Echo Park

was in B dorm. It was closest to the baseball fields so we always got there first at rec time and got the best equipment.”
    It was a you-had-to-be-there story, the best Bosch could think of in the moment. He had spent most of his life trying to forget about McLaren.
    “Maybe you were there, Bosch.”
    “I was.”
    “And look at us now. You went your way and I went mine. I guess I fed the wrong dog.”
    “What do you mean? What dog?”
    “You don’t remember. At McLaren they used to pass around that saying about every man having two dogs inside. One good and one bad. They fight all the time because only one can be the alpha dog, the one in charge.”
    “And?”
    “And the one that wins is always the dog you chose to feed. I fed the wrong one. You fed the right one.”
    Bosch didn’t know what to say. He heard a click from behind him in the tunnel. They were going to launch the grenade. He quickly stood up, hopeful that they would not shoot him in the back.
    “Waits, I’m coming in.”
    “No, Bosch.”
    “I’ll give you my gun. Watch the light. I’ll give you my gun.”
    He switched on the flashlight and played its beam on the turn in the tunnel ahead. He moved forward and when he got to the turn extended his left hand into the cone of light. He held his gun by the barrel so Waits could see it was no threat.
    “I’m coming in now.”
    Bosch took the turn and entered the final chamber of the tunnel. The space was at least twelve feet wide but still not tall enough for him to stand in. He dropped to his knees and swept the chamber with his light. The dim amber beam revealed a ghastly sight of bones and skulls and decaying flesh and hair. The stench was overpowering and Bosch had to hold himself from gagging.
    The beam came to the face of the man Bosch had known as Raynard Waits. He was propped against the far wall of his foxhole, sitting on what looked like a throne carved into the rock and clay. To his left the woman he had abducted lay naked and unconscious on a blanket. Waits held the barrel of Freddy Olivas’s gun to her temple.
    “Easy now,” Bosch said. “I’ll give you my gun. Just don’t hurt her anymore.”
    Waits smiled, knowing he was in complete control of the situation.
    “Bosch, you are a fool to the end.”
    Bosch lowered his arm and tossed the gun to the right side of the throne. As Waits reached down to grab it he lifted the muzzle of the other gun off the woman. Bosch dropped the flashlight and reached behind him at the same time, his hand finding the grip of the revolver he had taken from the blind woman.
    The long barrel made his aim true. He fired twice, hitting Waits in the center of the chest with both rounds.
    Waits was knocked back against the wall. Bosch saw his eyes go wide, then they lost that light that separates life from death. His chin dropped and his head tilted forward.
    Bosch crawled to the woman and checked her for a pulse. She was still alive. He covered her with the blanket she was lying on. He then called out to the others in the tunnel.
    “This is Bosch—RHD! It’s clear! We are clear! Raynard Waits is dead!”
    A bright light flashed on around the corner in the entrance tunnel. It was a blinding light and he knew the men with guns would be waiting on the other side of it.
    No matter, he felt safe now. He slowly moved toward the light.

30

    AFTER EMERGING FROM THE TUNNEL Bosch was led out of the garage by two SWAT officers wearing gas masks. He was delivered into the hands of the waiting members of the Fugitive Task Force and others associated with the case. Randolph and Osani from OIS were on hand as well as Abel Pratt from the Open-Unsolved Unit. Bosch looked around for Rachel Walling but didn’t see her anywhere on the scene.
    Next out of the tunnel was Waits’s last victim. The young woman was carried to a waiting ambulance and immediately transported to County- USC Medical Center for assessment and treatment. Bosch was pretty sure his own imagination couldn’t top the real horrors she had lived through. But he knew the important thing was that she was alive.
    The task force leader wanted Bosch to sit in a van and tell his story but Bosch said he didn’t want to be in a closed space. Even out in the open air on Figueroa Lane he couldn’t get the smell of the tunnel out of his nose and he noticed that the task force members who had crowded around him at first had now all taken a step or two back. He saw a garden hose attached to a faucet