Michael Connelly - The Wrong Side of Goodbye

“I know how this looks, Officer,” he began. “But I have an appointment across the street in about five minutes and I was just—”

“That’s wonderful,” the cop said. “Do you mind stepping out of the car?”

Bosch looked at him for a moment. He saw the nameplate above his breast pocket said Cooper.

“You’re kidding, right?” he asked.

“No, sir, I’m not,” Cooper said. “Please step out of the car.”

Bosch took a deep breath, opened the door, and did as he was told. He raised his hands to shoulder height and said, “I’m a police officer.”

Cooper immediately tensed, as Bosch knew he would.

“I’m unarmed,” Bosch said quickly. “My weapon’s in the glove box.”

At that moment he was thankful for the edict typed on the check stub telling him to come to the Vance appointment unarmed.

“Let me see some ID,” Cooper demanded.

Bosch carefully reached into an inside pocket in his suit coat and pulled his badge case. Cooper studied the detective’s badge and then the ID.

“This says you’re a reserve officer,” he said.

“Yep,” Bosch said. “Part-timer.”

“About fifteen miles off your reservation, aren’t you? What are you doing here, Detective Bosch?”

He handed the badge case back and Bosch put it away.

“Well, I was trying to tell you,” he said. “I have an appointment — which you are going to make me late for — with Mr. Vance, who I’m guessing you know lives right over there.”

Bosch pointed toward the black gate.

“Is this appointment police business?” Cooper asked.

“It’s actually none of your business,” Bosch replied.

They held each other’s cold stares for a long moment, neither man blinking. Finally Bosch spoke.

“Mr. Vance is waiting for me,” he said. “Guy like that, he’ll probably ask why I’m late and he’ll probably do something about it. You got a first name, Cooper?”

Cooper blinked.

“Yeah, it’s fuck you,” he said. “Have a nice day.”

He turned and started back toward the patrol car.

“Thank you, Officer,” Bosch called after him.

Bosch got back into his car and immediately pulled away from the curb. If the old car still had had the juice to leave rubber, he would have done so. But the most he could show Cooper, who remained parked at the curb, was a plume of blue smoke from the ancient exhaust pipe.

He pulled into the entrance channel at the gate to the Vance estate and drove up to a camera and communication box. Almost immediately he was greeted by a voice.

“Yes?”

It was male, young, and tiredly arrogant. Bosch leaned out the window and spoke loudly even though he knew he probably didn’t have to.

“Harry Bosch to see Mr. Vance. I have an appointment.”

After a moment the gate in front of him started to roll open.

“Follow the driveway to the parking apron by the security post,” the voice said. “Mr. Sloan will meet you there at the metal detector. Leave all weapons and recording devices in the glove compartment of your vehicle.”

“Got it,” Bosch said.

“Drive up,” the voice said.

The gate was all the way open now and Bosch drove through. He followed the cobblestone driveway through a finely manicured set of emerald hills until he came to a second fence line and a guard shack. The double-fencing security measures here were similar to those employed at most prisons Bosch had visited — of course, with the opposite intention of keeping people out instead of in.

The second gate rolled open and a uniformed guard stepped out of a booth to signal Bosch through and to direct him to the parking apron. As he passed, Bosch waved a hand and noticed the Trident Security patch on the shoulder of the guard’s navy blue uniform.

After parking, Bosch was instructed to place his keys, phone, watch, and belt in a plastic tub and then to walk through an airport-style metal detector while two more Trident men watched. They returned everything but the phone, which they explained would be placed in the glove box of his car.

“Anybody else get the irony here?” he asked as he put his belt back through the loops of his pants. “You know, the family made their money on metal — now you have to go through a metal detector to get inside the house.”

Neither of the guards said anything.

“Okay, I guess it’s just me, then,” Bosch said.

Once he buckled his belt he was passed off to the next level of security, a man in a suit with the requisite earbud and wrist mic and the dead-eyed Secret Service stare to go with them. His head was shaved just so he could complete the tough-guy look. He did not say his name but Bosch assumed he was the Sloan mentioned on the intercom earlier. He escorted Bosch wordlessly through the delivery entrance of a massive gray-stone mansion that Bosch guessed would rival anything the Du Ponts or Vanderbilts had to offer. According to Wikipedia, he was calling on six billion dollars. Bosch had no doubt as he entered that this would be the closest to American royalty he would ever get.

He was led to a room paneled in dark wood with dozens of framed 8 x 10 photographs hung in four rows across one wall. There were a couple of couches and a bar at the end of the room. The escort in the suit pointed Bosch to one of the couches.

“Sir, have a seat, and Mr. Vance’s secretary will come for you when he is ready to see you.”

Bosch took a seat on the couch facing the wall of photos.

“Would you like some water?” the suit asked.

“No, I’m fine,” Bosch said.

The suit took a position next to the door they had entered through and clasped one wrist with the other hand in a posture that said he was alert and ready for anything.

Bosch used the waiting time to study the photographs. They offered a record of Whitney Vance’s life and the people he had met over the course of it. The first photo depicted Howard Hughes and a young teenager he assumed was Vance. They were leaning against the unpainted metal skin of a plane. From there the photos appeared to run left to right in chronological order. They depicted Vance with numerous well-known figures of industry, politics, and the media. Bosch couldn’t put a name to every person Vance posed with but from Lyndon Johnson to Larry King he knew who most of them were. In all the photos, Vance displayed the same half smile, the corner of his mouth on the left side curled up, as if to communicate to the camera lens that it wasn’t his idea to pose for a picture. The face grew older photo to photo, the eyelids more hooded, but the smile was always the same.

There were two photos of Vance with Larry King, the longtime interviewer of celebrities and newsmakers on CNN. In the first, Vance and King were seated across from each other in the studio recognizable as King’s set for more than two decades. There was a book standing upright on the desk between them. In the second photo Vance was using a gold pen to autograph the book for King. Bosch got up and went to the wall to look more closely at the photos. He put on his glasses and leaned in close to the first photo so he could read the title of the book Vance was promoting on the show.

The title jogged loose a memory and Bosch recalled something about Whitney Vance writing a family history that the critics trashed more for what was left out than for what it contained. His father, Nelson Vance, had been a ruthless businessman and controversial political figure in his day. He was said but never proven to be a member of a cabal of wealthy industrialists who were supporters of eugenics — the so-called science of improving the human race through controlled breeding that would eliminate undesirable attributes. After the Nazis employed a similar perverted doctrine to carry out genocide in World War II, people like Nelson Vance hid their beliefs and affiliations.