Майкл Коннелли: Two Kinds of Truth

After showering and changing into street clothes, Bosch went to the closet next to the front door and pulled the fireproof box off the shelf. He used a key to open it. It contained old legal documents, including birth certificates and his discharge papers from the U.S. Army. Bosch kept his wedding ring in the box as well as his two Purple Hearts, and the two life-insurance policies that listed his daughter as beneficiary.

There was also a faded color photo of Bosch and his mother. It was the only photograph of her he had, so he had always wanted to keep it safe rather than display it. He looked at it now for a few moments, this time his eyes drawn to his own image at eight years old rather than to his mother’s. He studied the hopefulness in the boy’s face and wondered where it had gone.

He put the photo to the side and dug further into the strongbox until he found what he was looking for.

It was an old sock stuffed with a rubber-banded roll of money. Without pulling it out of the sock now or counting it, Bosch shoved it into the side pocket of his jacket. The roll of money was the earthquake fund, mostly large bills he had been accumulating slowly — a twenty here and a fifty there — since the last big earthquake in 1994. In L.A., nobody wanted to be stuck without cash when the big one hit. ATMs would be knocked off-line and banks would be closed in a time of civic catastrophe. Cash would be king and Bosch had been planning accordingly for over twenty years. By his estimate, there was close to ten thousand dollars in the sock.

He put the other items back into the box, taking one last look at the mother-and-son photo. He had no recollection of posing for the shot or where it had been taken. It was a professional shot with a white — now yellowed — background. Maybe young Harry had tagged along with her when she had gotten head shots for her efforts to be cast as a movie extra. Maybe she then paid the photographer a little more for a quick photo with her son.

Bosch drove up the hill to Mulholland and then followed the snake to Laurel Canyon Boulevard, which dropped him down the north side into the Valley. As soon as he got bars on his phone, he called Bella Lourdes on her cell. He expected that she would be off duty and home by now. Still, she answered right away.

“Harry, I was going to call you, but I thought maybe you’d be out celebrating.”

“Oh, you mean the case? No, no celebration. Just glad it’s over.”

“I’ll say. Well, I was also going to call to tell you they ID’d the other Russian off his prints. You know how you were calling him Igor for the sake of keeping all the parties straight when you were telling the story?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the guy’s name actually was Igor. I mean, what are the chances?”

“Probably pretty good if you’re Russian.”

“Anyway, Igor Golz — G-O-L-Z — age thirty-one. Interpol had him as another member of the Bratva and longtime associate of Sluchek’s. They met in a Russian prison and probably came over here together.”

“Well, I guess that wraps things up on the farmacia case, huh?”

“I was nailing down the paperwork today. You back in tomorrow, now that your court thingy is over?”

“Yeah, my thingy’s over and I’ll be in tomorrow.”

“Sorry, you know what I mean. It’ll be nice to have you back around.”

“Listen, I was calling to ask you something. The other day you mentioned that you had been around addicts, including someone in your own family. Do you mind if I ask who that was?”

“Yeah, my sister. Why do you want to know?”

“Is she all right now? I mean, not addicted?”

“As far as we know. We don’t see her that much. Once she got clean, she didn’t really want to be around the people who saw her at the low points, you know what I mean?”

“I think so.”

“She stole like crazy from my parents. Me too.”

“That’s what happens.”

“So we saved her but consequently we lost her. At least in a good way. She lives up in the Bay Area, and like I said, she’s supposedly four years sober and clean.”

“That part’s great. How did you get her clean?”

“Well, we didn’t actually do it. It was rehab.”

“Which one did you use? That’s why I’m calling. I need to get somebody into a place and I don’t know where to start.”

“Well, there’s the fancy ones that cost a fortune and those that don’t. You get what you pay for as far as creature comforts, but my sister was basically on the streets. So the place we got her into was like heaven. A room and a bed, you know? It was a mixture of circle jerks and private sessions with the shrinks. A piss test every day.”

“Where was it? What was it called?”

“It was called the Start. It was over there in Canoga Park. Four years ago it was like twelve hundred a week. There was no insurance, so we all chipped in. It’s gotta be more now. The opioid thing has made it hard to find a bed in some of these places.”

“Thanks, Bella. I’m going to check it out.”

“See you tomorrow at the station?”

“I’ll be there.”

Bosch was on the 101, transitioning north to the 405. He could see the plume of smoke from the brewery up ahead.

He called directory assistance and was connected to the Start. After being put on hold twice he was finally speaking to someone called the director of placement. She explained that the facility specialized in treating opioid addiction and that they did not reserve beds, choosing to work strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. At the moment, there were three beds open in the forty-two-bed facility.

Bosch asked about pricing and learned that the weekly all-inclusive fee had jumped more than fifty percent in four years to $1,880, paid in advance with a recommended four-week minimum of treatment. Bosch was reminded of Jerry Edgar’s sermon about the crisis being too big to shut down because everybody was making money on it.

Bosch thanked the director of placement and disconnected. Five minutes later he was pulling into the Road Saints compound. This time there were several motorcycles parked about the front yard and he wondered if he had stumbled into the monthly membership meeting. Before getting out of the Jeep, he called Cisco to see if he had arrived at the wrong time.

“No, man, I’ll come out and bring you in. Wednesdays are always big here for some reason. I don’t even know why.”

Bosch was leaning against the Jeep when Cisco came out.

“So how’s she doing?” he asked.

“Uh, resentful as ever,” Cisco said. “But I think that’s a good sign. I remember Mick Haller came by to visit me when I was in day four or five. I told him through the door that he could take his job and shove it up his ass. ’Course, a week later I had to ask him to pull it out of his ass and give it back to me.”

Bosch laughed.

“So have you heard about this place over in Canoga Park called the Start?” he asked.

“Yeah, the rehab,” Cisco said. “I’ve heard of it. But I don’t really know anything about it.”

“I heard from somebody that it was good. It got results for them. It costs about two grand a week, so it better.”

“That’s a lot of bread.”

“When Elizabeth is finished here, I want you to take her there, try to get her in. It’s first come, first served, but there are beds open now.”

“I think she’s going to need at least another day here, maybe two, before she gets cleaned up and can take that next step.”

“That’s fine. Whenever she’s ready.”

Bosch reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the sock containing the cash roll. He handed it to Cisco.

“Use this. It should get a month at that place. Maybe longer if she needs it.”