstool, his sport coat off and his tie long gone. A young bartender leaned over as she put a fresh drink down in front of him. Bosch acted surprised.
“Hey, what are you—I just came in for a quick one before heading north.”
Banks signaled him over to the stool next to him.
“Join the club.”
Bosch came over, pulling out his wallet.
“I’m already in the club.”
He pulled out his VA card and tossed it on the bar. Before the bartender could check it, Banks snatched it off the scarred bar top and looked at it.
“I thought you said your name was Harry.”
“It is. People call me Harry.”
“Hi—er . . . how do you say this crazy name?”
“Hieronymus. It’s the name of a painter from a long time ago.”
“I don’t blame you for going with Harry.”
Banks handed the ID card to the bartender.
“I can vouch for this guy, Lori. He’s good people.”
Lori didn’t give the card much of a look before passing it back to Bosch.
“Harry, meet the Triple-L,” Banks said. “Lori Lynn Lukas, the best bartender in the business.”
Bosch nodded his greeting and slid onto the stool next to Banks. It seemed to him that he had pulled it off. Banks was not suspicious of the coincidence. And if he kept drinking, any suspicions would move even farther away.
“Lori, put him on my tab,” Banks declared.
Bosch said thanks and ordered a beer. Soon an ice-cold bottle was in front of him, and Banks brought his glass up to toast.
“To us warriors.”
Banks clinked his glass off Bosch’s bottle and slurped down a third of what looked like a Scotch rocks. When Banks had extended his glass, Bosch saw that he wore a big military watch with multiple dials and a timing bezel. It made him wonder how that fit in with selling tractors.
Banks looked at Bosch with squinted eyes.
“Let me guess. Vietnam.”
Bosch nodded.
“And you?”
“Desert Storm, baby. The first Gulf War.”
They clinked bottle to glass once again.
“Desert Storm,” Bosch said appreciatively. “That’s one I don’t have.”
Banks narrowed his eyes.
“One you don’t have of what?” he asked.
Bosch shrugged.
“I’m sort of a collector. Something from every war, that sort of thing. Mostly enemy weapons. My wife thinks I’m a nut.”
Banks didn’t say anything, so Bosch kept the riff going.
“My prize piece is a tanto taken off the body of a dead Jap in a cave on Iwo Jima. He had used it.”
“What, is that a gun?”
“No, a blade.”
Bosch pantomimed dragging a knife left to right across his stomach. Lori Lynn made a sound of disgust and moved toward the other end of the bar.
“I paid two grand for it,” Bosch said. “It would’ve been less if, you know, it hadn’t been used. Did you bring back anything interesting from Iraq?”
“Never was there, actually. I was based in S-A and made a few runs into Kuwait. I was in transport.”
He finished his drink as Bosch nodded.
“So no real action, huh?”
Banks rapped his empty glass on the bar.
“Lori, you workin’ t’night or what?”
He then looked directly at Bosch.
“Hell, man, we had plenty action. Our whole unit almost got smoked by a SCUD. We kicked some ass, too. And like I said, I was in transpo. We had access to everything and knew how to get it back stateside.”
Bosch turned to him like he was suddenly interested. But he waited until Lori Lynn was finished freshening Banks’s drink and moved away again. Bosch spoke in a quiet, conspiratorial tone.
“What I want is something from the Republican Guard. You know anybody with that stuff? This is the reason I stop at the VFW every time I’m in a new town. This is where I find this stuff. I got the tanto off an old guy I met in the post bar over in Tempe. That was like twenty years ago.”
Banks nodded, trying to follow the words through his growing alcoholic fog.
“Well . . . I know guys. They got all kinds of stuff back here. Guns, uniforms, whatever you want. But you gotta pay and you can start by buyin’ the fuckin’ Gator you spent all day lookin’ at.”
Bosch nodded.
“I hear ya. We can talk about that. I’ll come on back by the dealership tomorrow. How’s that?”
“Now you’re talking, partner.”
30
Bosch managed to get out of the VFW without buying Banks a drink and apparently without Banks noticing that Bosch drank less than half of his beer. Once back in his car, Bosch drove to the far end of the parking lot,
