The Concrete Blonde Part 39

"Ray. I-"

"Shut up! Just shut up! I'm trying to think."

Bosch felt the anger hitting him in the back like rain.

"You know my secret, Bosch. How the f.u.c.k does that make you feel?"

Bosch had no answer. His mind was tumbling, trying to come up with the next move, the next sentence, when he flinched at the sound of Sheehan's voice coming over the rover in his pocket.

"We lost him. He's not in the theater."

There was a sharp degree of urgency in Sheehan's voice.

Bosch and Mora were silent, listening.

"What do you mean, Team One?" Rollenberger's voice said.

"Who's that?" Mora asked.

"Rollenberger, RHD," Bosch answered.

Sheehan's voice said, "The movie got out ten minutes ago. People came out but he didn't. I went in, he's gone. His car is still here but he's gone."

"I thought one of you went in?" Rollenberger barked, his own voice tightening with panic.

"We did, but we lost him," Sheehan said.

"Liar," Mora said. A long moment of silence followed before he said, "Now, they'll probably start hitting the hotels, looking for me. Because to them, I'm the Follower."

"Yes," Bosch said. "But they know I'm here, Ray. I should call in."

As if on cue, Sheehan's voice came from the rover.

"Team Six?"

"That's Sheehan, Ray. I'm Six."

"Call him. Be careful, Harry."

Bosch slowly took the radio out of his pocket with his right hand and held it up to his mouth. He pressed the transmitter.

"One, did you find him?"

"Negative. In the wind. What's on TV?"

"Nothing. There's nothing on tonight."

"Then you ought to leave the house and help us out."

"Already on the way," Bosch said quickly. "Where are you at?"

"Bo-uh, Team Six, this is Team Leader, we need you to come in. We're bringing in the task force to help locate the suspect. All units will meet at the Dome parking lot."

"Be there in ten. Out."

He dropped his arm back to his side.

"A whole task force, huh?" Mora asked.

Bosch looked down and nodded.

"Look, Ray, that was all code. They know I went to your house. If I don't show up at the Dome in ten minutes they'll come looking for me here. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know ... but I guess that gives me at least fifteen minutes to decide, doesn't it?"

"Sure, Ray. Take your time. Don't make a mistake."

"Too late for that," he said, almost wistfully. Then he added, "Tell you what. Take out the tape."

Bosch ejected the tape and held it up over his left shoulder to Mora.

"No, no, I want you to do this for me, Harry. Open the bottom drawer and take out the magnet."

That's what the hockey puck was. Bosch put the tape on top of the stand next to the TV and reached down for the magnet. Feeling its heaviness as he lifted it, he wondered if he'd have a chance, if he could maybe turn and hurl it at Mora before the vice cop got off a shot.

"You'd be dead before you tried," Mora said, knowing his thoughts. "You know what to do with it."

Bosch ran the magnet over the top side of the tape.

"Let's put it in and see how we did," Mora instructed.

"Okay, Ray. Whatever you say."

Bosch put the tape into the VCR and pushed the play b.u.t.ton. The screen filled with the static of a dead channel. It cast a grayish shroud of dull light over Bosch. He hit the fast forward b.u.t.ton and the static continued. The tape had been wiped clean.

"Good," Mora said. "That ought to do it. That was the last tape."

"No evidence, Ray. You're in the clear."

"But you'll always know. And you'll tell them, won't you, Harry? You'll tell IAD. You'll tell the world. I'll never be clear, so don't f.u.c.kin' say I'll be clear. Everyone will know."

Bosch didn't answer. After a moment, he thought he heard the creaking of the wood floor. When Mora spoke, he was very close behind.

"Let me give you a tip, Harry... . n.o.body in this world is who they say they are. n.o.body. Not when they're in their own room with the door shut and locked. And n.o.body knows anybody, no matter what they think... . The best you can hope for is to know yourself. And sometimes when you do, when you see your true self, you have to turn away."

Bosch heard nothing for several seconds. He kept his eyes on the television screen and thought he could see ghosts forming and disintegrating in the static. He felt the grayish-blue glow burning behind his eyes and the start of a headache. He hoped he was going to live long enough to get it.

"You were always a good guy to me, Harry. I-"

There was a sound from the hallway, then a shout.

"Mora!"

It was Sheehan's voice. Immediately it was followed by light that flooded the room. Bosch heard the pounding of several feet on the wood floor, then there was a shout from Mora and the sound of impact as he was tackled. Bosch took his thumb off the rover's transmit b.u.t.ton and began to throw himself to the right, out of harm's way. And in that moment, a gunshot cracked across the room, echoing, it seemed, as loudly as anything he had ever heard.

28.

Once Bosch had cleared the rover channel, Rollenberger came up almost immediately.

"Bosch! Sheehan-Team One! What is happening there. What is-report immediately."

After a long moment went by, Bosch answered calmly.

"This is Six. Team Leader, be advised you should proceed to the subject's twenty."

"His home? What-did we have shots fired?"

"Team Leader, be advised to keep the channel open. And all task force units, disregard the callout. All units are ten-seven until further notice. Unit Five, are you up?"

"Five," Edgar responded.

"Five, could you meet me at our subject's twenty?"

"On my way."

"Six out."

Bosch turned off the rover before Rollenberger could get back on the channel.

It took the lieutenant a half hour to get from the Parker Center operations post to the house on Sierra Linda. By the time he arrived, Edgar was already there and a plan was in place. Bosch opened the front door just as Rollenberger reached it. The lieutenant strode through the entrance with a face turned red with equal parts of anger and be-fuddlement.

"Okay, Bosch, what the h.e.l.l is going on here? You had no authority to cancel the call out, to countermand my order."

"I thought the less people that know, the better, Lieutenant. I called out Edgar. I thought that would be enough to handle it and that way not too many would-"

"Know what, Bosch? Handle what? What is going on here?"

Bosch looked at him a moment before answering, then in an even voice said, "One of the men in your command conducted an illegal search of the suspect's residence. He was caught in the act when the suspect eluded the surveillance you were supervising. That's what happened."

Rollenberger reacted as if he had been slapped.

"Are you crazy, Bosch? Where's the phone? I want-"

"You call Chief Irving and you can forget about ever running a task force again. You can forget about a lot of things."

"Bulls.h.i.+t! I had nothing to do with this. You went freelancing on your own and got your fingers caught in the jar. Where's Mora?"

"He's upstairs in the room to the right, handcuffed to the Nautilus machine."

Rollenberger looked around at the others standing in the living room. Sheehan, Opelt, Edgar. They all gave him deadpan looks. Bosch said, "If you knew nothing about it, Lieutenant, Lieutenant, you'll have to prove that. Everything said on Symplex five tonight is on the reel-to-reel down at the city com center. I said I was in the house, you were listening. You even spoke to me a few times." you'll have to prove that. Everything said on Symplex five tonight is on the reel-to-reel down at the city com center. I said I was in the house, you were listening. You even spoke to me a few times."

"Bosch, you were talking in codes, I didn't-I knew nuh-"

Rollenberger suddenly sprang wildly at Bosch, his hands up and going for his neck. Bosch was ready and reacted more aggressively. He pounded both palms into the other man's chest and slammed him back against a hallway wall. A picture two feet to his side slid off the wall and clattered to the floor.

"Bosch, you fool, the bust is ruined now," he said while slumped against the wall. "It was all il-"

"There's no bust. He's the wrong man. I think. But we have to be sure. You want to help us search the place and think about how to contain this, or do you want to call out the chief and explain how badly you handled your command?"

Bosch stepped away, adding, "The phone's in the kitchen."

The search of the house took more than four hours. The five of them, working methodically and silently, searched every room, every drawer, every cabinet. What little evidence they gathered of Detective Ray Mora's secret life they put on the dining room table. All the while, their host remained in the upstairs gym room, cuffed to one of the chrome bars of the weight machine. He was accorded fewer rights than a murderer would have received had he been arrested in his home. No phone call. No lawyer. No rights. This was always the case when cops investigated cops. Every cop knew the most flagrant abuses of police power occurred when cops turned on their own.

Occasionally, as they began the initial work, they would hear Mora call out. He called for Bosch most often, sometimes Rollenberger. But no one came to him until finally Sheehan and Opelt-concerned that the neighbors would hear and maybe call the police-went into the room and gagged him with a bathroom towel and black electrical tape.

The silence of the searchers was not in deference to the neighbors, however. The detectives worked quietly because of the tensions among them. Though Rollenberger was visibly angry with Bosch, most of the tension was derived from Sheehan and Opelt having blown the surveillance, which directly led to Mora's discovery of Bosch inside his house. No one except Rollenberger was upset by Bosch's illegal entry of the house. Bosch's own home had been similarly violated at least twice that he knew about during times when he had been the focus of internal investigations. Just like the badge, it came with the job.

When they completed the search the dining room table was stacked with the p.o.r.no magazines and store-bought tapes, the video equipment, the wig, the women's clothing and Mora's personal phone book. The television that had been hit by Mora's stray shot was also there. By then Rollenberger had cooled somewhat, having apparently used the hours to consider his situation as well as to search.

"All right," he said as the other four convened around the table and surveyed its contents. "What have we got? Number one, are we confident Mora is not our man?"

Rollenberger looked around the room and his eyes stopped on Bosch.

"What do you think, Bosch?"

"You heard my story. He denied it and what was on the last tape before he made me erase it doesn't fit with the Follower. Looked completely consensual, though the boy and girl with him were obviously underage. He isn't the Follower."

"Then what is he?"

"Somebody with problems. I think he got bent by staying too long in vice and started making his own flicks."

"Was he selling them?"

"I don't know. I doubt it. No evidence of that here. He didn't go very far in hiding himself in the tape I saw. I think it was just his own stuff. He wasn't in it for money. It was something deeper."

No one said anything, so Bosch continued.

"My guess is that he made our tail sometime after we set up on him and began getting rid of the evidence. Tonight he was probably playing around with the tail, trying to figure what we were on him for. He got rid of most of the evidence, but if you put somebody on that phone book, my bet is you'll put it together. Some of those listings with only a first name. You track them and you'll probably find some of the kids he used in his videos."

Sheehan made a move to pick up the phone book.

"Leave it," Rollenberger said. "If anybody continues this it will be Internal Affairs."