City Of Bones

speech. He had gone through long stretches of indecision about himself and his choices. Telling her to stick it out made him feel a little false.
    “Let’s talk about something else,” she said.
    “Fine with me,” he said.
    He took a long drink from his glass, trying to think of how to turn the conversation in another direction. He put his glass down, turned and smiled at her.
    “So there you were, hiking in the Andes and you said to yourself, ‘Gee, I wanna be a cop.’ ”
    She laughed, seemingly shaking off the blues of her earlier comments.
    “Not quite like that. And I’ve never been in the Andes.”
    “Well, what about the rich, full life you lived before putting on the badge? You said you were a world traveler.”
    “Never made it to South America.”
    “Is that where the Andes are? All this time I thought they were in Florida.”
    She laughed again and Bosch felt good about successfully changing the subject. He liked looking at her teeth when she laughed. They were just a little bit crooked and in a way that made them perfect.
    “So seriously, what did you do?”
    She turned in the stool so they were shoulder to shoulder, looking at each other in the mirror behind all the colored bottles lined along the back wall of the bar.
    “Oh, I was a lawyer for a while-not a defense lawyer, so don’t get excited. Civil law. Then I realized that was bullshit and quit and just started traveling. I worked along the way. I made pottery in Venice, Italy. I was a horse guide in the Swiss Alps for a while. I was cook on a day-trip tourist boat in Hawaii. I did other things and I just saw a lot of the world-except for the Andes. Then I came home.”
    “To L.A.?”
    “Born and raised. You?”
    “Same. Queen of Angels.”
    “Cedars.”
    She held out her glass and they clinked.
    “To the few, the proud, the brave,” she said.
    Bosch finished off his glass and poured in the contents of his sidecar. He was way ahead of Brasher but didn’t care. He was feeling relaxed. It was good to forget about things for a while. It was good to be with somebody not directly related to the case.
    “Born at Cedars, huh?” he asked. “Where’d you grow up?”
    “Don’t laugh. Bel Air.”
    “Bel Air? I guess somebody’s daddy isn’t too happy about her joining the cops.”
    “Especially since his was the law firm she walked out of one day and wasn’t heard from for two years.”
    Bosch smiled and raised his glass. She clicked hers off it.
    “Brave girl.”
    After they put their glasses down, she said, “Let’s stop all the questions.”
    “Okay,” Bosch said. “And do what?”
    “Just take me home, Harry. To your place.”
    He paused for a moment, looking at her shiny blue eyes. Things were moving lightning fast, greased on the smooth runners of alcohol. But that was often the way it was between cops, between people who felt they were part of a closed society, who lived by their instincts and went to work each day knowing that how they made their living could kill them.
    “Yeah,” he finally said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”
    He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth.

Chapter 11
    JULIA Brasher stood in the living room of Bosch’s house and looked at the CDs stored in the racks next to the stereo.
    “I love jazz.”
    Bosch was in the kitchen. He smiled when he heard her say it. He finished pouring the two martinis out of a shaker and came out to the living room and handed her a glass.
    “Who do you like?”
    “Ummm, lately Bill Evans.”
    Bosch nodded, went to the rack and came up with Kind of Blue. He loaded it into the stereo.
    “Bill and Miles,” he said. “Not to mention Coltrane and a few other guys. Nothing better.”
    As the music began he picked up his martini and she came over and tapped it with her glass. Rather than drink, they kissed each other. She started laughing halfway through the kiss.
    “What?” he said.
    “Nothing. I’m just feeling reckless. And happy.”
    “Yeah, me too.”
    “I think it was you giving me the flashlight.”
    Bosch was puzzled.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You know, it’s so phallic.”
    The look on Bosch’s face made her laugh again and she spilled some of her drink on the floor.
    Later, when she was lying face down on his bed, Bosch was tracing the outline of the flaming sun tattooed on the small of her back and thinking about how comfortable and yet strange she felt to him. He knew almost nothing about her. Like the tattoo, there seemed to