The Concrete Blonde

20

Bosch was lighting a cigarette as he used his shoulder to push through one of the glass doors at the entrance to Parker Center. Irving had jolted him with his small-world story. Bosch had always figured he’d run into somebody in the department who knew her or knew the case. Never did Irving fit into that scenario.

As he walked through the south lot to the Caprice he noticed Jerry Edgar standing at the corner of Los Angeles and First waiting for the cross light. Bosch looked at his watch and saw it was 5:10, quitting time. He thought Edgar was probably walking up to the Code Seven or the Red Wind for a draft before fighting the freeway. He thought that wasn’t a bad idea. Sheehan and Opelt were probably already sitting on stools at one of the bars.

By the time Bosch got to the corner, Edgar had a block-and-a-half lead on him and was walking up First toward the Seven. Bosch picked up the pace. For the first time in a long time, he felt the actual mental craving for alcohol. For just a while he wanted to forget Church and Mora and Chandler and his own secrets and what Irving had told him in the conference room.

But then Edgar walked right on by the billy club that served as the door handle at the Seven without even giving it a glance. He crossed Spring and walked alongside theTimes building toward Broadway. Then it’s the Red Wind, Bosch thought.

The Wind was okay as far as a watering hole went. They had Weinhard’s by the bottle instead of on draft, so the place lost points there. Another minus was that the yuppies from theTimes newsroom favored the place and it often was more crowded with reporters than cops. The big plus, however, was that on Thursdays and Fridays they had a quartet come in and play sets from six to ten. They were mostly retired club men who weren’t too tight, but it was as good a way as any to miss the rush hour.

He watched Edgar cross Broadway and stay on First instead of taking a left to go down to the Wind. Bosch slowed his pace a bit so Edgar could renew his block-and-a-half lead. He lit another cigarette and felt uneasy about the prospect of following the other detective but did it anyway. There was a bad feeling beginning to nag at him.

Edgar turned left on Hill and ducked into the first door on the east side, across from the new subway entrance. The door he went through was to the Hung Jury, a bar that was off the lobby of the Fuentes Legal Center, an eight-story office building solely occupied by attorney offices. Mostly, the tenants were defense and litigation attorneys who had chosen the nondescript if not ugly building because of its main selling point; it was only a half block from the county courts building, a block from the criminal courts building and a block and a half from the federal building.

Bosch knew all of this because Belk had told him all about it on the day the two of them had come to the Fuentes Legal Center to find Honey Chandler’s office. Bosch had been subpoenaed to give a deposition in the Norman Church case.

The uneasy feeling turned into a hollow in his gut as he passed the door to the Hung Jury and went into the main lobby of the Fuentes Center. He knew the layout of the bar, having dropped in for a beer and a shot after the deposition with Chandler, and he knew there was an entrance off the building’s lobby. He pushed through the lobby entrance door now and stepped into an alcove where there were two pay phones and the doors to the rest-rooms. He moved up to the corner and carefully looked into the bar area.

A juke box Bosch couldn’t see was playing Sinatra’s “Summer Wind,” a barmaid with a puffy wig and bills wrapped through her fingers-tens, fives, ones-was delivering a batch of martinis to a four top of lawyers sitting near the front entrance and the bartender was leaning over the dimly lit bar smoking a cigarette and reading theHollywood Reporter. Probably an actor or a screenwriter when he wasn’t tending bar, Bosch thought. Maybe a talent scout. Who in this town wasn’t?

When the bartender leaned forward to stub out his smoke in an ashtray, Bosch saw Edgar sitting at the far end of the bar with a draft beer in front of him. A match flared in the darkness next to him and Bosch watched Honey Chandler light a smoke and then drop her match into an ashtray next to what looked like a Bloody Mary.

Bosch moved back into the alcove, out of sight.

He waited next to an old plywood shack that was built on the sidewalk at Hill and First and served as a news and magazine stand. It had been closed and boarded for the night. As it grew dark and the streetlights came on, Bosch spent his time fending off panhandlers and passing prostitutes looking for one last businessman’s special before heading from downtown into Hollywood for the evening-and the rougher-trade.

By the time he saw Edgar come out of the Hung Jury, Bosch had a nice little pile of cigarette butts on the sidewalk at his feet. He flicked the one he had going into the street and stepped back alongside the news stand so Edgar wouldn’t notice him. Bosch saw no sign of Chandler and assumed that she had left the bar through the other door and gone down to the garage and her car. Edgar probably had wisely declined a ride over to the Parker Center lot.

As Edgar passed the stand Bosch stepped out behind him.

“Jerry, whereyat?”

Edgar jumped as if an ice cube had been pressed against his neck and whipped around.

“Harry? What’re you-hey, you wanna grab a drink? That’s what I was looking to do.”

Bosch let him stand there and squirm for a few seconds before saying, “You already had your drink.”

“What do you mean?”

Bosch took a step toward him. Edgar looked genuinely scared.

“You know what I mean. A beer for you, right? Bloody Mary for the lady.”

“Listen, Harry, look, I-”

“Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me Harry again. Understand? You want to talk to me, call me Bosch. That’s what the people who aren’t my friends call me, the people I don’t trust. Just call me that.”

“Can I explain? Har-uh, I’d like the chance to explain.”

“What’s to explain? You fucked me over. Nothing to explain about that. What’d you tell her tonight? You just run down everything we just talked about in Irving’s office? I don’t think she needs it, pal. The damage is already done.”

“No. She left a long time ago. I was in there most of the time alone thinking about how to get out of this. I didn’t tell her shit about today’s meeting. Harry, I didn’t-”

Bosch took one more step and in a quick motion brought his hand up, palm out, and hit Edgar in the chest, knocking him backward.

“I said don’t call me that!” he yelled. “You fuck! You-we worked together, man. I taught you… I’m in that courtroom getting fucked in the ass and I find out you’re the guy, you’re the goddamn leak.”

“I’m sorry. I-”

“What about Bremmer? You the one who told him about the note? Is that where you’re going for a drink now? Going to meet Bremmer? Well, don’t let me stop you.”

“No, man, I haven’t talked to Bremmer. Look, I made a mistake, okay? I’m sorry. She screwed me, too. It was like blackmail. I couldn’t-I tried to get out of it but she had me by the shorthairs. You gotta believe me, man.”

Bosch looked at him for a long moment. It was fully dark now but he thought he saw that Edgar’s eyes were shiny in the glow of the streetlights. Maybe he was holding back tears. But what were they tears for, Bosch wondered. For the loss of the relationship they had? Or were they tears of fear? Bosch felt the surge of his power over Edgar. And Edgar knew he had it.

In a low and very even voice Bosch said, “I want to know everything. You are going to tell me what you did.”

The quartet at the Wind was on a break. They sat at a table in the back. It was a dark, wood-paneled room like hundreds of others in the city. A red leatherette pad ran along the edge of the cigarette-scarred bar and the barmaids wore black uniforms and white aprons and they all had too much red lipstick on their thin lips. Bosch ordered a double shot of Jack Black straight up and a bottle of Weinhard’s. He also gave the barmaid money for a pack of cigarettes. Edgar, who now wore the face of a man whose life had run out on him, ordered Jack Black, water back.

“It’s the damn recession,” Edgar began before Bosch asked a question. “Real estate is in the toilet. I had to drop that gig and we had the mortgage and, you know how it is, man, Brenda had gotten used to a cert-”

“Fuck that. You think I want to hear about how you sell me out because your wife has to drive a Chevy instead of a BMW? Fuck you. You-”

“It’s not like that. I-”

“Shut up. I’m talking. You’re going to-”

They both shut up while the barmaid put the drinks and cigarettes down. Bosch put a twenty on her tray. He never took his dark, angry eyes off Edgar.

“Now, skip the bullshit and tell me what you did.”

Edgar threw back his shot and washed it down with water before starting.

“Uh, you see, uh, it was late Monday afternoon, this was after we’d been out to the scene at Bing’s and I was back at the office. And I got a call at the office and it was Chandler. She knew something was up. I don’t know how she knew, but she knew about the note we got and the body being found. She musta gotten tipped by Bremmer or something. She started asking questions, you know, ‘Was it confirmed as the Dollmaker?’ Things like that. I put her off. No comment…”

“And then?”

“Then, well, she offered me something. I’m two back on the mortgage and Brenda doesn’t even know.”

“What’d I tell you? I don’t want to hear your sad story, Edgar. I’m telling you, I don’t have any sympathy for that. You tell it and it will only make me madder.”

“All right, all right. She offered me money. I said I’d think about it. She said if I wanted to deal to meet her at the Hung Jury that night… You won’t let me say why, but I had reasons and so I went. Yeah, I went.”

“Yeah, and you fucked yourself up,” Bosch said, hoping to knock down the defiant tone that had crept into Edgar’s voice.

He had finished the last of his Jack Black and signaled the barmaid but she didn’t see him. The musicians were taking their places behind their instruments. The front man was a saxophone player and Bosch wished he was here under other circumstances.

“What did you give her?”

“Just what we knew that day. But she already had just about everything already. I told her you said it looked like the Dollmaker. It wasn’t a lot, Ha-and most of it was in the paper the next day, anyway. And I wasn’t Bremmer’s source on that. You have to believe me.”

“You told her I came out there? To the scene?”

“Yeah, I told her. What was the big secret about that?”

Bosch thought about all of this for a few minutes. He watched the band start up with a Billy Strayhorn number called “Lush Life.” Their table was far enough away from the quartet that it wasn’t too loud. Harry’s eyes scanned the rest of the bar to see if anyone else was into it and he saw Bremmer sitting at the bar nursing a beer. He was with a group of what looked like reporter types. One of the other men even had one of those long, skinny notebooks that reporters always carry sticking out of his back pocket.

“Speaking of Bremmer, there he is. Maybe he wants to check a detail or two with you after we’re done.”

“Harry, it’s not me.”

Bosch let him get away with the Harry that time. He was getting tired and depressed with this scene. He wanted to get it over with and get out of there, go see Sylvia.

“How many times did you talk to her?”

“Every night.”

“She turned it on you, didn’t she? You had to go see her.”

“I was stupid. I needed the money. Once I met her the first night she had me by the balls. She said she wanted updates on the investigation or she’d tell you I was the leak, she’d inform IAD. Fuck, she never even paid me.”

“What happened tonight to make her split early?”

“She said the case was over, going to closing arguments tomorrow, so it didn’t matter what was happening in the case. She cut me loose.”

“But it won’t end there. You know that, don’t you? Whenever she needs a plate run, an address from DMV, a witness’s unlisted number, she’s going to call you. She’s got you, man.”

“I know. I’ll have to deal with it.”

“All for what? What was the price, that first night?”

“I wanted one goddamn mortgage payment… Can’t sell the fuckin’ house, can’t make the mortgage, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“What about me? Aren’t you worried about what I’m going to do?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Bosch looked back at the quartet. They were staying with a Strayhorn set and were on to “Blood Count.” There was a journeyman quality to the sax man’s work. He stayed on point and his phrasing was clean.

“What are you going to do?” Edgar asked.

Bosch didn’t have to think, he already knew. He didn’t take his eyes from the sax man as he spoke.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It’s what you are going to do. I can’t work with you anymore, man. I know we got this thing with Irving but that’s it, that’s the end. After this is over you go to Pounds and tell him you want to transfer out of Hollywood.”

“But there aren’t openings in homicide anywhere else. I looked at the board, you know how rarely they come.”

“I didn’t say anything about homicide. I just said you’re going to ask for a transfer. You ask for the first thing open, understand? I don’t care if you end up on autos in the Seventy-seventh, you take the first thing you can get.”

Now he looked at Edgar, whose mouth was slightly open, and said, “That’s the price you pay.”

“But homicide is what I do, you know that. It’s where it’s at.”

“And you’re not where it’s at anymore. This isn’t negotiable. Unless you want to take your chances with IAD. But either you go to Pounds or I go to them. I can’t work with you anymore. That’s it.”

He looked back at the band. Edgar was silent and after a few moments Bosch told him to leave.

“You go first. I can’t walk with you back to Parker.”

Edgar stood up and hovered near the table for a few moments before saying, “Someday, you’re going to need all the friends you can get. That’s the day you’ll remember doing this to me.”

Without looking at him, Bosch said, “I know.”

After Edgar had gone Bosch got the barmaid’s attention and ordered another round. The quartet played “Rain Check” with some improvisational riffs that Bosch liked. The whiskey was beginning to warm his gut and he sat back and smoked and listened, trying not to think about anything to do with cops and killers.

But soon he felt a presence nearby and turned to see Bremmer standing there with his bottle of beer in hand.

“I take it by the look on Edgar’s face when he left that he won’t be coming back. Can I join you?”

“No, he won’t be back and you can do whatever you want, but I’m off duty, off the record and off the road.”

“In other words, you ain’t saying shit.”

“You got it.”

The reporter sat down and lit a cigarette. His small but sharp green eyes squinted through the smoke.

“It’s okay, ’cause I’m not working either.”

“Bremmer, you’re always working. Even now, I say the wrong word and you aren’t going to forget about it.”

“I suppose. But you forget the times we worked together. The stories that helped you, Harry. I write one story that doesn’t go the way you want and all of that is forgotten. Now I’m just ‘that damn reporter’ who-”

“I haven’t forgotten shit. You’re sitting here, right? I remember what you did for me and I’ll remember what you did against me. It all evens out in the end.”

They sat in silence for a while and listened to the music. The set ended just as the barmaid was putting Bosch’s third double Jack Black on the table.

“I’m not saying I would ever reveal it,” Bremmer said, “but how come my source on the note story was so important?”

“It’s not that important anymore. At the time I just wanted to know who was trying to nail me.”

“You said that before. That someone was setting you up. You really think that?”

“It doesn’t matter. What kind of story did you write for tomorrow?”

The reporter straightened up and and his eyes brightened.

“You’ll see it. Pretty much a straight court story. Your testimony about someone else continuing the killings. It’s going out front. It’s a big story. That why I’m here. I always come in for a pop after I hit the front page.”

“Party time, huh? What about my mother? Did you put that stuff in?”

“Harry, if that’s what you are worried about, forget it. I didn’t even mention that in the story. To be honest, it’s of course vitally interesting to you, but as far as a newspaper story goes, I thought it was too much inside baseball. I left it out.”

“Inside baseball?”

“Too arcane, like the stats those sports guys on TV throw around. You know, like how many fastballs Lefty So and So threw during the third inning of the fifth game of the 1956 World Series. I thought the stuff with your mother-Chandler’s attempt to use it as your motivation for dropping this guy-was going too far inside.”

Bosch just nodded. He was glad that part of his life would not be in the hands of a million newspaper buyers tomorrow, but he acted nonchalant about it.

“But,” Bremmer said, “I gotta tell you, if we get a verdict back on this that goes against you and the jurors start saying they thought you did it to avenge your mother’s death, then that is usable and I won’t have a choice.”

Bosch nodded again. It seemed fair enough. He looked at his watch and saw it was nearly ten. He knew he should call Sylvia and he knew he should get out of there before the next set started and he became entranced by the music again.

He finished his drink and said, “I’m gonna hit it.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Bremmer said. “I’ll walk out with you.”

Outside, the chilled night air cut through Bosch’s whiskey daze. He said good-bye to Bremmer and put his hands in his pockets as he started down the sidewalk.

“Harry, you walking all the way back to Parker Center? Hop in. My car is right here.”

Bosch watched Bremmer unlock the passenger door to his Le Sabre, which was parked right at the curb in front of the Wind. Bosch got in without a word of thanks and leaned over and unlocked the other side. When he was drunk he went through a stage where he said almost nothing, just vegetated in his own juices and listened.

Bremmer started the conversation during the four blocks to Parker Center.

“That Money Chandler is something else, isn’t she? She really knows how to play a jury.”

“You think she’s got it, don’t you?”

“It’s going to be close, Harry. I think. But even if it’s one of those statement verdicts that are popular these days against the LAPD, she’ll get rich.”

“Whaddaya mean?”

“You haven’t been in federal court before have you?”

“No. I try not to make it a habit.”

“Well, in a civil rights case, if the plaintiff wins-in this case, Chandler-then the defendant-in this case the city is paying your tab-has to pay the lawyer’s fees. I guarantee you, Harry, that in her closing argument tomorrow Money will tell those jurors that all they need to do is make a statement that you acted wrongly. And even damages of a dollar make that statement. The jury will see that as the easy way out. They can say you were wrong and only give a dollar in damages. They won’t know, because Belk is not allowed to tell them, that even if the plaintiff wins a dollar, Chandler bills the city. And that won’t be a dollar. More like a couple hundred thousand of them. It’s a scam.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s the justice system.”

Bremmer pulled into the lot and Bosch pointed out his Caprice in one of the front rows.

“You going to be all right to drive?” Bremmer asked.

“No problem.”

Bosch was about to close the door when Bremmer stopped him.

“Hey, Harry, we both know I can’t reveal my source. But I can tell you who it isn’t. And I’ll tell you it is not someone you’d expect. You know? Edgar and Pounds, if that’s who you think it is, forget it. You’d never guess who it was, so don’t bother. Okay?”

Bosch just nodded and shut the door.