Майкл Коннелли - Dark Sacred Night

“Renée, you in there? It’s all clear.”

It was Bosch.

Bosch helped Ballard out of the back of the truck and down to the ground. The man he had hit with his gun was still on the floor and unconscious. Ballard looked at him after climbing down.

“Is that Dillon?” Bosch asked.

“It’s him,” Ballard said.

She turned and looked at Bosch.

“How did you find me?” she asked. “I thought maybe you were up at the SIS scene.”

“I was but I got out of there because you and I were supposed to work,” Bosch said. “But when I got to Hollywood you were gone. I talked to Money and he gave me the card you left.”

Bosch pointed to the man on the floor.

“I pull up here and he was opening the garage. I could tell that something was wrong by the way he was hesitating and looking around before driving in. I figured that you were inside. I snuck in behind his truck before he brought down the door.”

“Well, I guess we’re even then. You saved me.”

“You had your weapons. You would have taken care of things, I think.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do. When I said ‘weapons,’ I meant more than your gun. I know what you can do.”

Bosch looked down at Dillon’s body, still unconscious and prone on the floor.

“I don’t have cuffs,” Bosch said.

“I do,” Ballard said.

She stepped forward, taking the cuffs off the back of her belt.

“Hold on a second,” Bosch said.

He moved toward the shelves where supplies were stocked and stopped to pick up Dillon’s gun and snug it into his waistband. He then grabbed a roll of duct tape and came back.

“Keep your cuffs,” he said. “Let’s do it this way.”

“Why?” Ballard asked. “We have to call it in.”

“‘We’? Not you. You get out of here. I’ll handle it.”

“No. I’m not going to let them blame you for what I did. If anybody gets fired, it’s going to be me.”

Bosch spoke as he used the tape to bind Dillon’s wrists and then feet.

“I can’t get fired. I don’t have a job, remember? You need to go now and leave all this to me.”

“What about evidence? There’s a mattress and food wrappings in the truck. I found a pink fingernail. He didn’t stop with Daisy Clayton.”

“I know. He just got better at it.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the incinerator, and then back up at Ballard.

“I bet he didn’t have this place back then — with Daisy,” he said. “Or that incinerator.”

Ballard nodded somberly.

“I wonder how many,” she said.

Bosch took strips of tape and put them across Dillon’s mouth and eyes.

“I’m going to try to find that out as soon as you’re out of here,” he said.

“Harry...” Ballard said.

“Go now. Go back to the station and ask Money if I ever came by. Say you never saw me.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“I’m sure. It’s the only way. When I have everything ready, I’ll call it in to Van Nuys Division. And I’ll let you know. No blowback on you. If they get mad at someone, it will be me, but they’ll have to think real hard about that if I offer them this guy in a package wrapped in audiotape.”

“What tape?”

“I’ve got a tape recorder in my car.”

Dillon suddenly groaned and shook his body. He was coming to and realizing his situation. He tried to yell something through the tape that was gagging him.

Bosch looked at Ballard and put a finger on his mouth for silence, then twirled it in the air. It was time for her to get moving.

Ballard pointed to the locked door at the front of the warehouse and made a signal like she was turning a lock with a key. Bosch nodded and leaned down next to Dillon’s body. He started checking his pockets for keys. Dillon loudly objected, yelling nonsensically through the duct tape.

“Sorry, buddy,” Bosch said. “Just checking the pockets for weapons and other bad things.”

He pulled out a set of keys and signaled Ballard to follow him, then unlocked the door and walked her out. He saw his car where he had left it parked in front of one of the other warehouses down the line. He spoke quietly to Ballard.

“Keep your eye on him for a second while I pull my car up and grab some gloves and the recorder. Just stay here by the door.”

“Will do,” Ballard whispered.

Bosch walked off. Ballard stopped him.

“Harry.”

He looked back at her.

“Thanks.”

“You already said that.”

“That was for before. This is for you taking the weight on this.”

“What weight? It’ll be a breeze.”

He headed off toward his car. Ballard watched him go.

Bosch was alone with Roger Dillon now. He had him propped up against one of the big barrels full of cleaning solvents. Bosch had forcefully pulled the tape off his captive’s mouth, eliciting loud cries of pain and subsequent cursing. He’d left his eyes covered.

Before yanking the tape, Bosch had moved around the warehouse, planning and prepping for the interview. He had pulled the chair away from the desk and set it five feet away from Dillon, front and center. He had cut the tape around Dillon’s ankles and spread his legs on the concrete floor.

Bosch put two metal mop buckets on the floor on either side of his chair. One had two inches of water in it. Into the other he had poured a bottle of sulfuric acid that he had found on one of the storage shelves.

He then sat down in front of Dillon.

“Are you awake now?” Bosch asked.

“What the fuck is this?” Dillon answered. “Who are you?”

“Doesn’t matter who I am. Tell me about Daisy Clayton.”

“I don’t know what or who you’re talking about. Untie me right the fuck now.”

“Sure you do. Nine years ago? The child hooker on Sunset you grabbed from out front of the liquor store? She had to be your first, I’m thinking, or one of your first. Before you had this setup, back when you had to worry about where and how to get rid of the bodies.”

There was a momentary pause in Dillon’s response that told Bosch he had thrown a strike.

“You’re crazy and you’re going to jail,” Dillon said. “All this — illegal. Doesn’t matter what I tell you. I could say I killed Kennedy, Tupac, and Biggie Smalls and it wouldn’t matter. This is all illegal search and seizure. I’m not even a cop and I know that. So just call it in, motherfucker. Let’s get this over with.”

Bosch leaned back in the desk chair. It squeaked.

“One problem with all of that,” he said. “I’m not a cop. I’m not here to call anything in. I’m here for Daisy Clayton. That’s it.”

“Bullshit,” Dillon said. “I can tell. You’re a cop.”

“Tell me about Daisy.”

“Nothing to tell. I don’t know her.”

“You grabbed her that night. You took her.”

“Whatever, man. I want a lawyer.”

“There are no lawyers here. We’re past that.”

“Then do what you gotta do, bro. I’m not saying shit.”

His chair squeaking, Bosch reached down to the bucket containing the acid. He carefully lifted it and moved it to a spot between Dillon’s spread legs.

“What are you doing?” Dillon asked.

Bosch said nothing. The fumes from the acid did the talking.

“Is that the sulfuric?” Dillon asked, panic rising in his voice. “I can smell it. What the fuck are you doing?”

“What’s it matter, Roger?” Bosch said. “You say I’m a cop, right? I won’t do anything to hurt you. Not if it’s illegal.”

“All right, okay, I believe you. You’re not a cop. Just get that stuff away from me. You don’t want to fuck with it. The fumes alone can — Wait a minute. What did you pour it into? It eats through metal. You know that, right?”