“Nah, I’m here, Sakai. See me? Where’s Hounchell and Lynch? Either of them around?”

Hounchell and Lynch were two investigators who Bosch knew would do him a favor without having to think about it too long. They were good people.

“Nah, they’re out baggin’ and taggin’. Busy morning. Guess things are picking up again.”

Bosch had heard a rumor through the grapevine that while removing victims from one of the collapsed apartment buildings after the earthquake, Sakai had gone in with his own camera and taken photos of people dead in their beds-the ceilings crushed down on top of them. He then sold the prints to the tabloid newspapers under a false name. That was the kind of guy he was.

“Anybody else around?”

“No, Bosch, jus’ me. Whaddaya want?”

“Nothing.”

Bosch turned back to the door, then hesitated. He needed to make the print comparison and didn’t want to wait. He looked back at Sakai.

“Look, Sakai, I need a favor. You want to help me out? I’ll owe you one.”

Sakai leaned forward in his chair. Bosch could see just the point of a toothpick poking out between his lips.

“I don’t know, Bosch, having you owe me one is like having the old whore with AIDS say she’ll give me a free one if I pay for the first.”

Sakai laughed at the comparison he had created.

“Okay, fine.”

Bosch turned and pushed through the door, keeping his anger in check. He was two steps down the hall when he heard Sakai call him back. Just as he had hoped. He took a deep breath and went back into the lounge.

“Bosch, c’mon, I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you out. Look, I read your story here and I feel for what you’re going through, okay?”

Yeah, right, Bosch thought but didn’t say.

“Okay,” he said.

“What do you need?”

“I need to get a set of prints off one of the customers in the cooler.”

“Which one?”

“Mittel.”

Sakai nodded toward the paper, which he had thrown back onto the table.

“That Mittel, huh?”

“Only one I know of.”

Sakai was quiet while he considered the request.

“You know, we make prints available to investigating officers assigned to homicides.”

“Cut the crap, Sakai. You know I know that and you know, if you read the paper, that I’m not the IO. But I still need the prints. You going to get them for me or am I just wasting my time here?”

Sakai stood up. Bosch knew that Sakai knew that if he backed down now after making the overture, then Bosch would gain a superior position in the netherworld of male interaction and in all their dealings that would follow. If Sakai followed through and got the prints, then the advantage would obviously go to him.

“Cool your jets, Bosch. I’m gonna get the prints. Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee and sit down? Just put a quarter in the box.”

Bosch hated the idea of being beholden to Sakai for anything but he knew this was worth it. The prints were the one way he knew to end the case. Or tear it open again.

Bosch had a cup of coffee and in fifteen minutes the coroner’s investigator was back. He was still waving the card so the ink would dry. He handed it to Bosch and went to the counter to get another cup of coffee.

“This is from Gordon Mittel, right?”

“Right. That’s what it said on the toe tag. And, man, he got busted up pretty good in that fall.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“You know, it sounds to me like that story in the newspaper ain’t as solid as you LAPD guys claim if you’re sneaking around here gettin’ the guy’s prints.”

“It’s solid, Sakai, don’t worry about it. And I better not get any calls from any reporters about me picking up prints. Or I’ll be back.”

“Don’t give yourself a hernia, Bosch. Just take the prints and leave. Never met anybody who tried so hard to make the person doin’ him a favor feel bad.”

Bosch dumped his coffee cup in a trash can and started out. At the door he stopped.

“Thanks.”

It burned him to say it. The guy was an asshole.

“Just remember, Bosch, you owe me.”

Bosch looked back at him. He was stirring cream into his cup. Bosch walked back, sticking his hand in his pocket. When he got to the counter he pulled out a quarter and dropped it into the slotted tin box that was the coffee fund.

“There, that’s for you,” Bosch said. “Now we’re even.”

He walked out and in the hallway he heard Sakai call him an asshole. To Bosch that was a sign that all might be right in the world. His world, at least.

When Bosch got to Parker Center fifteen minutes later, he realized he had a problem. Irving had not returned his ID tag because it was part of the evidence recovered from Mittel’s jacket in the hot tub. So Bosch loitered around the front of the building until he saw a group of detectives and administrative types walking toward the building from the City Hall annex. When the group moved inside and around the entry counter, Bosch stepped up behind them and got by the duty officer without notice.

Bosch found Hirsch at his computer in the Latent Fingerprint Unit and asked him if he still had the Lifescan from the prints off the belt buckle.

“Yeah, I’ve been waiting for you to pick them up.”

“Well, I got a set I want you to check against them first.”

Hirsch looked at him but hesitated only a second.

“Let’s see ’em.”

Bosch got the print card Sakai had made out of his briefcase and handed it over. Hirsch looked at it a moment, turning the card so it reflected the overhead light better.

“These are pretty clean. You don’t need the machine, right? You just want to compare these to the prints you brought in before.”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, I can eyeball it right now if you want to wait.”

“I want to wait.”

Hirsch got the Lifescan card out of his desk and took it and the coroner’s card to the work counter, where he looked at them through a magnifying lamp. Bosch watched his eyes going back and forth between the prints as if he were watching a tennis ball go back and forth across a net.

Bosch realized as he watched Hirsch work that more than anything else in the world he wanted the print man to look up at him and say that the prints from the two cards in front of him matched. Bosch wanted this to be over. He wanted to put it away.

After five minutes of silence, the tennis match was over and Hirsch looked up at him and gave him the score.

Chapter Forty-seven

WHEN CARMEN HINOJOS opened her waiting room door she seemed pleasantly surprised to see Bosch sitting on the couch.

“Harry! Are you all right? I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

“Why not? It’s my time, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I read in the paper you were at Cedars.”

“I checked out.”

“Are you sure you should have done that? You look…”

“Awful?”

“I didn’t want to say that. Come in.”

She ushered him in and they took their usual places.

“I actually look better than I feel right now.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Because it was all for nothing.”

His statement put a confused look on her face.

“What do you mean? I read the story today. You solved the murders, including your mother’s. I thought you’d be quite different than this.”

“Well, don’t believe everything you read, Doctor. Let me clarify things for you. What I did on my so-called mission was cause two men to be murdered and another to die by my own hands. I solved, let’s see, I solved one, two, three murders, so that’s good. But I didn’t solve the murder I set out to solve. In other words, I’ve been running around in circles causing people to die. So, how did you expect me to be during our session?”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I had a couple beers with lunch but it was a long lunch and I think that a minimum of two beers is required considering what I just told you. But I am not drunk, if that is what you want to know. And I’m not working, so what’s the difference?”