The Black Echo

her place, probably forgot his toothbrush. Or she’s coming back to meet him for a nooner. You know what I say? I say we let him go and we go back to talk to Irving. I think we can build something on this witness thing. Maybe dereliction of duty. There is enough to get an administrative hearing. He’d at least get bounced out of homicide, and if Harry Bosch ain’t allowed to be on the homicide table then he’ll pick up and leave. One more notch on our barrel.”
    Lewis thought about his partner’s idea. It wasn’t bad. It could work. But he didn’t want to pull off the surveillance without Irving’s say-so.
    “Keep with him,” he said. “When he stops somewhere, I’ll drop a quarter and see what Irving wants to do. When he buzzed me this morning about the kid, he seemed pretty stoked. Like things were getting good. So I don’t want to pull off without his say-so.”
    “Whatever. Anyway, how’d Irving know about the kid getting snuffed so fast?”
    “I don’t know. Watch it here. He’s taking the 10.”
    They followed the gray Caprice onto the Santa Monica Freeway. They were now going away from the working city, against the grain, and were in lighter traffic. But Bosch no longer was speeding. And he went past the Clover Field and Lincoln exits to Eleanor Wish’s home, staying on the freeway until it curved through the tunnel and came out below the beach cliffs as the Pacific Coast Highway. He headed north along the coast, with the sun bright overhead and the Malibu mountains just opaque whispers ahead in the haze.
    “Now what?” Clarke said.
    “I don’t know. Hang back some.”
    There wasn’t much traffic on the PCH and they were having trouble keeping at least one car between them and Bosch’s car at all times. Though Lewis still believed that most cops never bothered to check if they were being followed, today he was making an exception to that theory with Bosch. His witness had been murdered; he might instinctively think someone had been following him, or still was.
    “Yeah, just hang back. We got all day and so does he.”
    Bosch’s pace held steady for the next four miles, until he turned into a parking lot next to Alice’s and the Malibu pier. Lewis and Clarke cruised by. After a half mile Clarke made an illegal U-turn and headed back. When they pulled into the parking lot, Bosch’s car was still there but they didn’t see him.
    “The restaurant again?” Clarke said. “He must love the place.”
    “It’s not even open this early.”
    They both began looking around in all directions. There were four other cars at the end of the lot, and the racks on top of them said they belonged to the cluster of surfers rising and falling on the seas south of the pier. Finally, Lewis saw Bosch and pointed. He was halfway to the end of the pier, walking, with his head down and his hair blowing a hundred different ways. Lewis looked around for the camera and realized it was still in the trunk. He took a pair of binoculars out of the glove compartment and trained them on Bosch’s diminishing figure. He watched until Bosch reached the end of the wooden planking and leaned his elbows on the railing.
    “What’s he doing?” Clarke asked. “Let me see.”
    “You’re driving. I’m watching. He’s not doing anything anyway. Just leaning there.”
    “He’s got to be doing something.”
    “He’s thinking. Okay?… There. He’s lighting a cigarette. Happy? He’s doing something… Wait a minute.”
    “What?”
    “Shit. We should’ve had the camera ready.”
    “What’s this ‘we’ shit? That’s your job today. I’m driving. What’s he doing?”
    “He dropped something. Into the water.”
    Through the field glasses Lewis saw Bosch’s body leaning limply on the railing. He was looking down into the water below. There was no one else on the pier as far as Lewis could see.
    “What did he drop? Can you see?”
    “How the fuck do I know what he dropped? I can’t see the surface from here. Do you want for me to go out there and get one of the surfer boys to paddle over and see for us? I don’t know what he dropped.”
    “Cool your jets. I was just asking. Now, can you remember the color of this object he dropped?”
    “It looked white, like a ball. But it sort of floated.”
    “I thought you said you couldn’t see the surface.”
    “I meant it floated down. I think it was a tissue or some kind of paper.”
    “What’s he doing now?”
    “Just standing there at the railing.