The Harry Bosch Novels Vol Ii Part 26

"Okay. Take your time."

He waited for about three minutes and then she opened the door and pulled him in. If she had cleaned up, she had done it in the dark. The only light came from what Bosch could see was the kitchen. She took his hand and led him away from the light to a darkened hallway that gave way to her bedroom. Here she turned on the light, revealing a sparely furnished room. A wrought-iron bed with a canopy was the centerpiece. There was a night table of unfinished wood next to it, a matching unfinished bureau and an antique Singer sewing machine table on which stood a blue vase with dead flowers in it. There was nothing hung on any of the walls, though Bosch saw a nail protruding from the plaster above the vase. Jasmine noticed the flowers and quickly took the vase off the table and headed out the door.

"I have to go dump this. I haven't been here in a week and forgot to change them."

Moving the flowers raised a slightly acrid smell in the room. While she was gone Bosch looked at the nail again and thought he could see the delineation of a rectangle on the wall. Something had hung there, he decided. She hadn't come in to clean up. If she had, she would have gotten rid of the flowers. She'd come in to take down a painting.

When she came back into the room, she put the empty vase back on the table.

"Would you like another beer? I have some wine, too."

Bosch moved toward her, intrigued even more by her mysteries.

"No, I'm fine."

Without further word they embraced. He could taste beer and garlic and cigarette smoke as he kissed her but didn't care. He knew she was getting the same from him. He pressed his cheek against hers and with his nose he came across the spot on her neck where she had dabbed perfume. Night-blooming jasmine.

They moved onto the bed, each taking pieces of clothing off between hard kisses. Her body was beautiful, the tan lines distinct. He kissed her lovely small b.r.e.a.s.t.s and gently pushed her back on the bed. She told him to wait and she rolled to the side and from the drawer of the bed table extracted a strip of three condom packages and handed it to him.

"Is this wishful thinking?" he asked.

They both burst out laughing and it seemed to make things all the better.

"I don't know," she said. "We'll see."

For Bosch, s.e.xual encounters had always been a question of timing. The desires of two individuals rose and subsided on their own courses. There were emotional needs separate from physical needs. And sometimes all of those things clicked together in a person and then clicked in tandem with those of the other person. Bosch's encounter with Jasmine Corian was one of those times. The s.e.x created a world without intrusion. One so vital that it could have lasted an hour or maybe only a few minutes and he wouldn't have known the difference. At the end, he was above her, looking into her open eyes, and she clutched his upper arms as if she were holding on for her life. Both of their bodies shuddered in unison and then he lay still on top of her, catching his breath from the hollow between her neck and shoulder. He felt so good he had the urge to laugh out loud but he didn't think she'd understand. He stifled it and made it sound like a m.u.f.fled cough.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly.

"I've never felt better."

Eventually, he moved off her, backing down over her body. He kissed both of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then sat up with her legs on either side of him. He removed the condom while using his body to s.h.i.+eld her view of the process.

He got up and walked to the door he hoped was the bathroom and found it was a closet. The next door he tried was the bathroom and he flushed the condom down the toilet. He absentmindedly wondered if it would end up somewhere in Tampa Bay.

When he came back from the bathroom she was sitting up with the sheet bunched around her waist. He found his sport coat on the floor and got out his cigarettes. He gave her one and lit it. Then he bent over and kissed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s again. Her laugh was infectious and it made him smile.

"You know, I like it that you didn't come equipped."

"Equipped? What are you talking about?"

"You know, that you offered to go to the drugstore. It shows what kind of man you are."

"What do you mean?"

"If you had come over here from L.A. with a condom in your wallet, that would've been so ... I don't know, premeditated. Like some guy just on the make. The whole thing would have had no spontaneity. I'm glad you weren't like that, Harry Bosch, that's all."

He nodded, trying to follow her line of thought. He wasn't sure he understood. And he wondered what he should think of the fact that she was was equipped. He decided to drop it and lit his cigarette. equipped. He decided to drop it and lit his cigarette.

"How'd you hurt your hand like that?"

She had noticed the marks on his fingers. Bosch had taken the Band-Aids off while flying over. The burns had healed to the point that they looked like red welts on two of his fingers.

"Cigarette. I fell asleep."

He felt he could tell her the truth about everything about himself.

"G.o.d, that's scary."

"Yeah. I don't think it will happen again."

"Do you want to stay with me tonight?"

He moved closer to her and kissed her on the neck.

"Yes," he whispered.

She reached over and touched the zipper scar on his left shoulder. The women he was with in bed always seemed to do this. It was an ugly mark and he never understood why they were drawn to touch it.

"You got shot?"

"Yeah."

"That's even scarier."

He hiked his shoulders. It was history and he never really thought about it anymore.

"You know, what I was trying to say before is that you're not like most cops I've known. You've got too much of your humanity left. How'd that happen?"

He shook his shoulders again like he didn't know.

"Are you okay, Bosch?"

He stubbed out his cigarette.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"I don't know. You know what that guy Marvin Gaye sang about, don't you? Before he got killed by his own dad? He sang about s.e.xual healing. Said it's good for the soul. Something like that. Anyway, I believe it, do you?"

"I suppose."

"I think you need healing in your life, Bosch. That's the vibe I'm getting."

"You want to go to sleep now?"

She lay down again and pulled the sheet up. He walked around the room naked, turning out the lights. When he was under the sheet in the dark, she turned on her side so her back was to him and told him to put his arm around her. He moved up close behind her and did. He loved her smell.

"How come people call you Jazz?"

"I don't know. They just do. Because it goes with the name."

After a few moments she asked him why he had asked that.

"Because. You smell like both your names. Like the flower and the music."

"What does jazz smell like?"

"It smells dark and smoky."

They were silent for a long while after that and eventually Bosch thought she was asleep. But he still could not make it down. He lay with his eyes open, looking at the shadows of the room. Then she spoke softly to him.

"Bosch, what's the worst thing you've ever done to yourself?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. What's the worst thing? What's the thing that keeps you awake at night if you think about it too hard?"

He thought for a few moments before answering.

"I don't know." He forced an uneasy and short laugh. "I guess I've done a lot of bad things. I suppose a lot of them are to myself. At least I think about them a lot ..."

"What's one of them? You can tell me."

And he knew that he could. He thought he could tell her almost anything and not be judged harshly.

"When I was a kid- I grew up mostly in a youth hall, like an orphanage. When I was new there, one of the older kids took my shoes, my sneakers. They didn't fit him or anything but he did it because he knew he could do it. He was one of the rulers of the roost and he took 'em. I didn't do anything about it and it hurt."

"But you didn't do it. That's not what I-"

"No, I'm not done. I just told you that because you had to know that part. See, when I got older and I was one of the big shots in the place, I did the same thing. I took this new kid's shoes. He was smaller, I couldn't even put 'em on. I just took them and I ... I don't know, I threw them out or something. But I took them because I could. I did the same thing that was done to me ... And sometimes, even now, I think about it and I feel bad."

She squeezed his hand in a way he thought was meant to be comforting but said nothing.

"Is that the kind of story you wanted?"

She just squeezed his hand again. After a while he spoke.

"I think the one thing I did that I regret the most, though, was maybe letting a woman go."

"You mean like a criminal?"

"No. I mean like we lived- we were lovers and when she wanted to go, I didn't really ... do anything. I didn't put up a fight, you know. And when I think about it, sometimes I think that maybe if I had, I could've changed her mind ... I don't know."

"Did she say why she was leaving?"

"She just got to know me too well. I don't blame her for anything. I've got baggage. I guess maybe I can be hard to take. I've lived alone most of my life."

Silence filled the room again and he waited. He sensed that there was something more she wanted to say or be asked. But when she spoke he wasn't sure if she was talking about him or herself.

"They say when a cat is ornery and scratches and hisses at everybody, even somebody who wants to comfort it and love it, it's because it wasn't held enough when it was a kitten."

"I never heard that before."

"I think it's true."

He was quiet a moment and moved his hand up so that it was touching her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Is that what your story is?" he asked. "You weren't held enough."

"Who knows."

"What was the worst thing you ever did to yourself, Jasmine? I think you want to tell me."

He knew she wanted him to ask it. It was true confessions time and he began to believe that the whole night had been directed by her to arrive at this one question.

"You didn't try to hold on to someone you should have," she said. "I held on to someone I shouldn't have. I held on too long. Thing is, I knew what it was leading to, deep down I knew. It was like standing on the tracks and seeing the train coming at you but being too mesmerized by the bright light to move, to save yourself."

He had his eyes open in the dark still. He could barely see the outline of her shoulder and cheek. He pulled himself closer to her, kissed her neck and in her ear whispered, "But you got out. That's what's important."

"Yeah, I got out," she said wistfully. "I got out."

She was silent for a while and then reached up under the covers and touched his hand. It was cupped over one of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She held her hand on top of it.

"Good night, Harry."

He waited a while, until he heard the measured breathing of her sleep, and then he was finally able to drift off. There was no dream this time. Just warmth and darkness.

Chapter 28

In the morning Bosch awoke first. He took a shower and borrowed Jasmine's toothbrush without asking. Then he dressed in the clothes he'd worn the day before and went out to his car to retrieve his overnight bag. Once he was dressed in fresh clothes he ventured into the kitchen to see about coffee. All he found was a box of tea bags.

Leaving the idea behind, he walked around the apartment, his steps creaking on the old pine floors. The living room was as spare as the bedroom. A sofa with an off-white blanket spread on it, a coffee table, an old stereo with a ca.s.sette but no CD player. No television. Again, nothing on the walls but the telltale indication that there had been. He found two nails in the plaster. They weren't rusted or painted over. They hadn't been there very long.

Through a set of French doors the living room opened up to a porch enclosed in windows. There was rattan furniture out here and several potted plants, including a dwarf orange tree with fruit on it. The entire porch was redolent with its smell. Bosch stepped close to the windows and by looking south down the alley behind the property, he could see the bay. The morning sun's reflection on it was pure white light.

He walked back across the living room to another door on the wall opposite the French doors. Immediately upon opening this door, he could smell the sharp tang of oils and turpentine. This was where she painted. He hesitated but only for a moment, then walked in.

The first thing he noticed was that the room had a window that gave a direct view of the bay across the backyards and garages of three or four houses down the alley. It was beautiful and he knew why she chose this room for her art. At center on a paint-dappled drop cloth was an easel but no stool. She painted standing. He saw no overhead lamp or artificial light source anywhere else in the room. She painted only by true light.

He walked around the easel and found the canvas on it had been untouched by the painter. Along one of the side walls was a high work counter with various tubes of paint scattered about. There were palette boards and coffee cans with brushes stacked in them. At the end of the counter was a large laundry sink for was.h.i.+ng up.