The Black Echo

door without a warrant. You said you fired because you believed the suspect was reaching for a weapon. It was one shot, upper torso from fifteen or twenty feet, if I remember the report. But the Dollmaker was alone, and under the pillow was only his toupee.”
    “Only his rug,” Bosch said. He shook his head like a Monday-morning quarterback. “The shooting team cleared me. We connected him to two of the bodies through the hair from the toupee, and the makeup in the bathroom was traced to eight of the victims. There was no doubt. It was him. I was clear, but then the shooflies started in on it. A Lewis and Clarke expedition. They ran down Dixie and got her to sign a statement saying she told me beforehand that he put his hair under the pillow. I don’t know what they used against her, but I can imagine. IAD’s always had a hard-on for me. They don’t like anybody who’s not a hundred percent part of the family. Anyway, the next thing I know they are bringing departmental charges against me. They wanted to fire me and take Dixie to a grand jury to get criminal charges. It was like there was blood in the water and two fat white sharks.”
    He stopped there but Eleanor continued. “The IAD detectives misjudged things, though, Harry. They didn’t realize that public opinion would be with you. You were known in the newspapers as the cop who broke the Beauty Shop Slasher and Dollmaker cases. A character in a TV show. They couldn’t take you down without a lot of public scrutiny and embarrassment for the department.”
    “Someone reached down from above them and put a stop to the grand jury move,” Bosch said. “They had to settle for a suspension and my demotion to Hollywood homicide.”
    Bosch had his fingers on the stem of his empty wine glass and was absentmindedly turning the glass on the table.
    “Some settlement,” he said after a while. “And those two IAD sharks are still swimming around out there, waiting for the kill.”
    They sat silently for a while then. He was waiting for her to ask the question she had asked once before. Had the whore lied? She never asked it, and after a while she just looked at him and smiled. And he felt as if he had just passed the test. She started gathering the plates off the table. Bosch helped her in the kitchen and when the work was done, they stood close, drying their hands on the same dish towel, and lightly kissed. Then, as if following the same secret signals, they pressed themselves against each other and kissed with the kind of hunger lonely people have.
    “I want to stay,” Bosch said after momentarily breaking away.
    “I want you to stay,” she said.

    ***

    Arson’s stoned eyes were shiny and reflected the neon night. He sucked hard on the Kool and held the precious smoke in. The cigarette had been dipped in PCP. A smile cracked across his face as the jet streams of smoke escaped his nostrils. He said, “You’re the only shark I ever heard of being used as bait. Get it?”
    He laughed and took another deep drag before handing the cigarette to Sharkey, who waved it away because he’d had enough. Mojo took it then.
    “Yeah, I’m getting tired of this shit,” Sharkey said. “You take a turn for once.”
    “Chill out, man, you’re the only one can get away with it, man. Mojo and me, man, we just don’t play the part good as you. Besides, we got our part. You ain’t big enough to pound these faggots.”
    “Well, whyn’t we do the 7-Eleven again?” Sharkey said. “I don’t like this not knowing who it is. I like it at the 7-Eleven. We pick our meat, they don’t pick me.”
    “No way,” Mojo spoke up then. “We go back there, we don’t know if that last guy reported it to the sheriff’s or not. We have to stay clear a there awhile. They’re probly watching the place from the same parking lot we did.”
    Sharkey knew they were right. He just thought that being out on Santa Monica on the queer stroll was getting too close to the real thing. Next thing, he guessed, the two dopers will not feel like charging in. They’ll want him to go through with it, get the money that way. That was when he would split these guys, he knew.
    “Okay,” he said, stepping off the curb. “Don’t fuck me up.”
    He started to cross the street. Arson yelled after him, “BMW or better!”
    As if I need to be told, Sharkey thought. He walked a half block toward La Brea and then leaned against the door of a closed print shop. He was still a half block from Hot