“It’s Bosch. A bad time?”
“What do you want?” Teresa said. “Where are you? Everybody’s looking for you, you know.”
“I heard. But I’m outta town. I was just calling ’cause I heard they found my friend Lucius Porter.”
“Yeah, they did. Sorry. I just got back from the cut.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d do it.”
And then silence before she said, “Harry, why do I get the feeling you want-that you aren’t calling just because he was your friend?”
“Well…”
“Oh, shit, here we go again, right?”
“No. I just wanted to know how he got it is all. He was a friend. I worked with him. Never mind.”
“I don’t know why I let you do this to me. Shit. Mexican necktie, Harry. There, you happy? Got all you need now?”
“Garrote?”
“Yes. Steel baling wire, wrapped at the ends around two wooden pegs. I’m sure you’ve seen it before. Do I get to read this in theTimes tomorrow, too?”
He was silent until he was sure she was done. He looked from the bed to the open window and saw the daylight was now completely gone. The sky was a deep red wine. He thought of the man at Poe’s. Three tears.
“Did you do a compar-”
“Comparison to the Jimmy Kapps case? Yes. We’re way ahead of you, but it won’t be done for a few days.”
“How come?”
“Because it takes that long to do wood-fiber testing between the dowel pegs and alloy-content analysis on the baling wire. We did do a cut analysis on the wire, though. It looks very good.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it looks like the wire on the garrote used to kill Porter was cut from the same length of wire used to kill Kapps. The ends match. It’s not one hundred percent because similar pliers will leave similar cut tracings. So we are doing the metal-alloy comparison. We’ll know in a few days.”
She seemed so matter-of-fact about it all. He was surprised she was still angry with him. The television reports of the night before seemed to be in her favor. He didn’t know what to say. He had gone from being at ease in bed with her to being nervous on the phone with her.
“Thanks, Teresa,” he finally said. “I’ll see you.”
“Harry?” she said before he could hang up.
“Yeah?”
“When you get back, I don’t think you should call me again. I think we should keep it professional. If we see each other in the suite, then that’s fine. But let’s leave it there.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Okay?”
“Sure.”
They hung up. Bosch sat without moving for several minutes. Finally, he picked the phone up again and dialed the direct line into the glass box. Pounds picked up immediately.
“It’s Bosch.”
“Where are you?”
“Mexicali. You left messages?”
“I called the hotel on your tape. They said you never checked in.”
“I decided to stay on the other side of the border.”
“Never mind the bullshit. Porter is dead.”
“What!” Bosch tried his best to make it seem real. “What happened? I just saw him yesterday. He-”
“Never mind the bullshit, Bosch. What are you doing down there?”
“You told me to go where the case followed. It led here.”
“I never told you to go to Mexico.” He was yelling. “I want you back here ten minutes ago. This does not look good for you. We have a bartender that so help me Christ is ready to put your dick in the dirt on this. He-hang on.”
“Bosch,” a new voice on the line said. “Assistant Chief Irving here. What is your location?”
“I’m in Mexicali.”
“I want you in my office at oh eight hundred tomorrow.”
Bosch didn’t hesitate. He knew he could not show any weakness.
“Can’t do that, Chief. I have some unfinished business here that’ll probably take me through tomorrow at least.”
“We are talking about a fellow officer’s murder here, Detective. I don’t know if you realize this, but you could be in danger yourself.”
“I know what I am doing. It’s a fellow officer’s murder that brings me here. Remember? Or doesn’t Moore matter?”
Irving ignored that.
“You are refusing my direct order to return?”
“Look, Chief, I don’t care what some bartender is telling you, you know I wasn’t the doer.”
“I never said that. But your conversation already reveals that you know more about this than you should if you were not involved.”
“All I’m saying is that the answer to a lot of questions-about Moore, Porter and the rest-are down here. It’s all down here. I’m staying.”
“Detective Bosch, I was wrong about you. I gave you a lot of rope this time because I thought I detected a change in you. I see now that I was wrong. You fooled me again. You-”
“Chief, I am doing my-”
“Don’t interrupt me! You may be unwilling to follow my explicit commands to return but don’t you interrupt me. I am telling you that you don’t want to return, fine. Don’t. But you might as well never return, Bosch. Think about that. What you had before won’t be waiting when you get back.”
After Irving hung up Bosch picked a second bottle of Tecate from the bucket and lit a cigarette at the window. He didn’t care about Irving’s threats. Not that much, at least. He’d probably draw a suspension, maybe five days max. He could handle that. But Irving wouldn’t move Bosch. Where could he send him? There weren’t very many places lower than Hollywood. Instead, Bosch thought about Porter. He had been able to put it off, put it out of his mind. But now he had to think about Porter. Strangled with baling wire, left in a Dumpster. Poor bastard. But something in Bosch refused to let him grant the dead cop sympathy. Nothing about it touched his heart the way he thought it would, or should. It was a pitiful end of life. But he felt no pity. Porter had made fatal mistakes. Bosch promised himself that he would not and that he would go on.
He tried to focus on Zorrillo. Harry was sure that it was the pope who was manipulating things, who had sent the assassin to clean up the loose ends. If it was likely the same man had killed both Kapps and Porter, it was then easy to add Moore in as a victim as well. And possibly even Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa. The man with three tears. Did that leave Dance off the hook? Bosch doubted it. It might have taken Dance to lure Moore to the Hideaway. His thoughts reassured him that he was doing the right thing staying. The answers were here, not in L.A.
He went to his briefcase on the bureau and took out the mug shot of Dance that had been in the file Moore had put together. He looked at the practiced sulk of a young man who still had a boyish face and bleached blond hair. Now he wanted to move up the ladder and had come south of the border to make his case. Bosch realized that if Dance was in Mexicali he would not blend in easily. He’d have to have help.
The knock on the door startled him. Bosch quietly put down the bottle and took the gun off the night table. Through the peephole he saw a man of about thirty with dark hair and a thick mustache. He was not the room service waiter who had brought the beer.
“Si?”
“Bosch. It’s Ramos.”
Bosch opened the door on the chain and asked for some identification.
“Are you kidding? I don’t carry ID around here. Let me in. Corvo sent me.”
“How do I know?”
“Because you called L.A. Operations two hours ago and left your address. I tell you, I really get fucking paranoid having to explain all of this while standing out in the hallway.”
Bosch closed the door, flipped off the chain and reopened it. He kept the gun in his hand but down at his side. Ramos walked past him into the room. He walked up to the window and looked out, then he walked away and began pacing near the bed. He said, “Smells like shit out there. Somebody cooking tortillas or some shit. Got any more brew? And by the way, thefederales catch you with that piece and you might have trouble trying to get back across. How come you didn’t stay in Calexico like Corvo told you to, man?”