“Let me see the I.D. again. I have to write up a receipt.”

Bosch dropped his badge wallet into the tray and watched as Gruber slowly wrote out a receipt in duplicate. It seemed that the officer had to look from the I.D. card to what he was writing every two letters.

“How’d you get a name like that?”

“You can just write Harry for short.”

“It’s no problem. I can write it. Just don’t ask me to say it. Looks like it rhymes with anonymous.”

He finished and put the receipts into the tray and told Harry to sign them both. Harry used his own pen.

“Lookee there, a lefty signing for a right-handed gun,” Gruber said. “Somethin’ you don’t see ’round here too often.”

He winked at Bosch again. Bosch just looked at him.

“Just talking is all,” Gruber said.

Harry dropped one of the receipts into the tray and Gruber exchanged it for the locker key. It was numbered.

“Don’t lose it now,” Gruber said.

As he walked back to the Caprice he saw that the men were still at the picnic table in the park but there was no more singing. He got into the Caprice and put the locker key in the ashtray. He never used it for smoking. He noticed an old man with white hair unlocking the door below the historical society sign. Bosch backed out and headed over to the De Anza.

It was a three-story, Spanish-style building with a satellite dish on the roof. Bosch parked in the brick drive up in front. His plan was to check in, drop his bags in his room, wash his face and then make the border crossing into Mexicali. The man behind the front desk wore a white shirt and brown bow tie to match his brown vest. He could not have been much older than twenty. A plastic tag on the vest identified him as Miguel, assistant front desk manager.

Bosch said he wanted a room, filled out a registration card and handed it back. Miguel said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Bosch, we have messages for you.”

He turned to a basket file and pulled out three pink message forms. Two were from Pounds, one from Irving. Bosch looked at the times and noticed all three calls had come in during the last two hours. First Pounds, then Irving, then Pounds again.

“Wait a minute,” he said to Miguel. “Is there a phone?”

“Around the corner, sir, to your right.”

Bosch stood there with the phone in his hand wondering what to do. Something was up, or both of them wouldn’t have tried to reach him. Something had made one or both of them call his house and they heard the taped message. What could have happened? Using his PacBell card he called the Hollywood homicide table, hoping someone was in and that he might learn what was going on. Jerry Edgar answered the call on the first ring.

“Jed, what’s up? I’ve got phone calls from the weight coming out my ass.”

There was a long silence. Too long.

“Jed?”

“Harry, where you at?”

“I’m down south, man.”

“Where down south?”

“What is it, Jed?”

“Wherever you’re at, Pounds is trying to recall you. He said if anybody talks to you, t’tell you to get your ass back here. He said-”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“It’s Porter, man. They found him this morning up at Sunshine Canyon. Somebody wrapped a wire ’round his neck so tight that it was the size of a watchband.”

“Jesus.” Bosch pulled out his cigarettes. “Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“What was he doing up there? Sunshine, that’s the landfill up in Foothill Division, right?”

“Shit, Harry, he was dumped there.”

Of course. Bosch should have realized that. Of course. He wasn’t thinking right.

“Right. Right. What happened?”

“What happened was that they found his body out there this morning. A rag picker come across it. He was covered in garbage and shit. But RHD traced some of the stuff. They got receipts from some restaurants. They got the name of the hauler the restaurants use and they’ve got it traced to a particular truck and a particular route. It’s a downtown run. Was made yesterday morning. Hollywood’s working it with them. I’m fixing to go start canvassing on the route. We’ll find the Dumpster he came from and go from there.”

Bosch thought of the Dumpster behind Poe’s. Porter hadn’t run out on him. He had probably been garroted and dragged out while Bosch was having his say with the bartender. Then he remembered the man with the tattooed tears. How had he missed it? He had probably stood ten feet from Porter’s killer.

“I didn’t go out to the scene but I hear he’d been worked over before they did him,” Edgar said. “His face was busted up. Nose broke, stuff like that. A lot of blood, I hear. Man, what a pitiful way to go.”

It wouldn’t be long before they came into Poe’s with photos of Porter. The bartender would remember the face and would gladly describe Bosch as the man who had come in, said he was a cop, and attacked Porter. Bosch wondered if he should tell Edgar now and save a lot of legwork. A survival instinct flared inside him and he decided to say nothing about Poe’s.

“Why do Pounds and Irving want me?”

“Don’t know. All I know is first Moore gets it, then Porter. Think maybe they’re closing ranks or something. I think they want everybody in where it’s nice and safe. Word going ’round here is that those two cases are one. Word is those boys had some kinda deal going. Irving’s already doubled them up. He’s running a joint op on both of them. Moore and Porter.”

Bosch didn’t say anything. He was trying to think. This put a new spin on everything.

“Listen to me, Jed. You haven’t heard from me. We didn’t talk. Understand?”

Edgar hesitated before saying, “You sure you want to play it that way?”

“Yeah. For now. I’ll be talking to you.”

“Watch your back.”

Watch out for the black ice, Bosch thought as he hung up and stood there for a minute, leaning against the wall. Porter. How had this happened? He instinctively moved his arm against his hip but felt no reassurance. The holster was empty.

He had a choice now: go forward to Mexicali or go back to L.A. He knew if he went back it would mean the end of his involvement in the case. Irving would cut him out like a bad spot on a banana.

Therefore, he realized, he actually had no choice. He had to go on. Bosch pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and went back to the front desk. He slid the bill across to Miguel.

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to cancel my room, Miguel.”

“No problem. There is no charge. You never got the room.”

“No, that’s for you, Miguel. I have a slight problem. I don’t want anybody to know I was here. Understand?”

Miguel was young but he was wise. He told Bosch his request was no problem. He pulled the bill off the counter and tucked it into a pocket inside his vest. Harry then slid the phone messages across.

“If they call again, I never showed up to get these, right?”

“That’s right, sir.”

In a few minutes he was in line for the crossing at the border. He noticed how the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol building where incoming traffic was handled dwarfed its Mexican counterpart. The message was clear; leaving this country was not a difficulty; coming in, though, was another matter entirely. When it was Bosch’s turn at the gate he held his badge wallet open and out the window. When the Mexican officer took it, Harry then handed him the Calexico P.D. receipt.

“Your business?” the officer asked. He wore a faded uniform that had been Army green once. His hat was sweat-stained along the band.

“Official. I have a meeting at the Plaza Justicia.”

“Ah. You know the way?”

Bosch held up one of the maps from the seat and nodded. The officer then looked at the pink receipt.

“You are unarmed?” he said as he read the paper. “You leave your forty-four behind, huh?”

“That’s what it says.”

The officer smiled and Bosch thought he could see disbelief in his eyes. The officer nodded and waved his car on. The Caprice immediately became engulfed in a torrent of automobiles that were moving on a wide avenue with no painted lines denoting lanes. At times there were six rows of moving vehicles and sometimes there were four or five. The cars made the transitions smoothly. Harry heard no horns and the traffic flowed quickly. He had gone nearly a mile before a red light halted traffic and he was able to consult his maps for the first time.