The Black Ice (hb-2)

the bar would be left spinning as the drunks filed out. There would be no one left to scam on the change or to leave quarters for his cup.
    Using his body to keep Porter pinned to the wall, Bosch pulled out his badge wallet and held it up. “I am the police. Mind your own fucking business.”
    The bartender shook his head as if to say what is this fine business coming to, and put the phone back next to the cash register. The announcement that Bosch was a police officer resulted in about half the other customers jerking their drinks down and leaving. There were probably warrants out for everybody in the place, Bosch thought.
    Porter was starting to mumble and Bosch thought he might be crying again, like on the phone Thursday morning.
    “Harry, I-I didn’t think I was doing… I had-”
    Bosch bounced harder against his back and heard Porter’s forehead hit the wall.
    “Don’t start that shit with me, Porter. You were takin’ care of yourself. That’s what you were doing. And-”
    “I’m sick. I’m gonna be sick.”
    “– and right now, believe it or not, right now the only one that really cares about you is me. You fuck, you just tell me what you did. Just tell me what you did and we’re square. It goes nowhere else. You go for your stress out and I never see your face again.”
    Bosch could hear his wet breathing against the wall. It was almost as if he could hear him thinking.
    “You sure, Harry?”
    “You don’t have a choice. You don’t start talking, you end up with no job, no pension.”
    “He, uh– I just… there’s blood on my shirt. It’s roon.”
    Bosch pushed harder against him.
    “Okay, okay, okay. I’ll tell ya, I’ll tell… I just did him a favor, thas all, and he ended up deader’n shit. When I heard, I, uh, I couldn’t come back in, see. I didn’t know what happened. I mean, I mean, they-somebody could be looking for me. I got scared, Harry. I’m scared. I been sitting in bars since I talked to you yesterday. I stink like shit. And now all this blood. I need a napkin. I think they’re after me.”
    Bosch took his weight off him but held one hand pressed against his back so he would not go anywhere. He reached back to the bar and took a handful of cocktail napkins off a stack near a bowl of matches. He held them over Porter’s shoulder and the broken cop worked his hand loose from his jacket and took them. He turned his head away from the wall to press the napkin to his swelling nose. Harry saw tears on his face and looked away.
    The door to the bar opened then and dawn’s early gray light shot into the bar. A man stood there, apparently adjusting to the darkness of the bar as Bosch had done. Bosch saw he was dark complexioned with ink-black hair. Three tattooed tears dripped down his cheek from the corner of his left eye. Harry knew he was no banker or lawyer who needed a double-scotch breakfast to start the day. He was some kind of player, maybe finishing a night collecting for the Italians or Mexicans and needing something to smooth out the edges. The man’s eyes finally fell on Bosch and Porter, then to Porter’s gun, which was still on the bar. The man sized up the situation and calmly and wordlessly backed out through the door.
    “Fucking great,” the bartender yelled. “Would you get the hell out of here. I’m losing customers. The both of you, get the fuck out.”
    There was a sign that said Toilet and an arrow pointing down a darkened hallway to Bosch’s left. He pushed Porter that way. They turned a corner and went into the men’s room, which smelled worse than Porter. There was a mop in a bucket of gray water in the corner, but the cracked tile floor was dirtier than the water. He pushed Porter toward the sink.
    “Clean yourself up,” Bosch said. “What was the favor? You said you did something for Moore. Tell me about it.”
    Porter was looking at his blurred reflection in a piece of stainless steel that was probably put in when the management got tired of replacing broken mirrors.
    “It won’t stop bleeding, Harry. I think it’s broke.”
    “Forget your nose. Tell me what you did.”
    “I, uh– look, all he did was tell me that he knew some people that would appreciate it if the stiff behind the restaurant didn’t get ID’d for a while. Just string it out, he said, for a week or two. Christ, there was no ID on the body, anyway. He said I could do the computer runs on the prints cause he knew they wouldn’t bring a match. He said just