Lost Light

you won’t.”
    I gave him Simonson’s birthdate and the address listed in the murder book, although I had a feeling it was old.
    “Who is he?”
    I told him about Simonson’s former work at BankLA and about him being shot during the movie set heist.
    “The guy was a victim. You think he set it up and told his guys to shoot him in the ass?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “And what’s he got to do with Marty Gessler?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. But I just want to check him out. Something doesn’t seem right to me.”
    “Okay, you keep having the hunches and I’ll do the legwork, Bosch. Anything else?”
    “Look, if you don’t want to do it, just say so. I’ll get somebody else to -”
    “Look, I said I’ll do it, and I will. Anything else?”
    I hesitated but not for too long.
    “Yeah, one other thing. Can you run a plate for me?”
    “Give it to me.”
    I gave him the number I had gotten off the car Eleanor had been driving. It was still in my memory and I figured it would stay there until I checked it out.
    “Nevada?” Lindell asked, suspicion obvious in his voice. “This have to do with your trip to Vegas or this thing over here?”
    I should have known. Lindell was a lot of things but stupid wasn’t one of them. I had already opened the door. I had to step inside.
    “I don’t know,” I lied. “But could you just get me the registration on it?”
    If the car, as I suspected, was registered in someone other than Eleanor’s name, I could make up a story about thinking I had been followed and Lindell would never know the difference.
    “All right,” the FBI agent said. “I gotta go. Call me later.”
    I hung up and that was that. Guilt washed around me like the waves hitting the pylons under the pier. I might be able to fool Lindell with the request but not myself. I was running a check on my former wife. I wondered if I was capable of doing anything lower.
    Trying not to dwell on it, I picked up the receiver and dumped more change into the phone. I called Janis Langwiser and realized as I waited for her to answer that I might be about to answer the question I had just posed to myself.
    Langwiser’s secretary said she was on a phone call and she would have to call me back. I said I wasn’t reachable but would call back in fifteen minutes. I hung up and walked around the market, spending the most time in a small store that sold only hot sauce, hundreds of different brands of it. I wasn’t sure when I would use it because I rarely cooked at home anymore, but I bought a bottle of Gator Squeezins because I liked the place and I needed more change for the call back.
    Next stop was the bakery. Not to buy, just to look. When I was a kid and my mother was still around, she used to take me to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings. What I remember most was watching through the bakery window when the cakemaker would dress the cakes people ordered for birthdays and holidays and weddings. He would make grand designs on the top of each cake, squeezing the icing through a funnel, his thick forearms covered in flour and sugar.
    My mother usually had to hold me up at the window so I could see the top of the cake being decorated. Sometimes she would think I was watching the cakemaker but I was really watching her in the reflection of the window, trying to figure out what was wrong.
    When she would grow tired of holding me up she’d go grab a chair from the nearby restaurant seating area-what they now call a food court in the malls-and I would stand on that. I used to look at the cakes and imagine what parties they would go to and how many people were going to be there. It seemed like those cakes could only go to happy places. But I could tell that when the baker was icing a wedding cake, it made my mother sad.
    The bakery and the cakemaker’s window were still there. I stood in front of the glass with my bag of hot sauce, but there was no baker there. I knew it was too late in the day. The cakes were made early each day so they would be ready for pickup or delivery for birthday parties and weddings and anniversaries and things like that. On the rack next to the window I looked at the selection of stainless steel funnel tips the baker could use to make various designs and flowers out of icing.
    “No use waiting. He’s done for the day.”
    I didn’t need to turn. In the reflection of the window, I saw an old lady walking by behind me. It made me think of my mother