A Darkness More Than Night

tell you yesterday at lunch. We named her Cielo Azul.”
    Bosch’s eyes came up from the photo to McCaleb’s. They held for a moment and then he nodded.
    “Nice.”
    “Yeah, I told Graciela I wanted to do it and I told her why. She thought it was a good idea.”
    Bosch handed the photo back.
    “I hope someday the kid does, too.”
    “Me, too. We call her CiCi most of the time. Anyway, remember that night up here, how you kept asking that question about the hand of God and how you couldn’t find it in anything anymore? That happened to me, too. I lost it. This kind of job… it’s hard not to. Then…”
    He held up the photo.
    “Here it is right here. I found it again. The hand of God. I see it in her eyes.”
    Bosch looked at him for a long moment and then nodded.
    “Good for you, Terry.”
    “I mean, I’m not trying to come off like… I mean I’m not trying to convert you or anything. I’m just saying I found that thing that was missing. And I don’t know if you’re still looking for it… I just wanted to say, you know, that it is out there. Don’t give up.”
    Bosch glanced away from McCaleb and out the glass doors to the darkness.
    “For some people I’m sure it is.”
    He drained his bottle and went into the kitchen to break his promise to himself to have only one. He called back to McCaleb to see if he was ready for a second but his visitor passed. As he bent into the open refrigerator he paused and closed his eyes as the cool air caressed his face. He thought about what McCaleb had just told him.
    “You don’t think you are one of them?”
    Bosch jerked up at the sound of McCaleb’s voice. He was standing in the kitchen’s doorway.
    “What?”
    “You said it was out there for some people. You don’t think you are one of them?”
    Bosch took a beer out of the refrigerator and slid it into the bottle opener mounted on the wall. He snapped the bottle open and drank deeply from it before answering.
    “What is this, Terry, twenty questions? You thinking of becoming a priest or something?”
    McCaleb smiled and shook his head.
    “Sorry, Harry. A new father, you know? I guess I want to tell the world, that’s all.”
    “That’s nice. You want to talk about Gunn now?”
    “Sure.”
    “Let’s go out and look at the night.”
    They walked out to the back deck and both looked at the view. The 101 was its usual ribbon of light, a glowing vein cutting through the mountains. The sky was clear, the smog having been washed out by rain the week before. Bosch could see the lights on the floor of the Valley seemingly extending into infinity. Closer to the house there was only darkness held in the brush on the hillside below. He could smell the eucalyptus from below; it was always strongest after the rain.
    McCaleb was the first to speak.
    “You’ve got a nice place here, Harry. A nice spot. You must hate having to ride down into the plague every morning.”
    Bosch looked over at him.
    “Not as long as I get a shot at the carriers every now and then. People like David Storey. I don’t mind that.”
    “And what about the ones who walk away? Like Gunn.”
    “Nobody walks away, Terry. If I believed that they did, then I couldn’t do this. Sure we might not get every one of them, but I believe in the circle. The big wheel. What goes around comes around. Eventually. I might not see the hand of God too often like you do but I believe in that.”
    Bosch put his bottle down on the railing. It was empty and he wanted another but knew he had to put on the brakes. He’d need every brain cell he could muster in court the next day. He thought about a cigarette and knew there was a fresh pack in a kitchen cabinet. But he decided to hold off on that, too.
    “Then I guess what happened with Gunn must be a confirmation of your faith in the big wheel theory.”
    Bosch didn’t say anything for a long time. He just stared out across the Valley of light.
    “Yeah,” he finally said. “I guess it does.”
    He broke his stare away and turned his back on the view. He leaned against the railing and looked at McCaleb again.
    “So what about Gunn? I thought I told you everything there was to tell yesterday. You’ve got the file, right?”
    McCaleb nodded.
    “You probably did and I do have the file. But I was just wondering if anything else came up. You know, if maybe our conversation jump-started your thinking on it.”
    Bosch sort of laughed and picked up the bottle before remembering it was