The Concrete Blonde Part 33

"No one's heard from them?"

"No one in the biz, at least."

"You're right. Physically, they fit."

"Yeah."

"They did outcall?"

"I a.s.sume they did, but I'm not sure yet. The people I talked to dealt with them in the film biz so they didn't know what these girls did when the cameras stopped rolling, so to speak. Or, so they said. My next step was to get some back issues of the s.e.x rags and look for ads."

"Any dates? You know, when they disappeared, stuff like that?"

"Just generally speaking. These people, the agents and the moviemakers, they don't have minds for dates. We're dealing with memories, so I've only got a general picture. If I find out they ran outcall ads, I'll narrow it down pretty close to exact dates when I find out when they last ran. Anyway, let me give you what I got. You got your notebook?"

Mora told him what he had. No specific dates, just months and years. Adding in the approximate dates when Rebecca Kaminski, the concrete blonde, Constance Calvin, who became Gallery on film, and the seventh and eleventh victims originally attributed to Church had disappeared, there was a rough pattern of disappearances of the p.o.r.no starlets about every six to seven months. The last disappearance was Mood Indigo, eight months earlier.

"See the pattern? He's due. He's out there hunting."

Bosch nodded and looked up from his notebook at Mora and thought he saw a gleam in his dark eyes. He thought he could see through them into a black emptiness inside. In that one chilling moment Bosch thought he saw the confirmation of evil in the other man. It was as if Mora was challenging him to come farther into the dark with him.

24.

Bosch knew he was stretching his leash by going down to USC, but it was two o'clock and his choice was to hang around the conference room with Rollenberger and wait for a verdict or do something useful with his time. He decided on the latter and got on the Harbor Freeway going south. Depending on how northbound traffic on the freeway was, he could conceivably get back to downtown in fifteen minutes if a verdict came in. Getting a parking s.p.a.ce at Parker Center and walking over to the courthouse would be another matter.

The University of Southern California was located in the tough neighborhoods that surround the Coliseum. But once through the gate and into the general campus, it seemed as bucolic as Catalina, though Bosch knew this peace had been interrupted with a quickening frequency in recent years, to the point that even Trojan football practice could be dangerous. A couple of seasons back a stray bullet from one of the daily drive-by shootings in the nearby neighborhoods had struck a gifted freshman linebacker while he stood with teammates on the practice field. It was incidents like that that had administrators complaining on a routine basis to the LAPD and students longingly thinking about UCLA, which was cheaper and located in the relatively crime-free suburban milieu of Westwood.

Bosch easily found the psychology building with a map given to him at the entry gate, but once he was inside the four-story brick building there was no directory to help him find Dr. John Locke or the psychohormonal studies lab. He walked down one lengthy hallway and then took stairs to the second floor. The first female student he asked for directions to the lab laughed, apparently believing his question was a come-on, and walked away without answering. He finally was directed to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the building.

He read the signs on the doors as he walked along the dimly lit corridor and finally found the lab at the second-to-last doorway at the end of the hall. A blonde student sat behind a desk in the entry. She was reading a thick textbook. She looked up and smiled and Bosch asked for Locke.

"I'll call. Does he expect you?"

"You never know with a shrink."

He smiled but she didn't get it, then he wondered if it was even a joke.

"No, I didn't say I was coming."

"Well, Dr. Locke has student labs running all day. I shouldn't disturb him if-"

She finally looked up and saw the badge he was holding.

"I'll call right away."

"Just tell him it's Bosch and I need a few minutes if he can spare them."

She spoke briefly on the phone to someone, reiterating what Bosch had just said. She then waited silently for a few moments, said "Okay" and hung up.

"The grad a.s.sistant said Dr. Locke said he will come get you. It should only be a few minutes."

He thanked her and sat in one of the chairs by the door. He looked around the entry room. There was a bulletin board with handprinted announcements pinned to the cork. Mostly they were the roommate-wanted type of posting. There was an announcement of a party for psych undergrads this coming Sat.u.r.day.

There was one other desk in the room in addition to the one the student occupied. But this one was empty at the moment.

"This part of the curriculum?" he asked. "You have to put in time here as the receptionist?"

She looked up from the textbook.

"No, it's just a job. I'm in child psych but jobs in the lab there are hard to come by. n.o.body likes working down here in the bas.e.m.e.nt. So this was open."

"How come?"

"All the creepy psychology is down here. Psycho-hormonal at this end. There is-"

The door opened on the other side of the room and Locke stepped through. He was wearing blue jeans and a tie-dyed T-s.h.i.+rt. He stuck his hand out to Bosch and Harry noticed the leather thong tied around his wrist.

"Harry, how goes it?"

"Fine. I'm fine. How're you? I'm sorry to barge in on you like this but I was wondering if you have a few minutes. I have some new information on that thing I bothered you with the other night."

"No bother at all. Believe me, it's great to get my fingers on a real case. Student labs can be boring."

He told Bosch to follow him and they went back through the door, down a hallway and into a suite of offices. Locke led him to the room in the back which was his office. Rows of textbooks and what Bosch guessed were collected theses lined shelves on the wall behind his desk. Locke dropped into a padded chair and put a foot up on the desk. A green banker's light on the table was lit, and the only other light came from a small cas.e.m.e.nt window set high on the wall to the right. Every now and then the light from the window would flicker as someone up on the ground level walked by and briefly blocked its path, a human eclipse.

Looking up at the window, Locke said, "Sometimes I feel like I'm working in a dungeon down here."

"I think the student out front thinks so, too."

"Melissa? Well, what do you expect? She's chosen child psychology as her major and I can't seem to convince her to cross to my side of the road. Anyway, I doubt you came to campus to hear stories about pretty young students, though I don't suppose it could hurt."

"Maybe some other time."

Bosch could smell that someone had smoked in the room, though he saw no ashtray. He took his cigarettes out without asking.

"You know, Harry, I could hypnotize you and alleviate that problem for you."

"No thanks, Doc, I hypnotized myself once and it didn't work."

"Really, are you one of the last of the dying breed of LAPD hypnotists? I heard about that experiment. Courts shot it down, right?"

"Yeah, wouldn't accept hypnotized witnesses in court. I'm the last one they taught who's still in the department. I think."

"Interesting."

"Anyway, there've been some developments since we last talked and I thought it would be good to touch base with you, see what you think. I think you steered us right with that p.o.r.no angle and maybe you'll come up with something now."

"What have you got?"

"We have-"

"First off, do you want some coffee?"

"Are you having any?"

"Never touch it."

"Then I'm fine. We've come up with a suspect."

"Really?"

He dropped his foot off the desk and leaned forward. He seemed genuinely interested.

"And he had a foot in both camps, like you said. He was on the task force and his beat, uh, his area of expertise is the p.o.r.nography business. I don't think I should identify him at this time because-"

"Of course not. I understand. He's a suspect, hasn't been charged with anything. Detective, don't worry, this entire conversation is off the record. Speak freely."

Bosch used a trash can next to Locke's desk as an ashtray.

"I appreciate it. So, we are watching him, seeing what he is doing. But it gets tricky here. See, because he is probably the department's top man on the p.o.r.no industry, it is natural we go to him for advice and information."

"Naturally, if you didn't, he would most a.s.suredly become suspicious of the fact that you are suspicious of him. Oh what a wonderful web we weave, Harry."

"Tangled."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Locke got up and started pacing around the room. He put his hands in his pockets and then took them out. He was staring at nothing, just thinking the whole time.

"Go on, this is great. What'd I tell you? Two independent actors playing the same role. The black heart does not beat alone. Go on."

"Well, like I said, it was natural to go to him and we did. We suspected that, with the discovery of the body this week and what you said, that there might be others. Other women who disappeared who were in that business."

"So you asked him to check it out? Excellent."

"Yes, I asked him yesterday. And today he gave me four more names. We already had the name of the concrete blonde found this week and one other that the suspect provided the other day. So you add the first two-Dollmaker victims seven and eleven-and now we have a total of eight. The suspect was under surveillance all day so we know he did the legwork needed to come up with these new names. He didn't just give me four names. He went through the motions."

"Of course he would do that. He would keep up the appearance of normal routine life whether he knew he was being followed or not. He would already know these names, you understand, but he would still go out and get them by doing the routine legwork. It's one of the signs of how smart he-"

He stopped, put his hands in his pockets and frowned while seemingly staring at the floor between his feet.

"You said six new names plus the first two?"

"Right."

"Eight kills in almost five years. Any chance there are others?"

"I was going to ask you that. This information comes from the suspect. Would he lie? Would he tell us less, give us fewer names than there actually were to screw with us, to mess up the investigation?"

"Ah." He continued pacing but didn't continue speaking for a half minute. "My gut instinct is to say no. No, he would not screw with you, as you say. He would do his job in earnest. I think if all he has given you are five new names, then that's all there are. You have to remember that this man thinks he is superior to you, the police, in every aspect. It would not be unusual for him to be perfectly honest with you about some aspects of the case."

"We have a rough idea of the times. The times of the killings. What it looks like is that he slowed his pace after the Dollmaker was killed. When he started hiding them, burying them, because he couldn't blend in any longer with the Dollmaker, the intervals lengthened. It looks like he went from less than two months between kills during the Dollmaker period to seven months. Maybe even longer. The last disappearance was almost eight months ago."

Locke looked up from the floor at Bosch.

"And all this recent activity," he said. "The trial in the papers. His sending the note. His involvement as a detective in the case. The high activity will speed the end of the cycle. Don't lose him, Harry. It could be time."

He turned and looked at the calendar that hung on the wall next to the door. There was some kind of maze-like design above the chart of the month's days. Locke started laughing. Bosch didn't get it.

"What?" he asked.

"Jeez, this weekend is a full moon, too." He spun around to look at Bosch. "Can you take me on the surveillance?"

"What?"

"Take me along. It would be the rarest of opportunities in the field of psychos.e.xual studies. To observe the stalking pattern of a s.e.xual s.a.d.i.s.t as it is actually taking place. Unbelievable. Harry, this could get me a grant from Hopkins. It could ... it could"-his eyes lit up as he looked at the cas.e.m.e.nt window-"get me out of this f.u.c.king dungeon!"

Bosch stood up. He was thinking he had made a mistake. Locke's vision of his own future was obscuring everything else. He had come for help, not to make Locke shrink of the year.

"Look, we're talking about a killer here. Real people. Real blood. I'm not going to do anything that might compromise the investigation. A surveillance is a delicate operation. When you add that it is a cop we are watching, then it makes it even harder. I can't bring you along. Don't even ask. I can tell you things here and fill you in whenever I can but there is no way I or my commander on this would approve bringing a civilian along for the ride."

Locke's eyes dropped and he looked like a chastised boy. He took a quick glance at the window again and walked around behind the desk. He sat down and his shoulders dropped.

"Yes, of course," he said quietly. "I completely understand, Harry. I got carried away there. The important thing is that we stop this man. We'll worry about studying him later. Now, a seven-month cycle. Wow, that's impressive."

Bosch flicked his ashes and sat back down.

"Well, we don't know for sure, considering the source. There still could be others."

"I doubt it."

Locke pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes. He did not move for several seconds.

"Harry, I'm not sleeping. Just concentrating. Just thinking."

Bosch watched him for a few moments. It was weird. He then noticed that lined on a shelf just above Locke's head were the books the psychologist had written. There were several, all with his name on the spine. There were several duplicates, too. Maybe, Bosch thought, so he could give them away. He saw five copies of Black Hearts, Black Hearts, the book Locke had mentioned during his testimony, and three copies of a book called the book Locke had mentioned during his testimony, and three copies of a book called The Private s.e.x Life of the Public p.o.r.n Princess. The Private s.e.x Life of the Public p.o.r.n Princess.

"You wrote about the p.o.r.no business?"

He opened his eyes.