Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

“I’ve never felt better.”

Eventually, he moved off her, backing down over her body. He kissed both of her breasts, then sat up with her legs on either side of him. He removed the condom while using his body to shield her view of the process.

He got up and walked to the door he hoped was the bathroom and found it was a closet. The next door he tried was the bathroom and he flushed the condom down the toilet. He absentmindedly wondered if it would end up somewhere in Tampa Bay.

When he came back from the bathroom she was sitting up with the sheet bunched around her waist. He found his sport coat on the floor and got out his cigarettes. He gave her one and lit it. Then he bent over and kissed her breasts again. Her laugh was infectious and it made him smile.

“You know, I like it that you didn’t come equipped.”

“Equipped? What are you talking about?”

“You know, that you offered to go to the drugstore. It shows what kind of man you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you had come over here from L.A. with a condom in your wallet, that would’ve been so…I don’t know, premeditated. Like some guy just on the make. The whole thing would have had no spontaneity. I’m glad you weren’t like that, Harry Bosch, that’s all.”

He nodded, trying to follow her line of thought. He wasn’t sure he understood. And he wondered what he should think of the fact that she was equipped. He decided to drop it and lit his cigarette.

“How’d you hurt your hand like that?”

She had noticed the marks on his fingers. Bosch had taken the Band-Aids off while flying over. The burns had healed to the point that they looked like red welts on two of his fingers.

“Cigarette. I fell asleep.”

He felt he could tell her the truth about everything about himself.

“God, that’s scary.”

“Yeah. I don’t think it will happen again.”

“Do you want to stay with me tonight?”

He moved closer to her and kissed her on the neck.

“Yes,” he whispered.

She reached over and touched the zipper scar on his left shoulder. The women he was with in bed always seemed to do this. It was an ugly mark and he never understood why they were drawn to touch it.

“You got shot?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s even scarier.”

He hiked his shoulders. It was history and he never really thought about it anymore.

“You know, what I was trying to say before is that you’re not like most cops I’ve known. You’ve got too much of your humanity left. How’d that happen?”

He shook his shoulders again like he didn’t know.

“Are you okay, Bosch?”

He stubbed out his cigarette.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“I don’t know. You know what that guy Marvin Gaye sang about, don’t you? Before he got killed by his own dad? He sang about sexual healing. Said it’s good for the soul. Something like that. Anyway, I believe it, do you?”

“I suppose.”

“I think you need healing in your life, Bosch. That’s the vibe I’m getting.”

“You want to go to sleep now?”

She lay down again and pulled the sheet up. He walked around the room naked, turning out the lights. When he was under the sheet in the dark, she turned on her side so her back was to him and told him to put his arm around her. He moved up close behind her and did. He loved her smell.

“How come people call you Jazz?”

“I don’t know. They just do. Because it goes with the name.”

After a few moments she asked him why he had asked that.

“Because. You smell like both your names. Like the flower and the music.”

“What does jazz smell like?”

“It smells dark and smoky.”

They were silent for a long while after that and eventually Bosch thought she was asleep. But he still could not make it down. He lay with his eyes open, looking at the shadows of the room. Then she spoke softly to him.

“Bosch, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done to yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. What’s the worst thing? What’s the thing that keeps you awake at night if you think about it too hard?”

He thought for a few moments before answering.

“I don’t know.” He forced an uneasy and short laugh. “I guess I’ve done a lot of bad things. I suppose a lot of them are to myself. At least I think about them a lot…”

“What’s one of them? You can tell me.”

And he knew that he could. He thought he could tell her almost anything and not be judged harshly.

“When I was a kid-I grew up mostly in a youth hall, like an orphanage. When I was new there, one of the older kids took my shoes, my sneakers. They didn’t fit him or anything but he did it because he knew he could do it. He was one of the rulers of the roost and he took ’em. I didn’t do anything about it and it hurt.”

“But you didn’t do it. That’s not what I-”

“No, I’m not done. I just told you that because you had to know that part. See, when I got older and I was one of the big shots in the place, I did the same thing. I took this new kid’s shoes. He was smaller, I couldn’t even put ’ em on. I just took them and I…I don’t know, I threw them out or something. But I took them because I could. I did the same thing that was done to me…And sometimes, even now, I think about it and I feel bad.”

She squeezed his hand in a way he thought was meant to be comforting but said nothing.

“Is that the kind of story you wanted?”

She just squeezed his hand again. After a while he spoke.

“I think the one thing I did that I regret the most, though, was maybe letting a woman go.”

“You mean like a criminal?”

“No. I mean like we lived-we were lovers and when she wanted to go, I didn’t really…do anything. I didn’t put up a fight, you know. And when I think about it, sometimes I think that maybe if I had, I could’ve changed her mind…I don’t know.”

“Did she say why she was leaving?”

“She just got to know me too well. I don’t blame her for anything. I’ve got baggage. I guess maybe I can be hard to take. I’ve lived alone most of my life.”

Silence filled the room again and he waited. He sensed that there was something more she wanted to say or be asked. But when she spoke he wasn’t sure if she was talking about him or herself.

“They say when a cat is ornery and scratches and hisses at everybody, even somebody who wants to comfort it and love it, it’s because it wasn’t held enough when it was a kitten.”

“I never heard that before.”

“I think it’s true.”

He was quiet a moment and moved his hand up so that it was touching her breasts.

“Is that what your story is?” he asked. “You weren’t held enough.”

“Who knows.”

“What was the worst thing you ever did to yourself, Jasmine? I think you want to tell me.”

He knew she wanted him to ask it. It was true confessions time and he began to believe that the whole night had been directed by her to arrive at this one question.

“You didn’t try to hold on to someone you should have,” she said. “I held on to someone I shouldn’t have. I held on too long. Thing is, I knew what it was leading to, deep down I knew. It was like standing on the tracks and seeing the train coming at you but being too mesmerized by the bright light to move, to save yourself.”

He had his eyes open in the dark still. He could barely see the outline of her shoulder and cheek. He pulled himself closer to her, kissed her neck and in her ear whispered, “But you got out. That’s what’s important.”

“Yeah, I got out,” she said wistfully. “I got out.”

She was silent for a while and then reached up under the covers and touched his hand. It was cupped over one of her breasts. She held her hand on top of it.