Michael Connelly - The Last Coyote

Bosch stared at him, too angry to speak.

“Well, the only thing I can admit to is that I did use her death to my advantage. I saw it as an opportunity, you could say.”

“I know all about it, Mittel. You used her to get control of Conklin. But eventually even he saw through your lies. It’s over now. It doesn’t matter what you do to me here, my people will be coming. You can count on it.”

“The old give-up-the-place-is-surrounded-ploy. I don’t think so. This badge business…something tells me that you’ve exceeded your bounds on this one. I think maybe this is what they call an unofficial investigation and the fact that you used a false name before and were carrying a dead man’s badge tend to bear me out…I don’t think anyone is coming. Are they?”

Bosch’s mind raced but he drew a blank and remained silent.

“I think you’re just a small-time extortionist who stumbled onto something somehow and wants a payoff to go away. Well, we’re going to give you a payoff, Detective Bosch.”

“There are people who know what I know, Mittel,” Bosch blurted. “What are you going to do, go out and kill them all?”

“I’ll take that suggestion under advisement.”

“What about Conklin? He knows the whole story. Anything happens to me, I guarantee he’ll go right to the cops.”

“As a matter of fact, you could say Arno Conklin is with the police right now. But I don’t think he’s saying much.”

Bosch dropped his head and slumped a little. He had guessed that Conklin was dead but had hoped he was wrong. He felt the billiard ball move in his sleeve and he folded his arms again to cover up.

“Yes. Apparently, the former district attorney threw himself from his window after your visit.”

Mittel stepped aside and pointed out into the lights below. Far off Bosch could see the cluster of lighted buildings that were Park La Brea. And he could see blue and red lights flashing at the base of one of the buildings. It was Conklin’s building.

“Must have been a truly traumatic moment,” Mittel continued. “He chose death rather than give in to extortion. A principled man to the end.”

“He was an old man!” Bosch yelled angrily. “Goddamnit, why?”

“Detective Bosch, keep your voice down or Jonathan will have to lower it for you.”

“You’re not getting away this time,” Bosch said in a lower, tighter, controlled voice.

“As far as Conklin goes, I assume the final declaration will be suicide. He was very sick, you know.”

“Right, a guy with no legs walks over to the window and decides to throw himself out.”

“Well, if the authorities don’t believe that, then maybe they will come up with an alternate scenario when they find your fingerprints in the room. I’m sure you obliged us by leaving a few.”

“Along with my briefcase.”

That hit Mittel like a slap across the face.

“That’s right. I left it there. And there’s enough in it to bring them up this mountain to see you, Mittel. They’ll come for you!”

Bosch yelled the last line at him as a test.

“Jon!” Mittel barked.

Almost before the word was out of Mittel’s mouth, Bosch was clubbed from behind. The impact came on the right side of the neck and he went down to his knees, careful to keep his arm bent and the heavy ball in place. He slowly, more slowly than was needed, got up. Since the impact had been on the right, he assumed that Jonathan had hit him with his gun hand.

“By providing me with the location of the briefcase, you have answered the most important question I had,” Mittel said. “The other, of course, was what was in the briefcase and how it would concern me. Now, the problem I have is that without the briefcase or the ability to get it I have no way of checking the veracity of what you tell me here.”

“So I guess you’re fucked.”

“No, Detective, I think that would more accurately describe your situation. However, I have one other question before you go off. Why, Detective Bosch? Why were you bothering with something so old and so meaningless?”

Bosch looked at him for a long time before answering.

“Because everybody counts, Mittel. Everybody.”

Bosch saw Mittel nod in the direction of Jonathan. The meeting was over. He had to make his play.

“Help!”

Bosch yelled it as loudly as he could. And he knew the gunman would make his move toward him immediately. Anticipating the same swing of the gun to the right side of the neck, Bosch spun to his right. As he moved he straightened his left arm and used the centrifugal force of the move to let the billiard ball roll down his sleeve into his hand. In continuing the move, he swung his arm up and out. And as he turned his face he saw Jonathan inches behind him, swinging his own hand down, the fingers laced around the Beretta. He also saw the surprise on Jonathan’s face as he realized his swing would surely miss and that his momentum prevented him from correcting the course.

After Jonathan’s arm went by harmlessly and he was vulnerable, Bosch’s arm arced downward. Jonathan made a last-second lunge to his left but the billiard ball in Bosch’s fist still caught him with a glancing blow to the right side of his head. It made a sound like a lightbulb popping and Jonathan’s body followed the momentum of his falling arm. He fell face first on the grass, his body on top of the gun.

Almost immediately, the man tried to get up and Bosch delivered a vicious kick to his ribs. Jonathan rolled off the gun and Bosch came down on his body with his knees, swinging his fist into the back of his head and neck two more times before realizing that he still gripped the billiard ball and that he had hurt the man enough.

Breathing as if he had just come up for air, Bosch glanced around and saw the gun. He quickly grabbed it up and looked for Mittel. But he was gone.

The slight sound of running on grass caught his attention and he looked to the far northern line of the lawn. He caught a glimpse of Mittel then, just as he disappeared into the darkness at the spot where the flat, manicured grass gave way to the rugged brush of the hilltop.

“Mittel!”

Bosch jumped up and followed. At the point where he had last seen Mittel, he found a path worn into the brush. He realized it was an old coyote trail that had been widened over time by human feet. He raced down it, the yawning drop-off to the city below no more than two feet on his right.

He saw no sign of Mittel and followed the trail along the edge of the drop-off until the house was no longer in sight behind him. Finally he stopped after coming across nothing that indicated Mittel was even near or had taken this path.

Breathing heavily, his head pounding where he was wounded, Bosch came upon a steep bluff rising off the side of the trail and saw that it was ringed with old beer bottles and other debris. The bluff was a popular lookout spot. He put the gun in his waistband and then used his hands for balance and purchase as he climbed ten feet to its top. He did a slow three-sixty-degree turn while on top of the bluff but saw nothing. He listened but the hiss of the city’s traffic precluded any chance of his hearing Mittel moving in the brush. He decided to give it up, to get back to the house and call out an air unit before Mittel could get away. They’d find him with a spotlight if the chopper could get out here quickly enough.

As he gingerly slid back down the bluff, Mittel suddenly came at him from the darkness to the right. He had been hiding behind a thick growth of brush and Spanish sword plants. He dove into Bosch’s midsection, knocking him down onto the trail, his weight on top of him. Bosch felt the man’s hands going for the gun still in his waistband. But Bosch was younger and stronger. The surprise attack was Mittel’s last card. Bosch closed his arms around him and rolled to his left. Suddenly, the weight was off and Mittel was gone.