I became convinced. It had to be the letter. A day ago she was running scared because of the letter. Now she was confident. Why? The only difference between yesterday and today was the motion to quash the Opparizio subpoena. All at once I understood her strategy. The prosecution would support the dismissal of the subpoena. If Opparizio didn’t testify I might not be able to get the letter before the jury.
If I had it right, then there could be a severe setback for the defense at the hearing on the motion. I now knew I had to be prepared to fight as though my case depended on it. Because it did.
I decided to put the phone in my pocket. No more calls. It was Friday evening. I would put the case aside and take it all up again in the morning. Everything could wait until then.
“Rojas, put on some music. It’s the weekend, man!”
Rojas hit the button on the dash to play the CD. I had forgotten what I had in there but soon identified the song as Ry Cooder singing “Teardrops Will Fall,” a cover of the 1960s classic on his anthology disc. It sounded good and it sounded right. A song about love lost and being left alone.
The trial would start in less than three weeks. Whether or not we figured out what Freeman was hiding, the defense team was locked and loaded and ready to go. We still had some outstanding subpoenas to serve but otherwise we were fit for battle and I was growing more confident every day.
The following Monday I would hole up in my office and start choreographing the defense case. The hypothesis of innocence would be carefully revealed piece by piece and witness by witness until it all came together in a crushing wave of reasonable doubt.
But I still had a weekend to fill before that and I wanted to put as much distance as I could between me and Lisa Trammel and everything else. Cooder was now on to “Poor Man’s Shangri-La,” the one about the UFOs and space vatos in Chávez Ravine before they took it away from the people and put up Dodger Stadium.
What’s that sound, what’s that light?
Streaking down through the night
I told Rojas to turn it up. I lowered the back windows and let the wind and music blow through my hair and ears.
UFO got a radio
Little Julian singing soft and low
Los Angeles down below
DJ says, we gotta go
To El Monte, to El Monte, pa El Monte
Na, na, na, na, na
Livin’ in a poor man’s Shangri-La
I closed my eyes as we cruised.
Seventeen
Rojas dropped me at the steps of my home and I slowly made my way up while he put the Lincoln in the garage. His own car was parked on the street. He’d take it home and come back Monday, the usual routine.
Before opening the door I stepped to the far end of the deck and looked out at the city. The sun still had a couple hours of work ahead, then would set on another week. From up here the city had a certain sound that was as identifiable as a train whistle. The low hiss of a million dreams in competition.
“You all right?”
I turned around. It was Rojas at the top of the steps.
“Yeah, fine. What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know. I saw you standing up here and thought maybe something was wrong, like you were locked out or something.”
“No, I was just checking out the city.”
I went over to the door, pulling out my house key.
“Have a good weekend, Rojas.”
“You too, Boss.”
“You know, you should probably stop calling me Boss.”
“Okay, Boss.”
“Whatever.”
I turned the lock and pushed the door open. I was immediately greeted with a sharp and multivoiced cheer of “Surprise!”
I once got shot in the gut after opening the same door. This surprise was a lot better. My daughter rushed forward and hugged me and I hugged her back. I looked around the room and saw everybody: Cisco, Lorna, Bullocks. My half brother Harry Bosch and his daughter, Maddie. And Maggie was there, too. She came up next to Hayley and kissed me on the cheek.
“Uh,” I said, “I’ve got some bad news. Today is not my birthday. I am afraid you’ve all been led astray by someone with some sort of devious plan to get cake.”
Maggie punched me on the shoulder.
“Your birthday’s Monday. Not a good day for a surprise party.”
“Yeah, exactly as I had planned it.”
“Come on, get out of the door and let Rojas in. Nobody’s staying that long. We just wanted to say happy birthday.”
I leaned forward and kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear.
“What about you? You’re not staying long either?”
“We’ll see about that.”
She escorted me in through a gauntlet of handshakes, kisses and back pats. It was nice and totally unexpected. I was placed in the seat of honor and handed a lemonade.
The party lasted another hour and I got time to visit with all my guests. I hadn’t seen Harry Bosch in a few months. I had heard he’d come by the hospital but I wasn’t awake for the visit. We had worked a case the year before, with me as a special prosecutor. It had been nice being on the same side and I had thought the experience would keep us close. But it hadn’t really worked out that way. Bosch remained as distant as ever and I remained as saddened about it as ever.
When I saw the opportunity I moved toward him and we stood side by side in front of the window that gave the best view of the city.
“From this angle it’s hard not to love it, isn’t it?” he asked.
I turned from the view to him and then back. He was drinking a lemonade, too. He had told me he’d stopped drinking when his teenage daughter had come to live with him.
“I know what you mean,” I said.
He drained his glass and thanked me for the party. I told him he could leave Maddie with us if she wanted to visit Hayley longer. But he said that he already had plans to take her to a shooting range in the morning.
“A shooting range? You’re taking your daughter to a shooting range?”
“I’ve got guns in the house. She should know how to use them.”
I shrugged. I guessed there was a logic in it.
Bosch and his daughter were the first to leave and soon afterward the party ended. Everybody left except for Maggie and Hayley. They had decided to stay the night.
Exhausted by the day and the week and the month, I took a long shower and then got into bed early. Soon Maggie came in, after talking Hayley to sleep in her room. She closed the door and that was when I knew my real birthday present was coming.
She hadn’t brought any nightclothes with her. Lying on my back, I watched her get undressed and then slip under the covers with me.
“You know, you’re a piece of work, Haller,” she whispered.
“What did I do this time?”
“You just trespassed all over the place.”
She moved in close and then over on top of me. She bent down, tenting my face with her hair. She kissed me and started slowly moving her hips, then put her lips against my ear.
“So,” she said. “Normal function and activity, that’s what the doctor told you, right?”
“That’s what he said.”
“We’ll see.”
PART THREE.Boléro
Eighteen
Louis Opparizio was a man who did not want to be served. As an attorney he knew that the only way he could be dragged into the Lisa Trammel trial was to be served with a subpoena to testify. Avoiding service meant avoiding testimony. Whether he had been tipped to the defense strategy or simply was smart enough to understand it on his own, he seemingly disappeared just at the time we began looking for him. His whereabouts became unknown and all the routine tricks of the trade to track him and draw him out had failed. We did not know if Opparizio was in the country, let alone in Los Angeles.