The Black Echo

LAPD. You all check in with Santa Monica PD? They know you’re out here?”
    “Who the fuck cares? Just leave us alone.”
    Clarke turned around. When the guard didn’t leave, he turned back and said, “Son, you need something?”
    “This garage is my beat, Detective Clarke. I can be wherever I want to be.”
    “You can get the fuck outta here. I can-”
    Clarke heard the camera shutter close and the sound of the automatic wind. He turned to Lewis, who stood up smiling.
    “I got it-a hand shot,” Lewis said as he stood up. “They’re on the move, let’s go.”
    Lewis collapsed the telescope legs of the tripod and quickly got in the passenger seat of the gray Caprice they had traded the black Plymouth for.
    “See ya, bro,” Clarke said to the guard. He got in behind the wheel.
    The car backed out, forcing the security guard to jump out of the way. Clarke looked in the rearview mirror smiling as he drove toward the exit ramp. He saw the guard talking into a hand-held radio.
    “Talk all you want, buddy boy,” he said.
    The IAD car pulled up to the exit booth. Clarke handed the parking stub and two dollars to the man in the booth. He took it but didn’t lift the black-and-white-striped pipe that served as a gate.
    “Benson said I have to hold you guys here,” the man in the booth said.
    “What? Who the fuck is Benson?” Clarke said.
    “He’s the security. He said hold it here a minute.”
    Just then, both IAD officers saw Bosch and Wish drive by the garage, heading up to Fourth Street. They were going to lose them. Clarke held out his badge to the booth attendant.
    “We’re on the job. Open that goddam gate. Now!”
    “He’ll be along. I gotta do what he say. Else I’ll lose my job.”
    “You open that gate or you’re going to lose it, peckerwood,” Clarke yelled.
    He put his foot down and revved the engine to show he meant to drive through it.
    “Why you think we got a pipe ’stead a flimsy piece a wood. You go ahead. That pipe’ll take out your windshield, mister. You do what you want, but he’s coming right along.”
    In the rearview, Clarke saw the security guard walking down the ramp. Clarke’s face was becoming blotchy red with anger. He felt Lewis’s hand on his arm.
    “Cool it, partner,” Lewis said. “They were holding hands when they came out of the restaurant. We won’t lose them. They’re only going to her place. I’ll bet you a week’s driving that we’ll pick ’em up there.”
    Clarke shook his hand off and let out a long breath; that seemed to bring a more placid tone to his face. He said, “I don’t care. I don’t fucking like this shit one bit.”

    ***

    On Ocean Park Boulevard Bosch found a parking space across from Eleanor’s building. He pulled in but made no move to get out of the car. He looked at her, still feeling the glow of a few minutes before but unsure where they were going with this. She seemed to know this, maybe even feel it herself. She put her hand on top of his and leaned over to kiss him. She whispered, “Come in with me.”
    He got out and came around to her side. She was already out and he closed the door. They rounded the front end of the car and then stood next to it, waiting for an approaching car to pass by. The car’s high beams were on and Bosch turned away and looked at Eleanor. So it was she who first noticed the high beams drift toward them.
    “Harry?”
    “What?”
    “Harry!”
    Then Bosch turned back to the approaching car and saw the lights-actually four beams from two sets of square side-by-side headlights-bearing down on them. In the few seconds that were left Bosch clearly came to the conclusion that the car was not drifting their way but rather driving at them. There was no time, yet time seemed to go into suspension. In what seemed to him to be slow motion, Bosch turned to his right, to Eleanor. But she needed no help. In unison, they leapt onto the hood of Bosch’s car. He was rolling over her and they were both tumbling toward the sidewalk when his car lurched violently and there was a high-pitched keening sound of tearing metal. Bosch saw a shower of blue sparks pass in his peripheral vision. Then he landed on top of Eleanor on the thin strip of sod that was between the curb and the sidewalk. They were safe, Bosch could sense. Scared, but safe for the moment.
    He came up, gun out and steadied by both hands. The car that had come after them was not stopping. It was already fifty yards east, heading away and