The Crossing

41

The Center for Cosmetic Creation was located in a two-story structure a block from Cedars-Sinai in West Hollywood. The entire first level served as a parking garage with the medical facilities just a short elevator ride up. Bosch found Schubert’s car easily in the parking garage — he had a reserved spot with his name stenciled on the wall in front of it. There was a sleek-looking silver Mercedes-Benz sitting in the space. Bosch drove past it and found an open space nearby. He parked and waited. As he did so, he looked through the file of reports and photos he had put together, and worked on his pitch. That was what it was going to be. A pitch to Schubert. An offer to save his life.

While Bosch waited he saw a few patients of the cosmetic surgery center come out of the elevator and leave after being discharged from whatever treatment they had elected. They were wheeled out by nurses and then helped into waiting Town Cars. Bosch noticed that the Lincolns all had license plate frames from the same car service and he got the idea that the ride was part of the surgery package. All but one of the patients had bandages on her face. Bosch guessed that the one who didn’t had gone in for breast enhancement or liposuction. She carried herself gingerly when she stood from the wheelchair and climbed slowly into the back of the waiting car.

All of the patients Bosch saw leaving were women. All of them middle-aged or older. All of them by themselves. All of them probably trying to hold on to an image of youth, pushing back that moment when they feared men would stop looking at them.

It was a rough and tough world out there. It made Bosch think about his daughter and how soon she would be leaving home and going out on her own. He hoped that she would never have a destination like this place. He pulled out his phone and fired off a text to her, even though she had told him it was unlikely they would be camping in a place with cellular service. He sent the text anyway, more for himself than for her.

Hey, hope you’re having fun. I miss ya!

Bosch was looking at the phone’s screen, hoping for a reply, when he heard the chirp of a car being unlocked. He looked up and saw two women in patterned nursing scrubs heading toward their cars. The medical offices were probably closing for the day. Moments behind them came a man who Bosch guessed was possibly a doctor. He was heading toward the Mercedes in the parking spot marked for Schubert but he walked by it to the car right next to it. After the man pulled out of the spot, Bosch started his car and moved it over to the open space next to Schubert’s. He got out with the file and walked around to Schubert’s Mercedes. Leaning against the back of the car, he put the file down on the trunk lid and folded his arms across his chest.

For the next twenty minutes nurses and staff members continued to sporadically emerge from the elevator and enter the garage, but no one approached Schubert’s Mercedes. A few gave Bosch an inquisitive look but no one asked him why he was there or what he was doing. It was Friday afternoon, the end of the week, and they wanted to get out of there. Bosch used his phone to search Google images for an online photo of the plastic surgeon. He found only one and it was from a 2003 article in a Beverly Hills society paper. The photo depicted the doctor and his wife, Gail, attending a charity event at the Beverly Hilton. It looked to Bosch as though the wife had made a visit or two to her husband’s office for professional reasons. There was a chiseled look to her chin and the ridge of her eyebrows.

A text from Maddie popped up on his phone screen.

Really cold at night. See you Sunday!

It was like her to keep it succinct and deliver the real message outside the words — the message being that she would be holding off on communicating until she got back home. Bosch opened up a window to tap out a return message but was unsure what to say.

“Excuse me.”

Bosch looked up. A man was approaching and Bosch recognized him from the twelve-year-old photo he had just pulled up on his phone. Schubert gestured toward the Mercedes that Bosch was leaning against.

“My car, if you don’t mind,” he said.

He wore green pants and a light-blue button-down shirt and gray tie. He wore no sport coat, most likely because he wore a doctor’s white coat inside the center. Bosch pushed off the trunk of the car and adjusted his jacket, being sure to flip it enough to show off the gun holstered on his hip. He saw Schubert’s eyes hold on it.

“What is this?” Schubert said.

“Dr. Schubert, my name’s Bosch and I’m here to save your life,” Bosch said. “Is there a place we can talk privately?”

“What?” the doctor exclaimed. “Is this some kind of a joke? Who the hell are you?”

Schubert gave Bosch a wide berth as he moved toward the driver’s-side door of his car. He pulled a key from his pocket and clicked it, unlocking the doors.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Bosch said.

Schubert stopped, his hand in midreach to the door, as if Bosch were warning him that he might trigger a bomb should he pull the handle. Bosch came around the back of the car, sliding the file off the trunk as he approached.

“Look, who are you?” Schubert said.

“I told you who I am,” Bosch said. “I’m the guy trying to keep you breathing.”

He handed the file to Schubert, who reluctantly took it. So far, things were going according to the pitch Bosch had worked out. The next ten seconds would determine if it stayed that way.

“Look at it,” Bosch said. “I’m investigating a series of murders, Dr. Schubert. And I have reason to believe you — and possibly your wife — could be next in line.”

Schubert reacted as if the file were red hot. Bosch was studying him. It was more a reaction of fear than surprise.

“Open it,” Bosch commanded.

“This is not how you do this,” the doctor protested. “You don’t—”

He stopped short when he saw the image clipped to the inside of the file. The close-up of Alexandra Parks’s horribly damaged face. His eyes widened and Bosch assumed that the plastic man had never seen a face like that in all his years of work.

Schubert’s eyes scanned the other side of the file. Bosch had clipped the incident report to the right side, not for its content but because it was a copy of an official document and he knew the imprimatur of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department printed at the top would further his legitimacy in Schubert’s eyes. Harry wanted him thinking he was a real cop for as long as possible. The charade would be over if Schubert asked to see a badge. To keep that from happening, Bosch’s plan was to keep him off balance and play on his fears.

Schubert closed the file and looked stricken. He tried to hand it back but Bosch did not take it.

“Look, what is this about?” he pleaded. “What does it have to do with me?”

“It all started with you, Doctor,” Bosch said. “With you and Ellis and Long.”

The recognition was unmistakable in Schubert’s face. Recognition and dread, as if he had expected all along that his business with Ellis and Long — whatever it was — was not done.

Bosch stepped forward and finally took the file away.

“Now,” he said. “Where can we go to talk?”