Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

Inside the door a uniformed guard sat behind a desk working on a crossword puzzle torn from the Times Sunday Magazine. Maybe he had been working on it since then. He looked up at Bosch as if he was expecting him.

“Monte Kim,” Bosch said. “One of the residents is expecting me. Arno Conklin.”

“Yeah, he called down.” The guard consulted a clipboard, then turned it around and handed the pen to Bosch. “Been a long time since he’s had any visitors. Sign here, please. He’s up in nine-oh-seven.”

Bosch signed and dropped the pen on the clipboard.

“It’s kind of late,” the guard said. “Visitation is usually over by nine.”

“What’s that mean? You want me to leave? Fine.” He held his briefcase up. “Mr. Conklin can just roll his wheelchair down to my office tomorrow to pick this stuff up. I’m the one making a special trip here, buddy. For him. Let me up or not, I don’t care. He cares.”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, hold on there, partner. I was just saying it was late and you didn’t let me finish. I’m going to let you go up. No problem. Mr. Conklin specifically requested it and this ain’t no prison. I’m just saying all the visitors are gone, okay? People are sleeping. Just keep it down, is all. No reason to blow a gasket.”

“Nine-oh-seven, you said?”

“That’s right. I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way up.”

“Thanks.”

Bosch moved past the guard toward the elevators without apology. He was forgotten as soon as he was out of Bosch’s sight. Only one thing, one person, occupied his mind now.

The elevator moved about as quickly as the building’s inhabitants. When he finally got to the ninth floor, Bosch walked past a nurses’ station but it was empty, the night nurse apparently tending to a resident’s needs. Bosch headed the wrong way down the hall, then corrected himself and headed back the other way. The paint and linoleum in the hallway were fresh but even top-dollar places like this couldn’t completely eliminate the lingering smell of urine, disinfectant and the sense of closed lives behind the closed doors. He found the door to nine-oh-seven and knocked once. He heard a faint voice telling him to enter. It was more like a whimper than a whisper.

Bosch was unprepared for what he saw when he opened the door. There was a single light on in the room, a small reading lamp to the side of the bed. It left most of the room in shadow. An old man sat on the bed propped against three pillows, a book in his frail hands, bifocals on the bridge of his nose. What Bosch found so eerie about the tableau before him was that the bedcovers were bunched around the old man’s waist but were flat on the remainder of the bed. The bed was flat. There were no legs. Compounding this shock was the wheelchair to the right of the bed. A plaid blanket had been thrown over the seat. But two legs in black pants and loafers extended from beneath it and down to the chair’s footrests. It looked as if half the man was in his bed but he had left his other half in the chair. Bosch’s face must have shown his confusion.

“Prosthesis,” said the raspy voice from the bed. “Lost my legs…diabetes. Almost nothing of me left. Except an old man’s vanity. I had the legs made for public appearances.”

Bosch stepped closer to the light. The man’s skin was like the back of peeled wallpaper. Yellowish, pale. His eyes were deep in the shadows of his skeletal face, his hair just a whisper around his ears. His thin hands were ribbed with blue veins the size of earthworms under his spotted skin. He was death, Bosch knew. Death certainly had a better grip on him than life did.

Conklin put the book on the table near the lamp. It seemed to be a labor for him to make the reach. Bosch saw the title. The Neon Rain.

“A mystery,” Conklin said, a small cackle following. “I indulge myself with mysteries. I’ve learned to appreciate the writing. I never did before. Never took the time. Come in, Monte, no need to be afraid of me. I’m a harmless old man.”

Bosch stepped closer until the light was on his face. He saw Conklin’s watery eyes study him and conclude that he was not Monte Kim. It had been a long time but Conklin seemed to be able to tell.

“I came in Monte’s place,” he whispered.

Conklin turned his head slightly and Bosch saw his eyes fall on the emergency call button on the bed table. He must have figured he had no chance and no strength for another reach. He turned back to Bosch.

“Who are you, then?”

“I’m working on a mystery, too.”

“A detective?”

“Yes. My name’s Harry Bosch and I want to ask you about…”

He stopped. There was a change in Conklin’s face. Bosch could not tell if it was fear or maybe recognition but something had changed. Conklin brought his eyes up to Bosch’s and Bosch realized the old man was smiling.

“Hieronymus Bosch,” he whispered. “Like the painter.”

Bosch nodded slowly. He now realized he was as shocked as the old man.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know of you.”

“How?”

“Through your mother. She told me about you and your special name. I loved your mother.”

It was like getting hit in the chest with a sandbag. Bosch felt the air go out of him and he put a hand down on the bed to hold himself steady.

“Sit. Please. Sit.”

Conklin held out a shaky hand, motioning Bosch onto the bed. He nodded when Bosch did as he had been told.

“No!” Bosch said loudly as he rose off the bed almost as soon as he had sat down on it. “You used her and you killed her. Then you paid off people to bury it with her. That’s why I’m here. I came for the truth. I want to hear you tell it and I don’t want to hear any bullshit about loving her. You’re a liar.”

Conklin had a pleading look in his eyes, then he turned them away, toward the dark side of the room.

“I don’t know the truth,” he said, his voice like dried leaves blown along the sidewalk. “I take responsibility and therefore, yes, it could be said I killed her. The only truth I know is that I loved her. You can call me a liar but that is the truth. You could make an old man whole again if you believed that.”

Bosch couldn’t fathom what was happening, what was being said.

“She was with you that night. In Hancock Park.”

“Yes.”

“What happened? What did you do?”

“I killed her…with my words, my actions. It took me many years to realize that.”

Bosch moved closer until he was hovering over the old man. He wanted to grab him and shake some sense out of him. But Arno Conklin was so frail that he might shatter.

“What are you talking about? Look at me. What are you talking about?”

Conklin turned his head on a neck no wider than a glass of milk. He looked at Bosch and nodded solemnly.

“You see, we made plans that night. Marjorie and I. I had fallen for her against all better judgment and advice. My own and others. We were going to get married. We’d decided. We were going to get you out of that youth hall. We had many plans. That was the night we made them. We were both so happy that we cried. The next day was Saturday. I wanted to go to Las Vegas. Take the car and drive through the night before we could change our minds or have them changed for us. She agreed and went home to pick up her things…She never came back.”

“That’s your story? You expect me-”

“You see, after she had left, I made one call. But that was enough. I called my best friend to tell him the good news and to ask him to stand with me as my best man. I wanted him to go with us to Las Vegas. Do you know what he said? He declined the honor of being my best man. He said that if I married that…that woman, I’d be finished. He said he wouldn’t let me do that. He said he had great plans for me.”