He looked at the number he had written down for Sylvia Moore. He wondered if she had heard about the autopsy. That was probably it. She picked up after three rings.

“Mrs. Moore?”

“It’s Sylvia.”

“This is Harry Bosch.”

“I know.”

She didn’t say anything further.

“How are you holding up?”

“I think I’m okay. I… I called because I just want to thank you. For the way you were last night. With me.”

“Oh, well, you didn’t-it was…”

“You know that book I told you about last night?”

“The Long Goodbye?”

“There’s another line in it I was thinking about. ‘A white knight for me is as rare as a fat postman.’ I guess nowadays there are a lot of fat postmen.” She laughed very softly, almost like her crying. “But not too many white knights. You were last night.”

Bosch didn’t know what to say and just tried to envision her on the other end of the silence.

“That’s very nice of you to say. But I don’t know if I deserve it. Sometimes I don’t think the things I have to do make me much of a knight.”

They moved on to small talk for a few moments and then said good-bye. He hung up and sat still for a moment, staring at the phone and thinking about things said and unsaid. There was something there. A connection. Something more than her husband’s death. More than just a case. There was a connection between them.

He turned the pages of the notebook back to the chronological chart he had made earlier.

Nov. 9 Dance arrested Nov. 13 Jimmy Kapps dead Dec. 4 Moore, Bosch meet

He now started to add other dates and facts, even some that did not seem to fit into the picture at the moment. But his overriding feeling was that his cases were linked and the link was Calexico Moore. He didn’t stop to consider the chart as a whole until he was finished. Then he studied it, finding that it gave some context to the thoughts that had jumbled in his head in the last two days.

Nov. 1 BANG cya memo on black ice Nov. 9 Rickard gets tip-from Jimmy Kapps Nov. 9 Dance arrested, case kicked Nov. 13 Jimmy Kapps dead Dec. 4 Moore, Bosch meet- Moore holds back Dec. 11 Moore receives DEA briefing Dec. 18 Moore finds body-Juan Doe #67 Dec. 18 Porter assigned Juan Doe case Dec. 19 Moore checks in, Hideaway-suicide? Dec. 24 Juan Doe #67 autopsy-bugs? Dec. 25 Moore ’s body found Dec. 26 Porter pulls pin Dec. 26 Moore autopsy-inconclusive?

But he couldn’t study it too long without thinking of Sylvia Moore.

9

Bosch took Los Angeles Street to Second and then up to the Red Wind. In front of St. Vibiana’s he saw an entourage of bedraggled, homeless men leaving the church. They had spent the day sleeping in the pews and were now heading to the Union Street mission for dinner. As he passed theTimes building he looked up at the clock and saw it was exactly six. He turned on KFWB for the news. The Moore autopsy was the second story, after a report on how the mayor had become the latest victim in a wave of kamikazi AIDS protests. He was hit with a balloon full of pig blood on the white stone steps of City Hall. A group called Cool AIDS took credit.

“In other news, an autopsy on the body of Police Sergeant Calexico Moore was inconclusive in confirming that the narcotics officer took his own life, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Meanwhile, police have officially classified the death as suicide. The thirty-eight-year-old officer’s body was found Christmas Day in a Hollywood motel room. He had been dead of a shotgun blast for about a week, authorities said. A suicide note was found at the scene but the contents have not been released. Moore will be buried Monday.”

Bosch turned the radio off. The news report had obviously come from a press release. He wondered what was meant by the autopsy results being inconclusive. That was the only grain of real news in the whole report.

After parking at the curb in front of the Red Wind he went inside but did not see Teresa Corazón. He went into the restroom and splashed water on his face. He needed a shave. He dried himself with a paper towel and tried to smooth his mustache and curly hair with his hand. He loosened his tie, then stood there a long moment staring at his reflection. He saw the kind of man not many people approached unless they had to.

He got a package of cigarettes from the machine by the restroom door and looked around again but still didn’t see her. He went to the bar and ordered an Anchor and then took it to an empty table by the front door. The Wind was becoming crowded with the after-work crowd. People in business suits and dresses. There were a lot of combinations of older men with younger women. Harry recognized several reporters from theTimes. He began to think Teresa had picked a bad place to meet, if she intended to show up at all. With today’s autopsy story, she might be noticed by the reporters. He drained the beer bottle and left the bar.

He was standing in the chilled evening air on the front sidewalk, looking down the street into the Second Street tunnel, when he heard a horn honk and a car pulled to a stop in front of him. The electric window glided down. It was Teresa.

“Harry, wait inside. I’ll just find a place to park. Sorry I’m late.”

Bosch leaned into the window.

“I don’t know. Lot of reporters in there. I heard on the radio about the Moore autopsy. I don’t know if you want to risk getting hassled.”

He could see reasons for it and against it. Getting her name in the paper improved her chances of changing acting chief ME to permanent chief. But the wrong thing said or a misquote could just as easily change acting to interim or, worse yet, former.

“Where can we go?” she asked.

Harry opened the door and got in.

“Are you hungry? We can go down to Gorky ’s or the Pantry.”

“Yeah. Is Gorky ’s still open? I want some soup.”

It took them fifteen minutes to wend their way through eight blocks of downtown traffic and to find a parking space. Inside Gorky ’s they ordered mugs of home-brewed Russian beer and Teresa had the chicken-rice soup.

“Long day, huh?” he offered.

“Oh, yeah. No lunch. Was in the suite for five hours.”

Bosch needed to hear about the Moore autopsy but knew he could not just blurt out a question. He would have to make her want to tell it.

“How was Christmas? You and your husband get together?”

“Not even close. It just didn’t work. He never could deal with what I do and now that I have a shot at chief ME, he resents it even more. He left Christmas Eve. I spent Christmas alone. I was going to call my lawyer today to tell her to resume filing but I was too busy.”

“Should’ve called me. I spent Christmas with a coyote.”

“Ahh. Is Timido still around?”

“Yeah, he still comes around every now and then. There was a fire across the pass. I think it spooked him.”

“Yeah, I read about that. You were lucky.”

Bosch nodded. He and Teresa Corazón had had an on-and-off relationship for four months, each meeting sparked with this kind of surface intimacy. But it was a relationship of convenience, firmly grounded on physical, not emotional, needs and never igniting into deep passion for either of them. She had separated earlier in the year from her husband, a UCLA Medical School professor, and had apparently singled Harry out for her affections. But Bosch knew he was a secondary diversion. Their liaisons were sporadic, usually weeks apart, and Harry was content to allow Teresa to initiate each one.

He watched her bring her head down to blow onto a spoonful of soup and then sip it. He saw slices of carrot floating in the bowl. She had brown ringlets that fell to her shoulders. She held some of the tresses back with her hand as she blew on another spoonful and then sipped. Her skin was a deep natural brown and there was an exotic, elliptical shape to her face accentuated by high cheekbones. She wore red lipstick on full lips and there was just a whisper of fine white peach fuzz on her cheeks. He knew she was in her mid-thirties but he had never asked exactly how old. Lastly, he noticed her fingernails. Unpolished and clipped short, so as not to puncture the rubber gloves that were the tools of her trade.