"Here we go," I said.

"Where's he going?"

"Maybe he's going to get lunch."

"Not with a briefcase. We stay on him, right?" I restarted the car.

"Right."

We watched as Thomas pulled out of a parking space in his Ford SUV. He headed toward the exit and turned right on Tustin Boulevard. After his car was absorbed into the passing traffic I pulled up to the exit and followed him into the rain. I pulled out my phone and called the store. Ed Thomas's wife answered.

''Hi, is Ed there?"

"No, he's not. Can I help you?"

"Is this Pat?"

"Yes, it is. Who's this?"

"It's Bill Gilbert. I think we met at the Sportsman's Lodge a while back. I used to work with Ed in the department. I was going to be in the area and thought I'd drop by the store today to say hello. Will he be back later?"

"That's hard to say. He went to do an appraisal and who knows, it might take the rest of the day. With this rain and the distance he had to go."

"An appraisal? What do you mean?"

"A book collection. Someone wants to sell his collection and Ed just left to go see what it is worth. It's all the way up in the San Fernando Valley and from what I understand it's a big collection. He told me I'd probably be closing the store tonight."

"Is it more of the Rodway collection? He told me about that the last time we talked."

"No, that's just about all been sold. This is a man named Charles Turrentine and he has over six thousand books."

"Wow, that's a lot." "He's a well-known collector but I guess he needs the money because he told Ed he wants to sell everything."

"Strange. A guy spends all that time collecting and then he sells it all.". "We see it happen."

"Well, Pat, I'll let you go. And I'll catch Ed next time. Tell him I said hello."

"What was your name again?"

"Tom Gilbert. Bye now."

I closed the phone.

"You were Bill Gilbert at the start of the conversation."

"Whoops."

I recounted the conversation for Rachel. I then called information in the 818 area code but there was no listing for a Charles Turrentine. I asked Rachel if she had a connection in the bureau's Los Angeles field office who could get an address for Turrentine and maybe an unlisted number.

"Don't you have somebody in the LAPD you can use?"

"At the moment I think I've used up all the favors owed me. Besides, I'm an outsider. You're not."

"I don't know about that."

She pulled out her phone and went to work on it and I concentrated on the taillights of Thomas's SUV, just fifty yards ahead of me on the 22 freeway. I knew Thomas had a choice up ahead. He could turn north on the 5 and go through downtown L.A., or he could keep on going and take the 405 north. Both routes would lead him to the Valley.

Rachel got a call back in five minutes with the information she had asked for. "He lives on Valerio Street in Canoga Park. Do you know where that is?"

"I know where Canoga Park is. Valerio runs east-west across the whole Valley. Did you get a phone number?"

She answered by punching in a number on her cell phone. She then held it to her ear and waited. After thirty seconds she closed the phone.

"There was no answer. I got the tape."

We drove in silence as we thought about that.

Thomas passed by the exit to the 5 north and proceeded on toward the 405. I knew he would turn north there and take the Sepulveda Pass into the Valley. Canoga Park was on the west side. With the weather we were talking about at least an hour's drive. If we were lucky.

"Don't lose him, Bosch," Rachel said quietly.

I knew what she meant. She was telling me she had the vibe, that she thought this was it. That she believed Ed Thomas might be leading us to the Poet. I nodded because I had it, too, almost like a humming coming from the center of my chest. I knew without really knowing that we were there.

"Don't worry," I said. "I won't."

CHAPTER 41

The rain was getting to Rachel. The relent-lessness of it. It never let up, never paused. It just came down and hit the windshield in a nonstop torrent that overpowered the wipers. Everything was a blur. There were cars pulled off on the shoulders of the freeway. Lightning cracked the sky to the west, somewhere out over the ocean. They passed accident after accident and these just made Rachel all the more nervous. If they got into an accident and lost Thomas, they would carry an awful burden of responsibility for what happened to him.

She was afraid that if she looked away from the red glow of the taillights on Thomas's car, they would lose him in the sea of blurred red. Bosch seemed to know what she was thinking.

"Relax," he said. "I'm not going to lose him. And even if I do, we know where he is going now."

"No, we don't. We only know where Turrentine lives. That doesn't mean his books are there. Six thousand books? Who keeps six thousand books in their house? He probably has them in a warehouse somewhere."

Rachel watched Bosch adjust his grip on the steering wheel and add a few more miles to his speed, drawing them closer to Thomas.

"Didn't think about that, did you?"

"No, not really,"

"So don't lose him."

"I told you, I won't."

"I know. It just helps me to say it."

She gestured toward the windshield.

"How often does it get like this?"

"Almost never," Bosch said. "They said on the news that it's a hundred-year storm. It's like something's wrong, something's broken. The canyons are probably washing out in Malibu. Landslides in the Palisades. And the river's probably over its sides. Last year we had the fires. This year maybe it's going to be rain. One way or another it's always something. It's like you always have to pass a test or something."

He turned on the radio to pick up a weather report. But Rachel immediately reached over and turned it off and pointed ahead through the windshield.

"Concentrate on this," she ordered. "I don't care about the weather report,"

"Right."

"Get closer. I don't care if you're right behind him. He won't be able to see you in this mess."

"I get behind him I might hit him, then what do we say?"

"Just don't-"

"Lose him. Yeah, I know." They drove for the next half hour without a word. The freeway rose and crossed over the mountains. Rachel saw a large stone structure on the top of the mountain. It looked like some sort of postmodern castle in the gray and gloom and Bosch told her it was the Getty Museum.

As they descended into the Valley she saw the turn signal flare from the back of Thomas's car. Bosch moved into the turning lane three cars back.

"He's taking the one-oh-one. We're almost there."

"You mean to Canoga Park?"

"That's right. He'll take this out west and men go north again on surface streets."

Bosch grew quiet again as he concentrated on the driving and following. In another fifteen minutes the turn signal on the Explorer flared again and Thomas exited on DeSoto Avenue and headed north. Bosch and Walling trailed behind on the exit ramp, but this time without the cover of other traffic.

On DeSoto, Thomas almost immediately pulled to the curb in a no parking area and Bosch had to drive by him or the surveillance would have been obvious.

"I think he's looking at a map or directions," Rachel said. "He had the light on and his head was down."

"Okay."

Bosch pulled into a service station, circled around the pumps and then drove back out to the street. He paused before pulling out, looking left down the street at Thomas's Explorer. He waited and after a half minute Thomas pulled his Explorer back into traffic. Bosch waited for him to go by, holding his cell phone up to his left ear to block any view of his face in case Thomas was looking and could see in the rain. He let another car go by and then pulled out.