Michael Connelly - Blood Work

“You okay?”

“It’s horrible.”

“Yes. It is.”

“How can I help you?”

Taking a pen from his shirt pocket, McCaleb pointed at the screen and tapped it on the watch on Kang’s wrist.

“The watch?”

“Yes. I want to know if it is possible to blow this frame up or do something that would let me read the watch. I want to know what time it was at this point of the video.”

“Time? What about this?”

He pointed to the timeline running along the bottom of the screen.

“I can’t trust that time. That’s why I need the watch.”

Banks leaned forward and began fiddling with the dials on the console that controlled the focus and image amplification.

“This is not the original,” he said.

“The tape? No, why?”

“I’m not getting much amplification. Can you get the original?”

“I don’t think so.”

McCaleb looked at the screen. Banks had made the image clearer and larger. The screen was filled with Kang’s upper body and outstretched arm. But the face of the watch was still a blurred gray.

“Well, then what I can do, if you want to leave it with me, is work with it a little bit, take it to one of the guys in the lab. Maybe bring it up a little, clarify it a bit more with some pixel redefinition. But this is the best I can do with it on this equipment.”

“You think it’s worth doing, even without the original? Will we get anything?”

“I don’t know but it’s worth a try. They can do some wild stuff back there. You’re after him, right? This man on the video?”

He gestured toward the screen, though at the moment the shooter wasn’t on it.

“Yeah, I’m after him.”

“Then we’ll see what we can do. Can you leave this?”

“Yeah. I mean… uh, can you dub off a copy for me so I can have it with me? I might need to show it to somebody else.”

“Sure. Let me go get a tape.”

Banks got up and left the booth. McCaleb sat there staring at the screen. He had watched how Banks had used the equipment. He backed the tape up and amplified a frame showing the masked shooter. It didn’t help much. He hit the fast forward for a bit and stopped it on a close-up of Gloria’s face. It felt intrusive to be so close at such a moment, to be staring at a woman who had just had her life taken. Her face was in left profile and the one eye that he could see was still open.

McCaleb noticed the three earrings on her left ear. One was a stud, a small silver crescent moon. Next, going down the curve of the ear, was a small hoop that he guessed was silver and last, dangling below the lobe, was a cross. He knew it was the style among young women to have multiple earrings on at least one ear.

While he continued to wait for Banks, he played with the dials once more and backed the tape up until there was a view of Gloria’s right side, just as she entered the frame. He could see only one earring on her right ear, another crescent moon.

Banks came back in with a tape and quickly inserted it into the second cassette cradle while he finished rewinding the first tape. It took him about thirty seconds to make a high-speed dub copy. He ejected it, slid it into a box and handed it to McCaleb.

“Thanks,” McCaleb said. “How long you think before somebody gets a chance to work on it?”

“We’re kind of busy. But I’ll go look at the job board and see if we can’t get someone on it as soon as possible. Maybe by tomorrow or Saturday. Is that okay?”

“It’s okay. Thanks, Tony, I appreciate it.”

“No problem. I don’t know if I still have your card. You want me to call you?”

In that moment McCaleb decided to continue the deception. He didn’t tell Banks that he was no longer an FBI agent. He thought Banks might push the project a little harder if he thought that the job was being done for the bureau.

“Tell you what, let me give you a private number. If you call and I don’t pick up, just leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Sounds good. I hope we can help.”

“Me too. And Tony? Do me a favor and don’t show the tape to anybody who doesn’t need to see it.”

“I won’t,” Banks said, his face reddening a bit. McCaleb realized either he had needlessly embarrassed Banks with a request that did not need to be spoken or he had made the request just as Banks was thinking about whom he could show the tape to. McCaleb thought it was the latter.

McCaleb gave him his number, they shook hands and McCaleb went back down the hall on his own. As he passed the door from which he had heard the feigned sounds of passion, he noticed there was only silence now.

As McCaleb opened the door of the Taurus, he heard the radio playing and noticed Lockridge had a harmonica on his thigh, ready to be played if the right tune came along. Buddy closed a book called Death of a Tenor Man. He has marked a spot about halfway through.

“What happened to Inspector Fujigama?”

“What?”

“The book you had yesterday.”

“ Inspector Imanishi Investigates. I finished it.”

“Imanishi then. You’re a fast reader.”

“Good books read fast. You read crime novels?”

“Why would I want to read made-up stuff when I’ve seen the real stuff and can’t stand it?”

Buddy started the car. He had to turn the ignition twice before it kicked over.

“It’s a much different world. Everything is ordered, good and bad clearly defined, the bad guy always gets what he deserves, the hero shines, no loose ends. It’s a refreshing antidote to the real world.”

“Sounds boring.”

“No, it’s reassuring. Where to now?”

AFTER EATING LUNCH at Musso and Frank’s, a place McCaleb loved but hadn’t been back to in two years, they drove over the hill from Hollywood to the Valley and got to the building that housed Deltona Clocks at quarter to two. McCaleb had called the business before they set out that morning from the marina and learned that Mikail Bolotov was still working a two-to-ten shift.

Deltona Clocks was a large warehouse structure located behind a small street-front showroom and retail shop. After Lockridge parked the Taurus in front of the retail store, McCaleb reached down to the leather bag on the floor in front of him and removed his gun. It was already snugly held in a canvas holster which he then clipped onto his belt.

“Hey, what are you expecting in there?” Lockridge said after he saw the weapon.

“Nothing. It’s more a prop than anything else.”

McCaleb next pulled out an inch-thick sheaf of the sheriff’s investigative records and made sure the report on the interview with Bolotov and his employer, a man identified as Arnold Toliver, was on top. He was ready. He looked over at Lockridge.

“Okay, sit tight.”

He noted as he got out of the Taurus that this time Buddy hadn’t offered to come in with him. He thought maybe he should carry the gun more often.

Inside the retail shop there were no customers. Cheap clocks of almost every size were on display. Most had an industrial look, as though they were more likely to be found in a classroom or an auto supply store than in somebody’s home. On the wall behind the counter at the rear of the space was a display of eight matching clocks showing the time in eight cities around the world. There was a young woman sitting on a folding chair behind the counter. McCaleb thought about how slowly time must pass for her with no customers and all of those clocks.

“How do I find Mr. Toliver?” he asked as he came up to the counter.

“Arnold or Randy?”

“ Arnold.”

“I have to call back. Who are you with?”

“I’m not here to buy clocks. I’m conducting a follow-up on a Sheriff’s Department inquiry of February third.”