Chapter Seven

BACK IN HIS car Bosch took his notebook out and looked at the list.

Conklin

McKittrick & Eno

Meredith Roman

Johnny Fox

He drew a line through Meredith Roman’s name and studied those left on it. He knew that the way he had ordered the names was not the same order in which he would attempt to interview them. He knew that before he could approach Conklin, or even McKittrick and Eno, he needed more information.

He took his phone book out of his coat pocket and his portable from his briefcase. He dialed the Department of Motor Vehicles law enforcement line in Sacramento and identified himself to the clerk as Lieutenant Harvey Pounds. He gave Pounds’s serial number and asked for a license check on Johnny Fox. After checking his notebook, he gave the appropriate date of birth. As he did this he ran the numbers and figured that Fox was now sixty-one years old.

As he continued to wait he smiled because Pounds would have some explaining to do in about a month. The department had recently begun to audit use of the DMV trace service. Because the Daily News had reported that cops all over the department were secretly doing the traces for friendly reporters and private detectives with liberal expense accounts, the new chief had cracked down by requiring all calls and computer link-ups to DMV to be documented on the newly implemented DMVT form, which required attribution of traces to a specific case or purpose. The forms were sent to Parker Center and then audited against the list of traces provided each month by the DMV. When the lieutenant’s name showed up on the DMV list in the next audit and there was no corresponding DMVT form, he’d get a call from the auditors.

Bosch had gotten the lieutenant’s serial number off his ID card one day when Pounds had left it clipped to his jacket on the coat rack outside his office. He’d written it down in his phone book on a hunch that one day it would come in handy.

The DMV clerk finally came back on the line and said there was no driver’s license presently issued to a Johnny Fox with the birth date Bosch had provided.

“Anything close?”

“No, honey.”

“That’s Lieutenant, miss,” Bosch said sternly. “Lieutenant Pounds.”

“That’s Ms., Lieutenant. Ms. Sharp.”

“And I bet you are. Tell me, Ms. Sharp, how far back does that computer run go?”

“Seven years. Anything else?”

“How do I check the years before that?”

“You don’t. If you want a hand records search you drop us a letter, Loo-ten-ANT. It will take ten to fourteen days. In your case, count on the fourteen. Anything else?”

“No, but I don’t like your demeanor.”

“That makes us even. Good-bye.”

Bosch laughed out loud after flipping the phone closed. He was sure now that trace wouldn’t get lost in the process. Ms. Sharpe would see to that. The name Pounds would probably be on the top of the list when it came in to Parker Center. He dialed Edgar’s number on the homicide table next and caught him before he had left the bureau for the day.

“Harry, what’s up?”

“You busy?”

“No. Nothing new.”

“Can you run a name for me? I already did DMV but I need somebody to do the computer.”

“Uh…”

“Look, can you or can’t you? If you’re worried about Pounds, then-”

“Hey, Harry, cool it. What’s wrong with you, man? I didn’t say I couldn’t do it. Just give me the name.”

Bosch couldn’t understand why Edgar’s attitude enraged him. He took a breath and tried to calm down.

“The name’s John Fox. Johnny Fox.”

“Shit, there’s going to be a hundred John Foxes. You got a DOB?”

“Yeah, I got a DOB.”

Bosch checked his notebook again and gave it to him.

“What’d he do to you? Say, how you doing?”

“Funny. I’ll tell you later. You going to run it?”

“Yes, I said I’ll do it.”

“Okay, you got my portable number. If you can’t get through, leave me a message at home.”

“When I can get to it, Harry.”

“What, you said nothing’s happening.”

“Nothing is, but I’m working, man. I can’t be running around doing shit for you all the time.”

Bosch was stunned into a short moment of silence.

“Hey, Jerry, fuck you, I’ll do it myself.”

“Look, Harry, I’m not saying I’m-”

“No, I mean it. Never mind. I don’t want to compromise you with your new partner or your fearless leader. I mean after all, that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? So don’t give me this shit about working. You’re not working. You’re about to go out the door for home and you know it. Or wait a minute, maybe it’s drinks with Burnsie again tonight.”

“Harry-”

“Take care, man.”

Bosch flipped the phone closed and sat there letting the anger work out of him like heat from the grill of a radiator. The phone rang while it was still in his hand and he immediately felt better. He flipped it open.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” he said. “Forget it.”

There was a long silence.

“Hello?”

It was a woman’s voice. Bosch felt immediately embarrassed.

“Yes?”

“Detective Bosch?”

“Yes, I’m sorry, I thought it was someone else.”

“Like who?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Dr. Hinojos.”

“Oh.” Bosch closed his eyes and the anger came back. “What can I do for you?”

“I was just calling to remind you that we have a session tomorrow. Three-thirty. You will be there?”

“I don’t have a choice, remember? And you don’t have to call to remind me about our sessions. Believe it or not, I have an appointment calendar, a watch, an alarm clock, all of that stuff now.”

He immediately thought he had gone over the top with the sarcasm.

“Sounds like I caught you at a bad time. I’ll let-”

“You did.”

“-you go. See you tomorrow, Detective Bosch.”

“Good-bye.”

He snapped the phone closed again and dropped it on the seat. He started the car. He took Ocean Park out to Bundy and then up toward the 10. As he approached the freeway overpass he saw the eastbound cars on top weren’t moving and the on ramp was jammed with cars waiting to wait.

“Fuck it,” he said out loud.

He went by the freeway ramp without turning and then under the overpass. He took Bundy up to Wilshire and then headed west into downtown Santa Monica. It took him fifteen minutes to find street parking near the Third Street Promenade. He had been avoiding multilevel parking garages since the quake and didn’t want to start using them now.

What a walking contradiction, Bosch thought as he prowled for a parking spot along the curb. You live in a condemned house the inspectors claim is ready to slide down the hill but you won’t go into a parking garage. He finally found a spot across from the porno theater about a block from the Promenade.

Bosch spent the rush hours walking up and down the three-block stretch of outdoor restaurants, movie theaters and shops. He went into the King George on Santa Monica, which he knew was a hangout for some of the detectives out of West L.A. Division, but didn’t see anybody he knew. After that, he ate pizza from a to-go joint and people-watched. He saw a street performer juggling five butcher knives at once. And he thought he might know something about how the man felt.

He sat on a bench and watched the droves of people pass him by. The only ones who stopped and paid attention to him were the homeless, and soon he had no change or dollar bills left to give them. Bosch felt alone. He thought about Katherine Register and what she had said about the past. She had said she was strong but he knew that comfort and strength could come from sadness. That was what she had.

He thought about what she had done five years ago. Her husband dead, she had taken stock of her life and found the hole in her memories. The pain. She had sent him the card in hopes he might do something then. And it had almost worked. He had pulled the murder book from the archives but hadn’t had the strength, or maybe it was the weakness, to look at it.