“Is he getting a warrant?”

“Yeah, he’s got somebody trying to find a judge now. So they’ll have it. But they aren’t going to go near it until they take down the operation. In case their plan is for someone to come out and get the ATVs. Or somebody already outside is going to show up and drive ’em in.”

Bosch nodded and sipped. It was the smart way to go. He remembered he had a cigarette going in the ashtray and tossed it out the open window.

As if guessing what he would be thinking, she said, “Rourke said that from what they could see there was no blanket in the back of the Jeep. But if it’s the Jeep Meadows’s body was carried to the reservoir in, there still should be fiber evidence.”

“What about the seal that Sharkey saw on the door?”

“Rourke said there was no seal. But there could have been one and they just took it off when they were leaving the Jeep out there.”

“Yeah,” Bosch said. After a few moments of thought, he said, “Does it bother you how everything is just coming together so well?”

“Should it?”

Bosch shrugged his shoulders. He looked up Wilshire. The curb in front of the fireplug was empty. Since they had come back from dinner Bosch hadn’t seen the white LTD, which he’d been sure was an IAD car. He didn’t know if Lewis and Clarke were around or had called it a night.

“Harry, good detective work pays off with cases that come together,” Eleanor told him. “I mean, we aren’t out of the dark on this by a long shot. But I think we finally have a measure of control. Damned sight better than we were three days ago. So why the worry when a few things finally start coming together?”

“Three days ago Sharkey was still alive.”

“Well, while you’re taking the blame for that, why don’t you add everybody else who has ever made a choice and gotten themselves killed. You can’t change those things, Harry. And you’re not supposed to be a martyr.”

“What do you mean, choice? Sharkey didn’t make any choice.”

“Yes, he did. When he chose the streets, he knew he might die on the streets.”

“You don’t believe that. He was a kid.”

“I believe that shit happens. I believe that the best you can do in this job is come out even. Some people win and some lose. Hopefully, half the time it is the good guys who win. That’s us, Harry.”

Bosch drank his cup dry and they sat in silence for a while after that. They had a clear view of the vault sitting at the center of the glass room like a throne. Out there in the open, polished and shiny under the bright ceiling lights, it said “Take me” to the world, he thought. And somebody would. We’re going to let them.

Wish picked up the radio handset, keyed the transmit button twice and said, “Broadway One to First, do you guys copy?”

“We copy, Broadway. Anything?” It was Houck’s voice on the comeback. There was a lot of static, as the radio waves ricocheted off the tall buildings in the area.

“Only checking. What’s your position?”

“We are due south of the front door of the pawnshop. A clear view of nothing going on.”

“We’re east. Can see the-” She clicked off the mike and looked at Bosch. “We forgot a code for the vault. Got any ideas?”

Bosch shook his head no, but then said, “Saxophone. I’ve seen saxophones hanging in pawnshop windows. Musical instruments, lots of them.”

She clicked the mike open again. “Sorry, First Street, had technical difficulty. We are east of the pawnshop, have the piano in the window in sight. No activity inside.”

“Stay awake.”

“That’s a K. Broadway out.”

Bosch smiled and shook his head.

“What?” she said. “What?”

“I’ve seen lots of musical instruments in pawnshops, but I don’t know about a piano. Who is going to take a piano to a pawnshop? You’d need a truck. We’ve blown our cover now.”

He picked up the radio mike, but without clicking the transmit button, and said, “Uh, First Street, check that. It’s not a piano in the window. That’s an accordion. Our mistake.”

She slugged him on the shoulder and told him to never mind the piano. They settled into an easy silence. Surveillance jobs were the bane of most detectives’ existence. But in his fifteen years on the job Bosch had never minded a single stakeout. In fact, many times he enjoyed them when he was with good company. He defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company. Bosch thought about the case and watched the traffic pass by the vault. He recapped the events as they had occurred, in order, from start to present. Revisiting scenes, listening to the dialogue over again. He found that often this reaccounting helped him make the next choice or step. What he mulled over now, poking at it like a loose tooth with his tongue, was the hit-and-run. The car that had come at them the night before. Why? What did they know at that point that made them so dangerous? It seemed to be a foolish move to kill a cop and a federal agent. Why was it undertaken? His mind then drifted to the night they had spent together after all the questions were asked by all the supervisors. Eleanor was spooked. More so than he. As he had held her in her bed, he felt as though he were calming a frightened animal. Holding and caressing her as she breathed into his neck. They had not made love. Just held each other. It had somehow seemed more intimate.

“Are you thinking about last night?” she asked then.

“How did you know?”

“A guess. Any ideas?”

“Well, I think it was nice. I think we-”

“I’m talking about who tried to kill us last night.”

“Oh. No, no ideas. I was thinking about the after.”

“Oh… You know, I didn’t thank you, Harry, for being with me like that, not expecting anything.”

“I should thank you.”

“You’re sweet.”

They drifted into their own thoughts again. Leaning against the door with his head against the side window, Bosch rarely took his eyes off the vault. Traffic on Wilshire was light but steady. People heading to or from the clubs over on Santa Monica Boulevard or around Rodeo Drive. There was probably a premiere at nearby Academy Hall. It seemed to Bosch that every limousine in L.A. was working Wilshire this night. Stretch cars of all makes and colors cruised by, one by one. They moved so smoothly they seemed to float. They were beautiful, and intriguing with their black windows. Like exotic women in sunglasses. A car built just for this city, Bosch thought.

“Has Meadows been buried?”

The question surprised him. He wondered what tumble of thought led to it. “No,” he answered. “Monday, over at the veterans cemetery.”

“A Memorial Day funeral, sounds kind of fitting. So his life of crime did not disqualify him from being placed in such sacred ground?”

“No. He did his time over there in Vietnam. They’ve saved a space for him. There’s probably one there for me, too. Why did you ask?”

“I don’t know. Just thinking is all. Will you go?”

“If I’m not sitting here watching this vault.”

“That will be nice of you. I know he meant something to you. At one point in your life.”

He let it drop, but then she said, “Harry, tell me about the black echo. What you said the other day. What did you mean?”

For the first time he looked away from the vault and at Eleanor. Her face was in darkness, but headlights from a passing car lit the interior of the car for a moment and he could see her eyes on his. He looked back at the vault.

“There isn’t anything really to tell. It’s just what we called one of the intangibles.”

“Intangibles?”

“There was no name for it, so we made up a name. It was the darkness, the damp emptiness you’d feel when you were down there alone in those tunnels. It was like you were in a place where you felt dead and buried in the dark. But you were alive. And you were scared. Your own breath kind of echoed in the darkness, loud enough to give you away. Or so you thought. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. Just… the black echo.”