Michael Connelly - The Black Ice

“After she became pregnant, she lived there-he made her-and she had the baby there. Afterward, four or five years, he discovered she had lied to him. One day he had some of his men follow her across when she went to Mexicali to visit her mother. There was no mother. Just a husband and another son, this one older than Calexico. That was when he sent them away. His own blood he sent away.”

Bosch thought about this for a long moment. The woman was staring off at the past.

“When was the last time you saw Calexico?”

“Oh, let me see, must have been years now. He eventually stopped coming around.”

“Do you think he knew of his father’s death?”

“He wasn’t at the funeral, not that I blame him.”

“I was told Cecil Moore left the property to the city.”

“Yes, he died alone and he left everything to the city, not a thing to Calexico or any of the ex-wives and mistresses. Cecil Moore was a mean man, even in death. Of course the city couldn’t do anything with that place. Too big and expensive to keep up. Calexico isn’t a boomtown like it once was and can’t keep a place like that. There was a thought that it would be used as a historical museum. But you couldn’t fill a closet with the history of this town. Never mind the museum. The city sold the place. I heard, for more than a million. Maybe they’ll operate in the black for a few years.”

“Who bought it?”

“I don’t know. But they never moved in. They got a caretaker comes around. I saw lights on over there last week. But, nope, nobody’s ever moved in as far as I know. It must be an investment. In what I don’t know. We’re sitting out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“One last question. Was there ever anybody else with Moore when he would watch the place?”

“Always alone. That poor boy was always out there alone.”

On the way back into town Bosch thought about Moore’s lonely vigils outside the house of his father. He wondered if his longings were for the house and its memories or the father who had sent him away. Or both.

Bosch’s mind touched his memory of his brief meeting with his own father. A sick old man on his death bed. Bosch had forgiven him for every second he had been robbed. He knew he had to or he would face the rest of his life wasting his pain on it.

The line of traffic to go back into Mexico was longer and slower than the day before. Bosch figured this was because of the bullfight, which drew people from the entire region. It was a Sunday evening tradition as popular here as Raiders football was in L.A.

Bosch was two cars from the Mexican border officer when he realized he still had the Smith in its holster on his back. It was too late to do anything about it. When he got to the man, he simply said, “Bullfight,” and was waved on through.

The sky was clear over Mexicali and the air cool. It looked like it would be perfect weather. Harry felt the tingle of anticipation in his throat. It was for two things: seeing the ritual of the fight and maybe seeing Zorrillo, the man whose name and lore had surrounded his last three days so thoroughly that Bosch found himself buying into his myth. He just wanted to see the pope in his own element. With his bulls. With his people.

Bosch took a pair of surveillance binoculars out of the glove compartment after parking at the Justice Plaza. The arena was only three blocks away and he figured they’d walk. After showing ID to the front-desk officer and being approved to go back, he found Aguila sitting behind the lone desk in the investigators’ squadroom. He had several handwritten reports in front of him.

“Did you get the tickets?”

“Yes, I have them. We have a box on the sun side. This will not be a problem because the boxes get little sun.”

“Is it close to the pope?”

“Almost directly across-if he is there today.”

“Yeah, if. We’ll see. You done?”

“Yes, I have completed the reports on the Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa investigation. Until a suspect is charged.”

“Which will probably never happen down here.”

“This is correct… I believe we should go now.”

Bosch held up the binoculars.

“I’m ready.”

“You will be so close you will not need those.”

“These aren’t for looking at bulls.”

As they walked toward the arena they moved into a steady stream of people heading the same way. Many of them carried little square pillows on which they would sit in the arena. They passed several young children holding armfuls of pillows and selling them for a dollar each.

After entering the gate, Bosch and Aguila descended a set of concrete stairs to an underground level where Aguila presented their box tickets to an usher. They were then led through a catacomblike passageway that curved as it followed the circumference of the ring. There were small wooden doors marked with numbers on their left.

The usher opened a door with the number seven on it and they went into a room no larger than a jail cell. Its floor, walls and ceiling were all unpainted concrete. The vaulted ceiling sloped downward from the back to a six-foot-wide opening that looked out into the ring. They were directly on the outer ring where matadors, toreros and other players in the fights stood and waited. Bosch could smell the dirt ring, its horse and bull odors, its blood. There were six steel chairs folded and leaning against the rear wall. They opened two and sat down after Aguila thanked the usher and closed and locked the door.

“This is like a pillbox,” Bosch said as he looked through the window slot into the boxes across the ring. He did not see Zorrillo.

“What is a pillbox?”

“Never mind,” Bosch said, realizing he had never been in one, either. “It’s like a jail cell.”

“Perhaps,” Aguila said.

Bosch realized he had insulted him. These were the best seats in the house.

“Carlos, this is great. We’ll see everything from here.”

It was also loud in the concrete box and in addition to the smells from the ring there was the pervasive odor of spilled beer. The little room seemed to reverberate with a thousand steps as the stadium above them filled. A band played from seats high up in the stadium. Bosch looked out into the ring and saw the toreros being introduced. He felt the growing excitement of the crowd and the echo in the room grew louder with the cheers as the matadors bowed.

“I can smoke in here, right?” Bosch asked.

“Yes,” Aguila said as he stood. “Cervesa?”

“I like that Tecate if they have it.”

“Of course. Lock the door. I will knock.”

Aguila nodded and left the room. Harry locked the door and wondered if he was doing it to protect himself, or simply to keep uninvited observers out of the box. He realized once he was alone that he did not feel protected in the fortresslike surroundings. It was not like a pillbox after all.

He held the binoculars up and viewed the openings into the other boxes across the ring. Most of these were still empty and he did not see anyone among those already in place who he believed was Zorrillo. But he noticed that many of these boxes were customized. He could see shelves of liquor bottles or tapestries on the back walls, padded chairs. These were the shaded boxes of the regulars. Soon Aguila knocked and Bosch let him in with the beers. And the spectacle began.

The first two fights were uneventful and uninspired. Aguila called them sloppy. The matadors were heartily booed by those in the arena when their final sword thrusts into each bull’s neck failed to kill and each fight became a prolonged, bloody display that had little resemblance to art or a test of bravery.

In the third fight, the arena came alive and the noise thundered in the box where Bosch and Aguila sat when a bull black as pitch-except for the whitish Z branded on its back-charged violently into the side of one of the picadors’ horses. The tremendous power of the beast pushed the horse’s padded skirt up to the rider’s thigh. The horseman drove his iron-pointed lance down into the bull’s back and leaned his weight on it. But this seemed only to enrage the beast further. The animal found new strength and made another violent lunge into the horse. The confrontation was only thirty feet from Bosch, but still he lifted the binoculars for a closer look. In what was like a slow-motion tableau captured in the scope of the binoculars’ frame, he saw the horse rear against its master’s rein and the picador topple off into the dust. The bull continued its charge, its horns impaling the padded skirt and the horse went over on top of the picador.