Echo Park

move. It would not only get the inquisitive Edgar out of the way for a while, but it could also provide them with some valuable information about the house on Figueroa Lane.
    At the floor-to-ceiling glass wall on the north side of the building, Bosch and Walling looked down and across the 101 Freeway at Echo Park. They were farther from the hillside neighborhood than Bosch had thought they would be, but they still had a good vantage point. He pointed out the geographic markers to Rachel.
    “There’s Fig Terrace,” he said. “Those three houses up above it on the curve are on Fig Lane.”
    She nodded. Figueroa Lane had only the three houses on it. From this height and distance it looked like an afterthought, a developer’s discovery that he could jam three more houses onto the hillside after the main street grid had already been laid out.
    “Which one is seven-ten?” she asked.
    “Good question.”
    Bosch dropped the sleeping bag and raised the binoculars. He studied the three houses, looking for an address. He finally zeroed in on a black trash can sitting out front of the house in the middle. In large white numerals someone had painted 712 on the can in an effort to safeguard it from theft. Bosch knew the address numbers would rise as the street extended away from downtown.
    “The one on the right is seven-ten,” he said.
    “Got it,” she said.
    “So that’s the address?” Edgar asked. “Seven-ten Fig Lane?”
    “Figueroa Lane,” Bosch said.
    “Got it. Let me go see what I can find. If anybody comes up here and asks what you are doing, just tell them to call me on three-three-eight. That’s my page.”
    “Thanks, Jason.”
    “You got it.”
    Edgar started walking back to the elevators. Bosch thought of something and called after him.
    “Jason, this glass has got film on it, right? Nobody can see us looking out, right?”
    “Yeah, no problem. You could stand there naked and nobody would see you from the outside. But don’t try that at night, ’cause it’s a different story. Internal light changes things and you can look right in.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Thanks.”
    “When I come back, I’ll bring a couple chairs.”
    “That would be good.”
    After Edgar disappeared into the elevator, Walling said, “Good, at least we’ll be able to
sit
naked at the window.”
    Bosch smiled.
    “Sounded like he knew all that from experience,” he said.
    “Let’s hope not.”
    Bosch raised the binoculars and looked down at the house at 710 Figueroa Lane. It was of similar design to the other two on the street; built high on the hillside with steps leading down to a street-front garage cut into the embankment below the house. It had a red barrel-tile roof and a Spanish motif. But while the other houses on the street were neatly painted and cared for, 710 appeared run-down. Its pink paint had faded. The embankment between the garage and the house was overrun with weeds. The flagpole that stood at the corner of the front porch flew no flag.
    Bosch fine-tuned the focus of the field glasses and moved them from window to window, looking for indications of occupancy, hoping to get lucky and see Waits himself looking back out.
    Next to him he heard Walling click off a few photos. She was using the camera.
    “I don’t think there’s any film in that. It’s not digital.”
    “It’s all right. Just force of habit. And I wouldn’t expect a dinosaur like you to have a digital camera.”
    Beneath the binoculars, Bosch smiled. He tried to think of a rejoinder but let it go. He focused his attention back on the house. It was of a style commonly seen in the city’s older hillside neighborhoods. While with newer construction the contour of the land dictated design, the houses on the inclined side of Figueroa Lane were of a more conquering design. At street level the embankment was excavated for a garage. Then, above this, the hillside was terraced and a small single-level home had been constructed. The mountains and hillsides all over the city were molded this way in the forties and fifties as the city sprawled through the flats and grew up the hillsides like a rising tide.
    Bosch noticed that at the top of the stairs that ran from the side of the garage up to the front porch there was a small metal platform. He checked the stairs again and saw the metal guide rails.
    “There’s a lift on the stairs,” he said. “Whoever’s living there now is in a wheelchair.”
    He saw no movement behind any window