Michael Connelly - The Concrete Blonde

“I think that’d be nice. Her family would appreciate it.”

“Her two older brothers are dealers. She told me they sell crack.”

He didn’t say anything. He knew that was probably the reason the girl was dead. Since the Bloods-Crips gang truce, the street dealing in South Central had lost its command structure. There was a lot of infringement of turfs. A lot of drive-bys, a lot of innocents left dead.

“I think I’ll ask her mother if I could read her book report. At the service. Or after. Maybe they’d know then what a loss this was.”

“They probably know already.”

“Yes.”

“You want to take a nap, try to sleep?”

“Yes, I think I will. What are you going to do?”

“I have some stuff to do. Make some calls. Sylvia, I’m going to have to go out tonight. Hopefully, not for long. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll be all right, Harry.”

“Good.”

Bosch looked in on her at about four and she was sleeping soundly. He could see where the pillow was wet from her crying.

He went down the hall to a bedroom that was used as a study. There was a desk with a phone on it. He closed the door so as not to disturb her.

The first call he made was to Seventy-seventh Street Division detectives. He asked for the homicide table and got a detective named Hanks. He didn’t give a first name and Bosch didn’t know him. Bosch identified himself and asked about the Fontenot case.

“What’s your angle, Bosch? Hollywood, you said?”

“Yeah, Hollywood, but there’s no angle. It’s private. Mrs. Fontenot called the girl’s teacher this morning. The teacher’s a friend of mine. She’s upset and I was, you know, just trying to find out what happened.”

“Look, I don’t have time to be holding people’s hands. I’m working a case.”

“In other words, you’ve got nothing.”

“You’ve never worked the seven-seven, have you?”

“No. This the part where you tell me how tough it is?”

“Hey, fuck you, Bosch. What I’m gonna tell you is that there is no such thing as a witness south of Pico. Only way we clear a case is we get lucky and pull some prints, or we get luckier and the dude walks in and says, ‘I’s sorry, I did it.’ You wanna guess how many times that happens?”

Bosch didn’t say anything.

“Look, the teacher ain’t the only one upset, okay? This is a bad one. They’re all bad but some are bad on bad. This is one of those. Sixteen-year-old girl home reading a book, babysittin’ her younger brother.”

“Drive-by?”

“Yeah, you got it. Twelve holes in the walls. It was an AK. Twelve holes in the walls and one round in the back of her head.”

“She never knew, did she?”

“No, she never knew what hit her. She must’ve caught the first one. She never ducked.”

“It was a round meant for one of the older brothers, right?”

Hanks was quiet for a couple of seconds. Bosch could hear a radio squawking in the background of the squad room.

“How you know that, the teacher?”

“The girl told her the brothers sell crack.”

“Yeah? They were walking around MLK this morning boo-hooing like they was altar boys. I’ll check it out, Bosch. Anything else I can do you for?”

“Yeah. The book. What was she reading?”

“The book?”

“Yeah.”

“It was called The Big Sleep . And that’s what she got, man.”

“You can do me a favor, Hanks.”

“What’s that?”

“If you talk to any reporters about this, leave the part about the book out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just leave it out.”

Bosch hung up. He sat at the desk and felt ashamed that when Sylvia had first talked of the girl, he had been suspicious of her fine school work.

After a few minutes thinking about that, he picked the phone up again and called Irving’s office. The phone was picked up on half a ring.

“Hello, this is Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Irvin Irving’s office, Lieutenant Hans Rollenberger speaking, how can I help you?”

Bosch figured Hans Off must be expecting Irving himself to call in and therefore trotted out the full-count official telephone greeting that was in the officer’s manual but was roundly ignored by most of the people who answered phones in the department.

Bosch hung up without saying anything and redialed so the lieutenant could go through the whole spiel again.

“It’s Bosch. I’m just checking in.”

“Bosch, did you just call a few moments ago?”

“No, why?”

“Nothing. I’m here with Nixon and Johnson. They just came in and Sheehan and Opelt are with Mora now.”

Bosch noticed how Rollenberger didn’t dare call them the presidents when they were in the same room with him.

“Anything happen today?”

“No. The subject spent the morning at home, then a little while ago he went up to the Valley, visited a few more warehouses. Nothing suspicious.”

“Where is he now?”

“At home.”

“What about Edgar?”

“Edgar was here. He went over to Sybil to interview the survivor. He found her last night but she apparently was too dopey to talk to. He’s giving it another try, now.”

Then in a lower voice, he said, “If she confirms an ID of Mora, do we move?”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea. It’s not enough. And we’d tip our hand.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he said louder now, so the presidents would know he was clearly in command here. “We stick to him like glue and we’ll be there when he makes his move.”

“Hopefully. How’re you working this with the surveillance teams? They giving you blow by blow?”

“Absolutely. They’re on rovers and I’m listening here. I know every move the subject makes. I’m staying on late tonight. I have a feeling.”

“About what?”

“I think t’night’s the night, Bosch.”

Bosch woke Sylvia at five but then sat on the bed and rubbed her back and neck for a half hour. After that, she got up and took a shower. Her eyes still looked sleepy when she came out to the living room. She wore her gray cotton T-shirt dress. Her blonde hair was tied in a tail behind her head.

“When do you have to go?”

“A little while.”

She didn’t ask where he was going or what for. He didn’t offer to tell her.

“You want me to make you some soup or something?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine. I don’t think I’m going to be hungry tonight.”

The phone rang and Harry answered it in the kitchen. It was a reporter from the Times who had gotten the number from Mrs. Fontenot. The reporter wanted to speak with Sylvia about Beatrice.

“About what?” Bosch asked.

“Well, Mrs. Fontenot said Mrs. Moore said several nice things about her daughter. We are doing a major story on this because Beatrice was such a good kid. I thought Mrs. Moore would want to say something.”

Bosch told her to hold on and went to find Sylvia. He told her about the reporter and Sylvia quickly said she wanted to talk about the girl.

She stayed on the phone fifteen minutes. While she was talking, Bosch went out to his car, turned on the rover and switched it to Symplex five, the DWP frequency. He heard nothing.

He pressed the transmit button and said, “Team One?”

A few seconds passed and he was about to try again when Sheehan’s voice came back on the rover.

“Who’s that?”

“Bosch.”

“What it be?”

“How’s our subject?”

The next voice was Rollenberger’s coming in over Sheehan.

“This is Team Leader, please use your code designations when on the air.”

Bosch smirked. The guy was an ass.