Michael Connelly - The Concrete Blonde

He let that sit out there for a while. He knew Bremmer would bite.

“And what did you know, Sherlock?”

Bosch smiled. He was in complete control now.

“I knew why you did that to her. It was simple. You wanted your note back, didn’t you? But she wouldn’t tell you where it was. See, she knew she was dead whether she gave it to you or not, so she took it-everything you did to her, she took-and she didn’t tell you. That woman had a lot of guts and in the end she beat you, Bremmer. She’s the one who got you. Not me.”

“What note?” Bremmer said weakly after a long moment.

“The one you fucked up with. You missed it. It’s a big house to search, especially when you’ve got a dead woman lying in the bed. That’d be hard to explain if somebody happened to drop by. But don’t worry, I found it. I’ve got it. Too bad you don’t read Hawthorne. It was sitting there in his book. Too bad. But like I said, she beat you. Maybe there is justice sometimes.”

Bremmer had no snappy comeback. Bosch looked at him and thought that he was doing well. He was almost there.

“She kept the envelope, too, in case you were wondering. I found that, too. And so I started wondering, why would he torture her for this note when it was the same one he dropped off for me? It was just a photocopy. Then I figured it out. You didn’t want the note. You wanted the envelope.”

Bremmer looked down at his hands.

“How am I doing? Am I losing you?”

“I have no idea,” Bremmer said, looking back up. “You’re fucking delirious as far as I’m concerned.”

“Well, I only have to worry about making sense to the DA, don’t I? And what I’m going to explain to him is that the poem on the note was in response to the story you wrote that appeared in the paper on Monday, the day the trial started. But the postmark on the envelope was the Saturday before. See, there’s the puzzle. How would the Follower know to write a poem making reference to the newspaper article two days before it was in the newspaper? The answer is, of course, that he, the Follower, had prior knowledge of the article. He wrote that article. That also explains how you knew about the note in the next day’s story. You were your own source, Bremmer. And that is mistake number three. Three strikes and you’re out.”

The silence that followed was so complete that Bosch could hear the low hiss coming from Bremmer’s bottle of beer.

“You’re forgetting something, Bosch,” Bremmer finally said. “I’m holding the gun. Now, who else have you told this crazy story to?”

“Just to finish the housekeeping,” Bosch said, “the new poem you dropped off for me this past weekend was just a front. You wanted the shrink and everybody else to make it look like you killed Chandler as a favor to me or some psycho bullshit, right?”

Bremmer said nothing.

“That way nobody would see the true reason you went after her. To get the note and the envelope back… Shit, you being a reporter she was familiar with, she probably invited you in when you knocked on her door. Kind of like you inviting me in here. Familiarity breeds danger, Bremmer.”

Bremmer said nothing.

“Answer a question for me, Bremmer. I’m curious why you dropped one note off and mailed the other. I know, being a reporter, you could blend in at the station, drop it on the desk and nobody would remember. But why mail it to her? Obviously, it was a mistake-that’s why you went back and killed her. But why’d you make it?”

The reporter looked at Bosch for a long moment. Then he glanced down at the gun as if to reassure himself that he was in control and would get out of this. The gun was powerful bait. Bosch knew he had him.

“The story was supposed to run that Saturday, that’s what it was scheduled for. But some dumb-ass editor held it, ran it Monday. I had mailed the letter before I looked at the paper that Saturday. That was my only mistake. But you’re the one who made the big mistake.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

“Coming here alone…”

Now it was Bosch who was silent.

“Why come here alone, Bosch? Is this how you did it with the Dollmaker? You went alone so you could kill him in cold blood?”

Bosch thought a moment.

“That’s a good question.”

“Well, that was your second mistake. Thinking I was as unworthy an opponent as him. He was nothing. You killed him and therefore he deserved to die. But now it is you who deserve to die.”

“Give me the gun, Bremmer.”

He laughed as if Bosch had asked a crazy question.

“You think-”

“How many were there? How many women are buried out there?”

Bremmer’s eyes lit with pride.

“Enough. Enough to fulfill my special needs.”

“How many? Where are they?”

“You’ll never know, Bosch. That will be your pain, your last pain. Never knowing. And losing.”

Bremmer raised the gun so that its muzzle pointed to Bosch’s heart. He pulled the trigger.

Bosch watched his eyes as the metallic click sounded. Bremmer pulled the trigger again and again. The same result, the growing terror in his eyes.

Bosch reached into his sock and pulled the extra clip, the one that was loaded with fifteen XTP bullets. He wrapped his fist around the cartridge and in one swift motion came off the couch and swung his fist into Bremmer’s jaw. The impact of the blow knocked the reporter backward in his chair. His weight made the chair crash backward and he spilled to the floor. He dropped the Smith and Bosch quickly gathered it up, ejected the empty clip and put in the live ammunition.

“Get up! Get the fuck up!”

Bremmer did as he was told.

“Are you going to kill me now? Is that it, another kill for the gunslinger?”

“That’s up to you, Bremmer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how I want to blow your head off, but for me to do that you have to make the first move, Bremmer. Just like with the Dollmaker. It was his play. Now it’s yours.”

“Look, Bosch, I don’t want to die. Everything I said-I was just playing a game. You’re making a mistake here. I just want to get it cleared up. Please, just take me to county and it will all get cleared up. Please.”

“Did they plead like that when you had the strap around their necks? Did they? Did you make them plead for their lives, or for their deaths? What about Chandler? At the end, did she beg you to kill her?”

“Take me to county. Arrest me and take me to county.”

“Then get against that wall, you fat fuck, and put your hands behind your back.”

Bremmer obeyed. Bosch dropped his cigarette into an ashtray on the table and followed Bremmer to the wall. When he closed the handcuffs over the reporter’s wrists, Bremmer’s shoulders dropped as he apparently felt safe. He started squirming his arms, chafing his wrists on the cuffs.

“See that?” he said. “You see that, Bosch? I’m making marks on my wrists. You kill me now, they’ll see the marks and know it was an execution. I’m not some dumb fuck like Church that you can slaughter like an animal.”

“No, that’s right, you know all the angles, don’t you?”

“All of them. Now take me down to county. I’ll be out before you wake up tomorrow. Know what all this is, what you’ve got? Just the wild speculation of a rogue cop. Even a federal jury agreed you go too far, Bosch. This won’t work. You’ve got no evidence.”

Bosch turned him away from the wall so that their faces were no more than two feet apart, their beer breath mixing.

“You did it, didn’t you? And you think you’re going to walk, don’t you?”

Bremmer stared at him and Bosch saw the gleam of pride in his eyes again. Locke had been right about him. He was gloating. And he couldn’t shut up even though he knew his life might depend on it.