The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

what effect the trial’s outcome would have. He didn’t say anything about what the assistant chief had said about knowing his mother. But Irving’s story crossed through his mind and for the first time since he had been in bed he felt the need for a cigarette.
    But he didn’t get up. He put the urge out of his mind and they lay quietly for a while after that. Bosch kept his eyes open in the dark. His thoughts were now about Edgar and then they segued to Mora. He wondered what the vice cop was doing at the same moment. Was he alone in the dark? Was he out looking?
    “I meant what I said earlier today, Harry,” Sylvia said.
    “What’s that?”
    “That I want to know all about you, your past, the good and the bad. And I want you to know about me... Don’t ignore this. It could hurt us.”
    Her voice had lost some of its sleepy sweetness. He was silent and closed his eyes. He knew this one thing was more important to her than anything. She had been the loser in a past relationship where the stories of the past were not used as the building blocks of the future. He brought his hand up and rubbed his thumb along the back of her neck. She always smelled powdery after sex, he thought, yet she had not even gotten up to go into the bathroom. This was a mystery to him. It took him a while to answer her.
    “You have to take me without a past... I’ve let it go and don’t want to go back to examine it, to tell it, to even think about it. I’ve spent my whole life getting away from my past. You understand? Just because a lawyer can throw it at me in a courtroom doesn’t mean I have to...”
    “What, tell me?”
    He didn’t answer. He turned his body into her and kissed and embraced her. He just wanted to hold her, to pull back away from this cliff.
    “I love you,” she said.
    “I love you,” he said.
    She pulled herself closer to him and put her face in the crook of his neck. Her arms held him tightly, as if maybe she was scared.
    It was the first time he had said it to her. It was the first time he had said it to anyone as far back as he could remember. Maybe he had never said it. It felt good to him, almost like a palpable presence, a warm flower of deep red opening in his chest. And he realized he was the one who was a little bit scared. As if by simply saying the words he had taken on a great responsibility. It was scary yet exciting. He thought of himself in the mirror, smiling.
    She held herself pressed against him and he could feel her breath against his neck. In a short while her breathing became more measured as she fell asleep.
    Lying awake, Bosch held her like that until well into the night. Now sleep would not come to him and with the insomnia came realities that robbed him of the good feelings he had only minutes before. He had thought about what she had said about betrayal and trust. And he knew that the pledges they spoke to each other this night would founder if built on deception. He knew what she had said was true. He would have to tell her who he was, what he was, if the words he had spoken were ever to be more than words. He thought about what Judge Keyes had said about words being beautiful and ugly on their own. Bosch had spoken the word love. He knew now that he must make it either ugly or beautiful.
    The bedroom’s windows were on the east side of the house and the light of dawn was just beginning to cling to the edges of the blinds when Bosch finally closed his eyes and slept.

Chapter 22
    Bosch looked rumpled and worn-out when he entered the courtroom Friday morning. Belk was already there, scribbling on his yellow pad. He looked up and appraised him as Bosch sat down.
    “You look like shit and smell like an ashtray. And the jury will know that’s the same suit and tie you wore yesterday.”
    “A clear sign I’m guilty.”
    “Don’t be such a smartass. You never know what may turn a juror one way or the other.”
    “I don’t really care. Besides, you’re the one who has to look good today, right, Belk?”
    This was not an encouraging thing to say to a man at least eighty pounds overweight who broke out in flop sweat every time the judge looked at him.
    “What the hell do you mean you don’t care? Everything is on the line today and you waltz in looking like you slept in your car and say you don’t care.”
    “I’m relaxed, Belk. I call it Zen and the art of not giving a shit.”
    “Why now, Bosch, when I could have settled this for five figures two weeks