Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“Excuse me?”

“Easy now, Detective Bosch,” Torrino said then. “You don’t want to do something rash.”

He put a hand on Bosch’s arm.

“Take your hand off me, you asshole.”

Torrino removed his hand and raised it along with his other one in a surrendering gesture.

“I just want to calm things down a little here, that’s all.”

Bosch leaned back into his seat but kept his gun in his hand. The muzzle had left a ring of skin indentation and gun oil on Marconi’s cheek. He wiped it away with his hand.

“Where is she, Marconi?”

“I just heard she wanted to get away for a few days, Bosch. No need to overreact like that. We’re friends here. She’ll be back. In fact, now that I know you’re so, uh, attached to her, I’ll personally guarantee she’ll be back.”

“In exchange for what?”

Hackett was still on duty at the Metro jail. Bosch told him he had to talk to Goshen for a couple of minutes in regard to a security issue. Hackett hemmed and hawed about it being against regulations to set up an after-hours visit but Bosch knew it was done on occasion for the locals, against the rules or not. Eventually Hackett gave way and took Bosch to a room lawyers used to interview clients and told him to wait. Ten minutes later, Hackett waltzed Goshen into the room and cuffed one wrist to the chair he was placed in. Hackett then folded his arms and stood behind the suspect.

“Sergeant, I need to talk to him alone.”

“Can’t do it. It’s a security issue.”

“We’re not going to talk anyway,” Goshen interjected.

“Sergeant,” Bosch said. “What I tell this man, whether he chooses to talk to me or not, could put you in danger if it becomes known you have this knowledge. Know what I mean? Why add that potential danger to your list? Five minutes. It’s all I want.”

Hackett thought a moment and without a word left them alone.

“Pretty smooth, Bosch, but I’m not talking to you. Weiss said you might try a backdoor run. He said you’d want to try to get into the candy jar before it’s time. I’m not playing with you. Get me to L.A., sit me in front of the people who can deal, and then we’ll deal. Everybody will get what they want then.”

“Shut up and listen, you stupid fuck. I don’t give a shit about any deal anymore. The only deal I’m worried about now is whether to keep you alive or not.”

Bosch saw he had his attention now. He waited a few moments to turn the squeeze up and then began.

“Goshen, let me explain something to you. In all of Las Vegas there is exactly one person I care about. One. You take her out of the picture and the whole place could dry up and blow away and I really wouldn’t worry about it. But there’s that one person I care about. And out of all the people in this place, she’s the one that your employer decides to grab and hold against me.”

Goshen’s eyes narrowed in concern. Bosch was talking about his people. Goshen knew exactly what was coming.

“So the deal I’m talking about is this,” Bosch said. “You for her. Joey Marks said if you never get to L.A., then my friend comes back. And vice versa. You understand what I’m telling you?”

Goshen looked down at the table and slowly nodded.

“Do you?”

Bosch pulled his gun and pointed it three inches from the big man’s face. Goshen went cross-eyed looking at the barrel’s black hole.

“I could blow your shit away right here. Hackett would come in here and I’d tell him you made a move for my gun. He’d go along. He set the meeting up here. It’s against the rules. He’d have to go along.”

Bosch withdrew the gun.

“Or tomorrow. This is how it goes tomorrow. At the airport we’re waiting for our flight. There’s a commotion over at the machines. Somebody’s won a big fucking jackpot and my partner and I make the mistake of looking over there. Meantime, somebody-maybe it’s your pal Gussie-puts a six-inch stiletto in your neck. End of you, my friend comes home.”

“What do you want, Bosch?”

Bosch leaned across to him.

“I want you to give me the reason not to do it. I don’t give a shit about you, Goshen, dead or alive. But I’m not going to let any harm befall her. I’ve made mistakes in my life, man. I once got somebody killed that shouldn’t have been killed. You understand that? It’s not going to happen again. This is redemption, Goshen. And if I have to give a piece of shit like you up to get it, I’ll do it. There’s only one alternative. You know Joey Marks, where would he have her?”

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know.”

Goshen rubbed a hand over his scalp.

“Think, Goshen. He’s done this kind of thing before. It’s routine for you people. Where would he hold somebody he doesn’t want anyone to find?”

“There was…there’s a couple of safe houses he uses. He’d, uh,…I think for this he’d use the Samoans.”

“Who are they?”

“These two big fuckers he uses. Samoans. They’re brothers. Their names are too hard to say. We call them Tom and Jerry. They’ve got one of the safe houses. Joey would use their place for this. The other place is mostly for counting cash, putting up people from Chicago.”

“Where is the house with the Samoans?”

“It’s in North Vegas, not too far from Dolly’s, actually.”

On a piece of notebook paper Bosch gave him, Goshen drew a crude map with directions to the house.

“You’ve been there, Goshen?”

“A few times.”

Bosch turned the piece of paper over on the table.

“Draw the layout of the house.”

Bosch pulled the dusty detective car he had picked up at the airport into the valet circle at the Mirage and jumped out. A valet approached but Bosch walked past him.

“Sir, your keys?”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

The valet was protesting that he couldn’t just leave the car there when Bosch disappeared through the revolving door. As he crossed through the casino toward the lobby, Bosch scanned the players for Edgar, his eyes stopping on every tall black man, of whom there were few. He didn’t see Edgar.

On a house phone in the lobby he asked for Edgar’s room and then breathed an almost audible sigh of relief when his partner picked up the phone.

“Jerry, it’s Bosch. I need your help.”

“What’s up?”

“Meet me out front at the valet.”

“Now? I just got room service. When you didn’t call I-”

“Right now, Jerry. And did you bring your vest from L.A.?”

“My vest? Yeah. What’s-”

“Bring your vest with you.”

Bosch hung up before Edgar could ask any questions.

As he turned to head back to the car, he came face to face with someone he knew. At first, because the man was well dressed, Bosch thought it was one of Joey Marks’s men, but then he placed him. Hank Meyer, Mirage security.

“Detective Bosch, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Just got in tonight. Came to pick somebody up.”

“You got your man then?”

“We think so.”

“Congratulations.”

“Listen, Hank, I gotta go. I’ve got a car blocking traffic in the front circle.”

“Oh, that’s your car. I just heard that on the security radio. Yes, please move it.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

Bosch made a move to pass him.

“Oh, Detective? Just wanted you to know we still haven’t had that betting slip come in.”

Bosch stopped.

“What?”

“You asked if we’d check to see if anyone cashed the bet your victim put down Friday night. On the Dodgers?”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“Well, we went through the computer tapes and located the sequence number. I then checked the number on the computer. No one has collected on it yet.”