Bosch nodded. He picked up the saxophone. He liked handling it, the feel and weight of it. Again, he remembered the day on the ship, Sugar Ray bobbing and weaving through The Sweet Spot and a few other tunes. Bosch fell in love with the sound. It felt like it had come from somewhere deep within himself. He was not the same after that day.
His cell phone chirped and he dug it out of his pocket. Edgar again.
“Harry, they’re about to clear here. You want me to come in?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, what are we doing?”
“There was nothing with the body, right? No tools, no picks?”
“That’s right. I already told you.”
“I just read through the reports from the three priors. That display case was hit each time. It was picked. Servan said it was always locked.”
“Well, we got no lock picks here, Harry. I guess whoever moved the body took the picks.”
“Servan.”
Edgar was quiet for a moment and then said, “Why don’t you run it down for me, Harry.”
Bosch thought for a moment before speaking.
“He had been hit three times in two years. Every time the high-end case was picked. It’s hard to work a set of picks with gloves on. Servan probably knew that the one time this guy took off his gloves was to work the picks. Steel picks going into a steel lock.”
“If he put 110 volts into that lock it could’ve shut this guy’s heart down.”
“Depends on the amps. There’s a formula. It has to do with resistance to the charge. You know, like dry skin versus moist skin, things like that.”
“This guy just took his glove off. He probably had sweaty hands.”
“It could work. The initial jolt could have contracted the muscles and left our burglar unable to let go of the pick. The juice goes through him, hits the heart and that’s it.”
“Then we’re talking more than just homicide. This is lying in wait.”
“The DA can decide all of that. We just have to bring in the facts. That means you have to get into that case and find out how he wired it.”
Bosch closed the phone and looked at Braxton.
“Now I’ll go talk to him.”
Nikolai Servan was still waiting calmly. Bosch took the seat across from him, folding his arms and putting his elbows on the table in almost a mirror image.
“We’ve hit a snag, Mr. Servan.”
“A snag?”
“A problem. And what I’d like to do here is give you the opportunity to tell me the truth this time.”
“I don’t understand. I tol’ you truth.”
“I think you left some things out, Mr. Servan.”
Servan clasped his hands together on the table and shook his head.
“No, I tol’ everything.”
“What did you do with the burglar’s lock picks, Mr. Servan?”
Servan held his lips tightly together for a long moment and then shook his head.
“I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do, Mr. Servan. Where are the picks?”
Servan only stared at him.
“OK,” Bosch said, “let’s try this one then. Tell me how you wired that display case.”
Bowing his head once, Servan said, “I have attorney now. Please, I have attorney now.”
Bosch pulled to a stop in front of the Splendid Age Retirement Home and got out with the saxophone and its stand. He heard Christmas music drifting out of an open window. Elvis Presley singing Blue Christmas.
He thought about Nikolai Servan spending Christmas Day in the Parker Center jail. It would probably be the only jail time he’d ever see. The district attorney’s office would not decide until after the holiday whether to charge him or kick him loose. And Bosch knew it would probably be the latter. Prosecuting the case against the pawnbroker was fraught with difficulties. Servan had lawyered up and slopped talking. Afternoon-long searches of his home, car, the pawnshop and the trash containers in the rear alley failed to produce Kelman’s lock picks or the method by which the display case had been rigged to deliver the fatal charge. Even the cause of death would be difficult to prove in a court of law. Kelman’s heart had stopped beating. A burst of electricity had most likely caused ventricular fibrillation, but in court a defense lawyer would argue that the burn marks on the victim’s hand and foot were inconclusive and not even related to the cause of death.
Bosch planned to go back to the pawnshop the following morning. He would look until he found the picks or the wire Servan had used to kill Kelman. He didn’t mind giving up his Christmas to do it. He had no plans anyway.
As he approached the front doors of the retirement home he noticed that not much about it looked particularly splendid. It looked like a final stop for pensioners and people who hadn’t planned on living as long as they had. Quentin McKinzie, for example. Few jazzmen and drug users went the distance. He probably never thought he would make it this far.
Bosch entered and walked up to a welcome counter. The place smelled like most of the low-rent retirement homes he had ever been in. Urine and decay, the end of hopes and dreams. He asked for directions to Quentin McKinzie’s room. The woman behind the counter suspiciously eyed the saxophone under Bosch’s arm but sent him down a hallway to room 107.
The door to the room was ajar. Bosch could hear the sounds of a television coming from inside. He knocked softly and didn’t get a response. He slowly pushed the door open and stuck his head in. He saw an old man sitting in a chair next to a bed. A television mounted high on the opposite wall was droning. The old man’s eyes were closed. He was gaunt and depleted, his body taking up only half of the chair. His black skin looked gray and powdery. But Bosch recognized him. It was Sugar Ray McK.
Bosch stepped into the room and quietly made his way around the bed. He stood there still for a moment, wondering what he should do. He decided not to wake the man. He put the instrument stand down on the floor in the corner. He then cradled the saxophone in it. He straightened up, took another look at the sleeping jazzman and nodded to him in some sort of acknowledgment. As he headed out of the room he reached up and turned off the television.
At the door he was stopped by a raspy voice.
“Hey!”
Bosch turned. Sugar Ray was awake and looking at him with rheumy eyes.
“You turned off my box.”
“Sorry, I thought you were asleep.”
He came back in and reached up to turn the television on again.
“Who are you? You don’t work here.”
Bosch turned to face him. “My name is Harry Bosch. I came—”
Sugar Ray noticed the saxophone sitting in the corner of the room.
“That’s my ax.”
Bosch picked up the saxophone and handed it to him.
“I found it and I wanted to get it back to you.”
The man held the instrument like it was as precious as a new baby. He slowly turned it in his hands, studying it for flaws or maybe just wanting to look at it the way he would look at a loved one long gone away. Bosch felt a constriction rising in his chest as the jazzman brought the instrument to his mouth, licked the mouthpiece and then held it between his teeth. His chest rose as he drew in a breath.
But as his fingers went to work and he blew out the riff, the wind escaped from the weak seal his lips made around the mouthpiece. Sugar Ray closed his eyes and tried again. The same result sounded from his instrument. He was too old and too weak. His lungs were gone. He could no longer play.
Sugar Ray cradled the instrument in his lap as if he were protecting it. He looked up at Bosch.
“And where did you gel this, Harry Bosch?”
“I took it from a guy who stole it from a pawnshop.”
Sugar Ray nodded like he knew the story.
“Was it stolen from you?” Bosch asked.