“Bring the file,” Bosch said. “Let’s go.”
There was a main sidewalk that led past a bank of mailboxes to a network of individual walkways to the front doors of the residences. Hardy Sr.’s home was the second one in. There was a screen door in front of a closed front door. Without hesitation Bosch pushed a doorbell button and then rapped his knuckles on the aluminum frame of the screen.
They waited fifteen seconds and there was no response.
Bosch hit the button again and raised his fist to hit the frame when he heard a muffled voice call out from inside.
“Someone’s in there,” he said.
Another fifteen seconds went by and then the voice came again, this time clearly from right on the other side of the door.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Hardy?”
“Yeah, what?”
“It’s the police. Open your door.”
“What happened?”
“We need to ask you some questions. Open the door, please.”
There was no reply.
“Mr. Hardy?”
They heard the sound of the deadbolt lock turning. Slowly the door opened and a man with Coke-bottle-thick glasses peered out at them through a six-inch opening. He was disheveled, his gray hair unkempt and matted, with two weeks of white whiskers sprouted on his face. A clear plastic tube was looped over both ears and then under his nose, delivering oxygen to his nostrils. He wore what looked like a pale blue hospital smock over striped pajama pants and black plastic sandals.
Bosch tried to open the screen door but it was locked.
“Mr. Hardy. We need to talk with you, sir. Can we come in?”
“What is it?”
“We’re down from the LAPD and we are looking for someone. We think you might be able to help us. Can we come in, sir?”
“Who?”
“Sir, we can’t do this out on the street. Can we come in to discuss this?”
The man’s eyes lowered a moment as he considered things. They were cold and distant. Bosch saw where his son’s eyes had come from.
Slowly, the old man reached through the opening and unlocked the screen door. Bosch opened it and then waited for Hardy to back away from the front door before pushing through.
Hardy moved slowly, leaning on a cane as he walked into the living room. Over one bony shoulder he had a strap that supported a small oxygen canister attached to the network of tubes that led to his nose.
“The place isn’t clean,” he said as he moved toward a chair. “I don’t have visitors.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Hardy,” Bosch said.
Hardy slowly lowered himself into a well-used cushioned chair. On the table next to it was an overloaded ashtray. The house smelled of cigarettes and old age and was as unkempt as Hardy’s person. Bosch started to breathe through his mouth. Hardy saw him looking at the ashtray.
“You’re not going to tell the hospital on me, are you?”
“No, Mr. Hardy, that’s not why we’re here. My name is Bosch and this is Detective Chu. We are trying to locate your son, Chilton Hardy Junior.”
Hardy nodded, as if expecting this.
“I don’t know where he’s at these days. What do you want with him?”
Bosch sat down on a couch with frayed cushion covers so he would be at Hardy’s eye level.
“All right if I sit here, Mr. Hardy?”
“Suit yourself. What’s my boy gone and done that brings you here?”
Bosch shook his head.
“As far as we know, nothing. We want to talk to him about somebody else. We are doing a background investigation on a man we believe lived with your son a number of years ago.”
“Who?”
“His name is Clayton Pell. Did you ever meet him?”
“Clayton Powell?”
“No, sir. Pell. Clayton Pell. Do you know that name?”
“I don’t think so.”
Hardy leaned forward and started coughing into his hand. His body jerked with spasms.
“Goddamn cigarettes. What’s this Pell character done, then?”
“We can’t really reveal the details of our investigation. Suffice it to say we think he’s done some bad things and it would help us in dealing with him if we knew his background. We have a photo we’d like to show you.”
Chu produced the mug shot of Pell. Hardy studied it for a long time before shaking his head.
“Don’t recognize him.”
“Well, that’s him now. He lived with your son about twenty years ago.”
Hardy now seemed surprised.
“Twenty years ago? He’d be just a — oh, I know, you’re talking about that boy who lived with Chilton with his mother up there in Hollywood.”
“Close to Hollywood. Yes, he would’ve been about eight years old back then. You remember him now?”
Hardy nodded and that made him start to cough again.
“Do you need some water, Mr. Hardy?”
Hardy waved the offer away but continued a wheezing cough that left spittle on his lips.
“Chill came around here with him a couple times. That’s all.”
“Did he ever talk to you about the boy?”
“He just said he was a handful. His mother would go off and leave him with Chill and he wasn’t the fatherly type.”
Bosch nodded as though it was important information.
“Where’s Chilton now?”
“I told you. I don’t know. He doesn’t visit me anymore.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Hardy scratched the stubble on his chin and then coughed into his hand once more. Bosch looked up at Chu, who was still standing.
“Partner, can you go get him some water?”
“No, I’m fine,” Hardy protested.
But Chu had gotten the partner message and went down the hallway next to the staircase to a kitchen or bathroom. Bosch knew it would give him the chance to take a quick look around the first floor of the town house.
“Do you remember when you last saw your son?” Bosch asked again.
“I. . no, actually. The years. . I don’t know.”
Bosch nodded as though he knew how families and parents and children could drift apart over time.
Chu came back with a glass of water from a sink. The glass didn’t look very clean. There were smears of fingerprints on it. As he handed it to Hardy, he gave Bosch a furtive shake of his head. He had not seen anything useful in his quick foray into the house.
Hardy drank from the glass, and Bosch tried once again to get a line on his son.
“Do you have a phone number or an address for your son, Mr. Hardy? We would really like to talk to him.”
Hardy put the glass down next to the ashtray. He reached a hand up to where the breast pocket of a shirt would have been but he had no pocket on the smock he was wearing. It was a subconscious move to a pack of cigarettes that weren’t there. Bosch remembered doing that himself back when he was addicted.
“I don’t have a phone number,” he said.
“What about an address?” Bosch asked.
“Nope.”
Hardy cast his eyes down as it seemed to register that his answers were a testament to his failings as a father, or his namesake’s failings as a son. As Bosch often did in interviews, he jumped nonsequentially in his questions. He also dropped the ruse of the visit. He no longer cared whether the old man thought they were investigating Clayton Pell or his son.
“Did your son live with you while he was growing up?”
Hardy’s thick glasses magnified his eye movements. The question got a reaction. Rapid- eye movement as an answer was formulated was a tell.
“His mother and I got divorced. That was early on. I didn’t see much of Chilton. We lived far apart. His mother — she’s dead now — she raised him. I sent her money. .”
Said as if the money were his only duty. Bosch nodded, continuing the pose of understanding and sympathy.