Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

Bosch felt his head raise, the gun barrel under his chin.

“Still with me?” Rourke said again, and then he poked the barrel into Bosch’s right shoulder. It sent a shock wave of red neon pain searing down his arm and through his chest, right down to his balls. He groaned and gasped for air, then took a slow-motion swing with his left hand at the gun. It wasn’t enough. He only got air. He swallowed back vomit and felt beads of sweat running through his damp hair.

“You don’t look so good, buddy,” Rourke said. “I’m thinking maybe I won’t have to do this after all. Maybe my man Delgado did it right with the first shot.”

The pain had brought Bosch back. It pulsed through him, leaving him alert, albeit temporarily. He could already feel himself fading. Rourke continued to lean over him, and he looked up and noticed the flaps hanging from the chest and waist of the FBI agent’s jumpsuit. Pockets. He was wearing the jumpsuit inside out. Something clicked in Bosch’s brain. He remembered Sharkey saying he saw an empty tool belt around the waist of the man who pulled the body into the pipe at the reservoir. That was Rourke. He wore the jumpsuit inside out that night, too. Because it said FBI on the back. He didn’t want to risk that that would be seen. It was a bit of information that was useless now, but for some reason it pleased Bosch to be able to put it in place in the puzzle.

“What are you smiling at, dead man?” Rourke asked.

“Fuck you.”

Rourke raised his foot and kicked at Bosch’s shoulder but Bosch was ready for it. He grabbed the heel with his left hand and pushed upward and out. Rourke’s other foot gave way on the slick bed of algae and slipped out from under him. He went down on his back with a splash. But he didn’t drop the gun as Bosch had hoped. That was it. That was all there was. Bosch made a halfhearted effort to grab the weapon, but Rourke easily peeled his fingers off the barrel and pushed him back against the wall. Bosch leaned to his side and vomited into the water. He felt a new flow of blood coming from his shoulder, running down his arm. That had been his play. There was nothing else.

Rourke got up out of the water. He moved in close and put the barrel of the gun against Bosch’s forehead. “You know, Meadows used to tell me about all that black echo stuff. All that bullshit. Well, Harry, here you are. This is it.”

“Why’d he die?” Bosch whispered. “Meadows. Why?”

Rourke stepped back and looked up and down the tunnel before speaking.

“You know why. He was a fuckup over there, he was a fuckup here. That’s why he died.” Rourke seemed to be reviewing a memory in his mind and he shook his head disgustedly. “It was all perfect except for him. He held back the bracelet. Little jade dolphins on gold.”

Rourke stared off into the darkness of the tunnel. A wistful look played on his face. “That’s all it took,” he said. “See, the plan relied on complete adherence for success. Meadows, goddammit-he didn’t do that.”

He shook his head, still angry at the dead man, and was quiet. It was at that moment that Bosch thought he could hear the sound of steps somewhere off in the distance. He wasn’t sure if he had heard it or if it was what he hoped to hear. He moved his left leg in the water. Not enough to cause Rourke to pull the trigger, but enough to make the water slosh and to cover the sound of the steps. If they were even there.

“He kept the bracelet,” Bosch said. “That was it?”

“That was enough,” Rourke said angrily. “Nothing was to turn up. Don’t you see? That was the beauty of the thing. Nothing would turn up. We’d get rid of everything except the diamonds. And those we’d keep until we were done with both jobs. But that fool couldn’t wait until the second job was completed. He palms that cheap bracelet and pawns it to score dope.

“I saw it on the pawn reports. Yeah, after the WestLand job, we went to LAPD and asked them to send over their monthly pawn lists so we could check ’em out, too. We started to get ’em at the bureau. The only reason I made the bracelet and your pawn guys didn’t was I was looking for it. The pawn detail has to look for a thousand things. I only looked for that one thing.

“I knew somebody had held it back. There was a lot reported stolen from that first vault that wasn’t in the shit we took out of there. Insurance scammers. But the dolphin bracelet I knew was legit. That old lady… crying. The story behind it with her husband and all that sentimental value shit. Interviewed her myself. And I knew she wasn’t scamming. So I knew one of my tunnel people had held the bracelet back.”

Keep him talking, Bosch thought. He keeps talking and you’ll end up walking. Out of here. Out of here. Someone’s coming, my arm’s humming. He laughed in his delirium and that made him vomit again. Rourke just went on.

“I bet on Meadows right from the start. Once on the needle… you know how that goes. So when the bracelet turned up he was the first one I went to.”

Rourke drifted off then, and Bosch made more water noise with his legs. The water now seemed warm to him and it was the blood that ran down his side that was cold.

Rourke finally said, “You know, I really don’t know whether to kiss you or kill you, Bosch. You cost us millions on this job, but then again my share of the first one sure has gone up now that three of my guys are dead. Probably even out in the end.”

Bosch did not think he could stay awake much longer. He felt tired, helpless and resigned. The alertness had run out of him. Even now when he managed to reach his hand up and throw it against his torn shoulder, there was no pain. He couldn’t get it back. He lapsed into contemplation of the water moving slowly around his legs. It felt so warm and he felt so cold. He wanted to lie down and pull it over him like a blanket. He wanted to sleep in it. But from somewhere a voice told him to hang in. He thought of Clarke clutching his throat. The blood. He looked at the beam of light in Rourke’s hand and tried one more time.

“Why so long?” he asked in a voice no louder than a whisper. “All these years. Tran and Binh. Why now?”

“No answer, Bosch. Things just come together sometimes. Like Halley’s comet. It comes around every seventy-two or whatever years. Things come together. I helped them bring their diamonds across. Set the whole thing up for them. I was paid well and never thought otherwise. And then one day the seed planted all those years ago came out of the ground, man. It was there for the taking and, man, we took it. I took it! That’s why now.”

A gloating smile played across Rourke’s face. He brought the muzzle of the weapon back to a point in front of Bosch’s face. All Bosch could do was watch.

“I’m out of time, Bosch, and so are you.”

Rourke braced the gun with both hands and spread his feet to the width of his shoulders. At that final moment Bosch closed his eyes. He cleared his mind of all thought but of the water. So warm, like a blanket. He heard two gunshots, echoing like thunder through the concrete tunnel. He fought to open his eyes and saw Rourke leaning against the other wall, both his hands up in the air. One held the M-16, the other the penlight. The gun dropped and clattered into the water, then the penlight. It bobbed on the surface, its bulb still on. It cast a swirling pattern on the roof and walls of the tunnel as it slowly moved away with the current.

Rourke never said a word. He slowly sagged down the wall, staring off to his right-the direction Bosch thought the shots had come from-and leaving a smear of blood that followed him down. In the dimming light, Bosch could see surprise on his face and then a look of resolve in his eyes. Pretty soon he sat like Bosch against the wall, the water moving around his legs, his dead eyes no longer staring at anything.