Echo Park

don’t fucking care. I just want it to be on my own terms. Not the state’s or anybody else’s. Just mine.”
    Bosch noticed that the woman had gone silent. He wondered what had happened. Had Waits silenced her? Had he just . . . ?
    “Waits, what’s wrong? Is she all right?”
    “She passed out. Too much excitement, I guess.”
    He laughed and then was silent. Bosch decided that he needed to keep Waits talking. If he was engaged by Bosch he would be distracted from the woman and what was assuredly being planned outside the tunnel.
    “I know who you are,” he said quietly.
    Waits didn’t take the bait. Bosch tried again.
    “Robert Foxworth. Son of Rosemary Foxworth. Raised by the county. Foster homes, youth halls. You lived here with the Saxons. For a time you lived at the McLaren Youth Hall out in El Monte. So did I, Robert.”
    Bosch was met with a long silence. But then the voice came quietly out of the darkness.
    “I’m not Robert Foxworth anymore.”
    “I understand.”
    “I hated that place. McLaren. I hated them all.”
    “They closed it down a couple years ago. After some kid died in there.”
    “Fuck them and fuck that place. How did you find Robert Foxworth?”
    Bosch felt a rhythm building in the conversation. He understood the cue Waits was giving by speaking of Robert Foxworth as someone other than himself. He was Raynard Waits now.
    “It wasn’t that hard,” Bosch answered. “We figured it out through the Fitzpatrick case. We found the pawn slip in the records and matched birth dates. What was the heirloom medallion that had been pawned?”
    There was a long silence before an answer.
    “It was Rosemary’s. It was all he had from her. He had to pawn it and when he went back to get it, that pig Fitzpatrick had already sold it.”
    Bosch nodded. He had Waits answering questions but there wasn’t a lot of time. He decided to jump to the present.
    “Raynard. Tell me about the setup. Tell me about Olivas and O’Shea.”
    There was only silence. Bosch tried again.
    “They used you. O’Shea used you and he’s going to just walk away from it. Is that what you want? You die here in this hole and he just walks away?”
    Bosch put the flashlight down so he could wipe the sweat out of his eyes. He then had to feel around on the floor of the tunnel to find it again.
    “I can’t give you O’Shea or Olivas,” Waits said in the darkness.
    Bosch didn’t get it. Was he wrong? He doubled back in his head and started at the beginning.
    “Did you kill Marie Gesto?”
    There was a long silence.
    “No, I didn’t,” Waits finally said.
    “Then how was this set up? How could you know where—”
    “Think about it, Bosch. They’re not stupid. They would not directly communicate with me.”
    Bosch nodded. He understood.
    “Maury Swann,” he said. “He brokered the deal. Tell me about it.”
    “What’s to tell? It was a setup, man. He said the whole thing was to make you a believer. He said you were bothering the wrong people and had to be convinced.”
    “What people?”
    “He didn’t tell me that.”
    “This is Maury Swann saying this?”
    “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t get to him either. This is communication between a lawyer and his client. You can’t touch it. It’s privileged. Besides, it would be my word against his. That won’t go anywhere and you know it.”
    Bosch did know it. Maury Swann was a tough lawyer and a respected member of the bar. He was also a media darling. There was no way to go after him with just the words of a criminal client—and a serial killer at that. It had been a masterstroke by O’Shea and Olivas to use him as the go-between.
    “I don’t care,” Bosch said. “I want to know how it all went down. Tell me.”
    A long silence went by before Waits responded.
    “Swann went to them with the idea of making a deal. My clearing the books in exchange for my life. He did this without my knowledge. If he had asked me I would have said, don’t bother. I’d rather take the needle than forty years in a cell. You understand that, Bosch. You’re an eye-for-an-eye guy. I like that about you, believe it or not.”
    He ended it there and Bosch had to prompt him again.
    “So then what happened?”
    “One night in the jail, I was taken to the attorney room and there was Maury. He told me there was a deal on the table. But he said it would only work if I threw in a freebie. Admit to one I didn’t do. He told me that there would be a field trip