The most serious offenses the boy who called himself Sharkey had committed-and been caught at-were shoplifting, vandalism, loitering and possession of marijuana and speed. He had been held once-twenty days-at Sylmar Juvenile Hall after one of the drug arrests but later released on home probation. All the other times he was popped he was immediately released to his mother. He was a chronic runaway from home and a throwaway from the system.

There was not much more in the file than was on the computer. A little elaboration on the arrests was all. Bosch shuffled through the papers until he found the report on the loitering charge. It went to pretrial intervention and was dismissed when Sharkey agreed to go home to his mother and stay there. That apparently didn’t last long. There was a report that the mother had reported him missing to his probation officer two weeks later. According to these records, he had not been picked up yet.

Bosch read the investigating officer’s summary on the loitering arrest. It said:

I/O interviewed Donald Smiley, a caretaker at the Mulholland Dam, who said at 7A.M. this date he went into the pipe situated alongside the reservoir access road to clear it of debris. Smiley found the boy asleep on a bed made of newspapers. The boy was dirty and incoherent when roused. Subject appeared to be under the influence of narcotics. Police were called and I/O responded. The arrestee stated to I/O that he had been sleeping there regularly because his mother did not want him at home. I/O determined the subject was a reported runaway and took him into custody this date, suspicion of loitering.

Sharkey was a creature of habit, Bosch thought. He was arrested at the dam two months ago, but had gone back there to sleep Sunday morning. He looked through the rest of the papers in the file for indications of other habits that would help Bosch find him. From a three-by-five shake card, Bosch learned that Sharkey had been stopped and questioned but not arrested on Santa Monica Boulevard near West Hollywood in January. Sharkey was lacing up new Reeboks and the officer, believing he might have just lifted them, asked Sharkey to produce a receipt. He did and that would have been that. But when the boy pulled the receipt out of a leather pouch on his motorbike, the officer noticed a plastic bag in there and asked to see that as well. The bag contained ten photographs of Sharkey. He was naked in each and stood in different poses, fondling himself in some, his penis erect in others. The officer took the photos and destroyed them, but noted on the shake card that he would alert the sheriff’s station in West Hollywood that Sharkey was hustling photos to homosexuals on Santa Monica Boulevard.

That was it. Bosch closed the file but kept the photo of Sharkey. He thanked Thelia King and left the small office. He was walking through the station’s rear hallway, past the lockup benches, when he placed the familiarity in the photo. The hair was longer now and in dreadlocks, the defiance crowding out the hurt in the face, but Sharkey had been the kid who was cuffed to the juvie bench early that morning. Bosch felt sure of it. Thelia had missed it on the computer search because the arrest had not yet been logged in. Bosch cut into the watch commander’s office, told the lieutenant what he was looking for and was led to a box labeled A.M. Watch. Bosch looked through the reports stacked in the box until he found the paperwork on Edward Niese.

Sharkey had been picked up at 4A.M. loitering near a newsstand on Vine. A patrol officer thought he was hustling. After he grabbed him he ran a computer check and learned he was a runaway. Bosch checked the day’s arrest sheet and learned the kid had been held until 9A.M., when his probation officer came and got him. Bosch called the PO at Sylmar Juvenile Hall but learned that Sharkey had already been arraigned before a juvenile court referee and was released to the custody of his mother.

“And that’s his biggest problem,” the PO said. “He’ll be gone by tonight, back on the street. I guarantee it. And I told the ref that, but he wasn’t going to book the kid into the monkey house just ’cause he was caught loitering and his mother happens to be a telephone whore.”

“A what?” Bosch asked.

“It should be in the file. Yeah, while Sharkey’s on the street, dear old mom is at home telling guys on the phone how she’s gonna piss in their mouths and put rubber bands on their dicks. Advertises in skin mags. She gets forty bucks for fifteen minutes. Takes MasterCard, Visa, puts ’em on hold while she checks on another line to make sure the number is valid and they got credit. Anyway, she’s been doing it, near as I can tell, five years now. Edward’s formative years were listening to this shit. I mean, no wonder the kid’s a scammer and runner. What do you expect?”

“How long ago did he leave with her?”

“ ’Bout noon. You want to catch him there, you better go. You got the address?”

“Yeah.”

“And Bosch, one thing: Don’t be expecting no whore when you get there. His mom, she doesn’t look like the part she plays on the phone, if you know what I mean. Her voice might do the job but her looks would scare a blind man.”

Bosch thanked him for the warning and hung up. He took the 101 out to the Valley and then the 405 north to the 118 and west. He got off in Chatsworth and drove into the rocky bluffs at the top corner of the Valley. There was a condominium community built on what he knew was once a movie ranch. It had been one of the places Charlie Manson and his crew used to hide out. Parts of one member of that crew’s body were supposedly still missing and buried around there someplace. It was near dusk when Bosch got there. People were off work and getting home. A lot of traffic on the development’s thin roads. A lot of closing doors. A lot of calls to Sharkey’s mother. Bosch was too late.

“I have no time to talk to more police,” Veronica Niese said when she answered the door and looked at the badge. “As soon as I get him home he is out the door again. I don’t know where he goes. You tell me. That’s your job. I have three calls waiting, one long distance. I gotta go.”

She was in her late forties, fat and wrinkled. She obviously wore a wig and the dilation of her eyes did not match. She had the dirty-socks smell of a speed addict. Her callers were better off with their fantasies, with just a voice with which to construct a body and face.

“Mrs. Niese, I’m not looking for your son for something he did. I need to talk to him because of something he saw. He could possibly be in danger.”

“Oh, bullshit. I’ve heard that line before.”

She closed the door and he just stood there. After a few moments he could hear her on the phone, and he thought it was a French accent but couldn’t be sure. He could only make out a few of the sentences but they made him blush. He thought about Sharkey and realized he wasn’t really a runaway, because there was nothing here to run away from. He left the doorstep and went back to the car. That would be it for the day. And he was out of time. Lewis and Clarke must have paper out on him by now. He’d be assigned to a desk at IAD by morning. He drove back to the station and signed out. Everyone was already gone and there were no messages on his desk, not even from his lawyer. On the way home he stopped by the Lucky and bought four bottles of beer, a couple from Mexico, a lager from England called Old Nick and a Henry’s.

He expected to find a message from Lewis and Clarke on his phone tape when he got home. He wasn’t wrong, but the message was not what he expected.

“I know you’re there, so listen,” said a voice Bosch recognized as Clarke’s. “They can change their mind but they can’t change ours. We’ll see you around.”