Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

One of the uniforms nodded and the others left the room. Bosch and Goshen looked at each other.

“I can’t read this thing,” Goshen said.

“I know,” Bosch said. “You said that.”

“This is bullshit. It’s just a roust. You couldn’t possibly have anything on me because I didn’t do it.”

“Then who’d you have do it? Gussie?”

“No, man, nobody. There’s no way you’ll be able to pin this on me. No fucking way. I want my lawyer.”

“As soon as you’re booked.”

“Booked for what?”

“For murder, Lucky.”

Goshen continued his denials and demands for a lawyer while Bosch ignored him and started looking around the room, checking the drawers of the dresser. He glanced back at Goshen every few seconds. It was like walking around a lion’s cage. He knew he was safe but that didn’t stop him from checking. He could tell Goshen was watching him in the mirror over the bed. When the big man finally quieted, Bosch waited a few moments and then started asking questions. He did it casually while he continued the search, as if he didn’t really care about the answers.

“So where were you Friday night?”

“Fuckin’ your mother.”

“She’s dead.”

“I know it. It wasn’t all that good.”

Bosch stopped what he was doing and looked at him. Goshen wanted him to hit him. He wanted the violence. It was the playing field he understood.

“Where were you, Goshen? Friday night.”

“Talk to my lawyer.”

“We will. But you can talk, too.”

“I was working the club. I have a fucking job, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. When did you work till?”

“I don’t know. Four. I go home after that.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Where were you, in that office?”

“That’s right.”

“Anybody see you? You ever come out before four?”

“I don’t know. Talk to my lawyer.”

“Don’t worry. We will.”

Bosch went back to the search and opened the closet door. It was a walk-in but it was only a third lined with clothes. Goshen lived light.

“Fuckin’ A it’s right,” Goshen called from the bed. “You go check. Check it out.”

The first thing Bosch did was to turn over the two pairs of shoes and the Nikes that were lined on the floor. He studied the sole patterns and none of them appeared even remotely like the pattern found on the bumper of the Rolls and Tony Aliso’s hip. He glanced back out at Goshen to make sure the big man wasn’t moving. He wasn’t. Bosch next reached to the shelf above the clothes rod. He took a box down and found it full of photos. They were eight by ten publicity shots of dancers. They weren’t nudes. Each young woman was posed provocatively in a skimpy costume. Each one’s name was printed in the white border below the photo, accompanied by the name and number of Models A Million, which Bosch guessed was a local agency that provided dancers to clubs. He looked through the box until he found a photo with the name Layla on it.

He studied the photo of the woman he had been looking for the previous night. She had long flowing brown hair with blond highlights, a full figure, dark eyes and bee sting lips. In the photo they were parted just enough to show a hint of white teeth. She was a beautiful woman and there was something familiar about her but he couldn’t place it. He decided that maybe the familiarity was the sexual malice that all the women in the photos and those whom he had seen the night before in the club seemed to convey.

Bosch took the box out of the closet and dropped it on the bureau. He held the picture of Layla out of it.

“What’s with the pictures, Lucky?”

“They’re all the girls I’ve been with. How ’bout you, cop? You had that many? I bet the ugliest one in there is better than the best one you’ve ever had.”

“So what do you want to do, compare pricks, too? I’m glad you’ve had your fill of women, Lucky, ’cause there aren’t going to be any more. I mean, sure, you’ll be able to fuck or be fucked. It just won’t be with women is all I’m saying.”

Goshen was quiet while he contemplated this. Bosch put the photo of Layla on the bureau next to the box.

“Look, Bosch, just tell me what you guys’ve got and I’ll tell you what I know so we can get this straightened out. You’re wrong on this. I didn’t do anything, so let’s get this over with, stop wasting each other’s time.”

Bosch didn’t answer. He went back into the closet and hiked up on his toes to see if there was anything else on the shelf. There was. A small cloth folded like a handkerchief. He took it down and unfolded it. It was soiled with oil. He smelled it and recognized it.

Bosch came out of the closet, tossed the rag so it hit Goshen in the face and fell onto the bed.

“What’s this?”

“I don’t know. What is it?”

“It’s a rag with gun oil on it. Where’s the gun?”

“I don’t have a gun and that isn’t mine, either. Never saw it before.”

“Okay.”

“What do you mean, okay? I never fuckin’ saw it before.”

“I mean, okay, Goshen. That’s all. Don’t get nervous.”

“It’s hard with you people sticking your nose up my ass.”

Bosch bent over the night table. He opened the top drawer, found an empty cigarette box, a set of pearl earrings and an unopened box of condoms. Bosch threw the box at Goshen. It bounced off his huge chest and fell to the floor.

“You know, Goshen, just buying them ain’t safe sex. You gotta put ’em on.”

He opened the bottom drawer. It was empty.

“How long you lived here, Goshen?”

“Moved in right after I kicked your sister out on her ass. Put her on the street. Last I seen, she was selling it over on Fremont outside the Cortez.”

Bosch straightened up and looked at him. Goshen was smiling. He wanted to provoke something. He wanted to control things, even handcuffed on the bed. Even if it cost him some blood.

“My mother, now my sister, who’s next, my wife?”

“Yeah, I got something planned for her. I’ll-”

“Shut up, would you? It’s not working, understand? You’re not getting to me. You can’t get to me. So save your strength.”

“Everybody can be gotten to, Bosch. Remember that.”

Bosch looked at him and then stepped into the master bathroom. It was a large room with a separate shower and tub, almost in the same configuration as the room Tony Aliso had used at the Mirage. The toilet was in a small closet-size room behind a door with a slatted grill. Bosch started there. He quickly lifted the top of the water tank and found nothing unusual. Before putting the porcelain top back in place he leaned over the toilet and looked down the wall behind the tank. What he saw made him immediately call for the uniform in the bedroom.

“Yes, sir?” the cop said.

He looked like he wasn’t yet twenty-five. His black skin had almost a bluish tint to it. He kept his hands on his equipment belt in a relaxed mode, his right just a few inches from his gun. It was the standard pose. Bosch saw that the nameplate above his breast pocket said Fontenot.

“Fontenot, take a look down here behind the tank.”

The cop did as he was asked without even taking his hands off his belt.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I think it’s a gun. Why don’t you step back and let me pull it out.”

Bosch flattened his hand and reached it down into the two-inch space between the wall and the tank. His fingers closed on a plastic bag attached to the back of the tank with gray duct tape. He managed to pull it free and get the bag out. He held it up for Fontenot to see. The bag contained a blue metal pistol equipped with a three-inch screw-on silencer.