Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

“You know how many miles of underground flood-control tunnels there are in L.A.?” he had asked. “It’s like a freeway system down there. These guys, if they are really down there, could be anywhere. We would be stumbling around in the dark. They’ll have the advantage and one of us could get hurt.”

Bosch and Wish knew he was right. They gave him no argument and set to work finding Tran. And they had failed.

“So now we go to Binh,” Bosch said after finishing his coffee.

“You think he’ll cooperate?” she said. “He’ll know that if we want Tran, then we must know about their past. About the diamonds.”

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” he said. “I’ll go see him tomorrow. You hungry?”

“We’ll go see him tomorrow,” she corrected and smiled. “And yes, I’m hungry. Let’s get out of here.”

They ate at a grill on Broadway in Santa Monica. Eleanor picked the place, and since it was near her apartment Bosch’s spirits were high and he was relaxed. There was a trio playing in the corner on a wooden stage, but the place’s brick walls made the sound harsh and mostly unnotable. Afterward, Harry and Eleanor sat in a comfortable silence while nursing espressos. There was a warmness between them that Bosch felt but couldn’t explain to himself. He didn’t know this woman who sat across from him. One look at those hard brown eyes told him that. He wanted to get behind them. They had made love, but he wanted to be in love. He wanted her.

Always seeming to know his thoughts, she asked, “Are you coming home with me tonight?”

Lewis and Clarke were on the second level of the parking garage across the street and down a half block from the Broadway Bar & Grill. Lewis was out of the car and crouched at the guardrail, watching through the camera. Its foot-long lens was steadied on a tripod and pointed at the front door of the restaurant, a hundred yards away. He was hoping the lights over the door, by the valet’s stand, would be enough. He had high-speed film in the camera, but the blinking red dot in the viewfinder was telling him not to take the shot. There still wasn’t enough light. He decided he would try anyway. He wanted a hand shot.

“You’re not going to get it,” Clarke said from behind him. “Not in this light.”

“Let me do my work. If I don’t get it, I don’t get it. Who cares?”

“Irving.”

“Well, fuck him. He tells us he wants more documentation. He’ll get it. I’m only trying to do what the man says.”

“We should try to go down there by that deli, get a closer-”

Clarke shut up and turned around at the sound of footsteps. Lewis kept his eye to the camera, waiting for the shot at the restaurant. The steps belonged to a man in a blue security uniform.

“Can I ask you what you guys are doing?” the guard asked.

Clarke badged him and said, “We’re on the job.”

The guard, a young black man, stepped closer to look at the badge and ID and raised his hand to hold it steady. Clarke jerked it up out of his reach.

“Don’t touch it, bro. Nobody touches my badge.”

“That says LAPD. You all check in with Santa Monica PD? They know you’re out here?”

“Who the fuck cares? Just leave us alone.”

Clarke turned around. When the guard didn’t leave, he turned back and said, “Son, you need something?”

“This garage is my beat, Detective Clarke. I can be wherever I want to be.”

“You can get the fuck outta here. I can-”

Clarke heard the camera shutter close and the sound of the automatic wind. He turned to Lewis, who stood up smiling.

“I got it-a hand shot,” Lewis said as he stood up. “They’re on the move, let’s go.”

Lewis collapsed the telescope legs of the tripod and quickly got in the passenger seat of the gray Caprice they had traded the black Plymouth for.

“See ya, bro,” Clarke said to the guard. He got in behind the wheel.

The car backed out, forcing the security guard to jump out of the way. Clarke looked in the rearview mirror smiling as he drove toward the exit ramp. He saw the guard talking into a hand-held radio.

“Talk all you want, buddy boy,” he said.

The IAD car pulled up to the exit booth. Clarke handed the parking stub and two dollars to the man in the booth. He took it but didn’t lift the black-and-white-striped pipe that served as a gate.

“Benson said I have to hold you guys here,” the man in the booth said.

“What? Who the fuck is Benson?” Clarke said.

“He’s the security. He said hold it here a minute.”

Just then, both IAD officers saw Bosch and Wish drive by the garage, heading up to Fourth Street. They were going to lose them. Clarke held out his badge to the booth attendant.

“We’re on the job. Open that goddam gate. Now!”

“He’ll be along. I gotta do what he say. Else I’ll lose my job.”

“You open that gate or you’re going to lose it, peckerwood,” Clarke yelled.

He put his foot down and revved the engine to show he meant to drive through it.

“Why you think we got a pipe ’stead a flimsy piece a wood. You go ahead. That pipe’ll take out your windshield, mister. You do what you want, but he’s coming right along.”

In the rearview, Clarke saw the security guard walking down the ramp. Clarke’s face was becoming blotchy red with anger. He felt Lewis’s hand on his arm.

“Cool it, partner,” Lewis said. “They were holding hands when they came out of the restaurant. We won’t lose them. They’re only going to her place. I’ll bet you a week’s driving that we’ll pick ’em up there.”

Clarke shook his hand off and let out a long breath; that seemed to bring a more placid tone to his face. He said, “I don’t care. I don’t fucking like this shit one bit.”

On Ocean Park Boulevard Bosch found a parking space across from Eleanor’s building. He pulled in but made no move to get out of the car. He looked at her, still feeling the glow of a few minutes before but unsure where they were going with this. She seemed to know this, maybe even feel it herself. She put her hand on top of his and leaned over to kiss him. She whispered, “Come in with me.”

He got out and came around to her side. She was already out and he closed the door. They rounded the front end of the car and then stood next to it, waiting for an approaching car to pass by. The car’s high beams were on and Bosch turned away and looked at Eleanor. So it was she who first noticed the high beams drift toward them.

“Harry?”

“What?”

“Harry!”

Then Bosch turned back to the approaching car and saw the lights-actually four beams from two sets of square side-by-side headlights-bearing down on them. In the few seconds that were left Bosch clearly came to the conclusion that the car was not drifting their way but rather driving at them. There was no time, yet time seemed to go into suspension. In what seemed to him to be slow motion, Bosch turned to his right, to Eleanor. But she needed no help. In unison, they leapt onto the hood of Bosch’s car. He was rolling over her and they were both tumbling toward the sidewalk when his car lurched violently and there was a high-pitched keening sound of tearing metal. Bosch saw a shower of blue sparks pass in his peripheral vision. Then he landed on top of Eleanor on the thin strip of sod that was between the curb and the sidewalk. They were safe, Bosch could sense. Scared, but safe for the moment.

He came up, gun out and steadied by both hands. The car that had come after them was not stopping. It was already fifty yards east, heading away and picking up speed. Bosch fired one round that he thought ricocheted off the rear window, the bullet too weak at that distance to penetrate the glass. He heard Eleanor’s gun fire twice at his side, but saw no damage to the hit-and-run car.