The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

out in the sand and was on his second smoke when the steel-and-glass door to the courthouse opened. Honey Chandler had used her back to push open the heavy door and therefore hadn’t seen him. She turned as she came through the door, her head bent down as she lit a cigarette with a gold lighter. As she straightened and exhaled she saw him. She walked toward the ash can, ready to bury the fresh cigarette.
    “It’s okay,” Bosch said. “It’s the only one around as far as I know.”
    “It is, but I don’t think it does either of us good to have to face each other outside of court.”
    He shrugged and didn’t say anything. It was her move, she could leave if she wanted to. She took another drag on the cigarette.
    “Just a half. I have to get back in anyway.”
    He nodded and looked out toward Spring Street. In front of the county courthouse he saw a line of people waiting to go in through the metal detectors. More boat people, he thought. He saw the homeless man coming up the pavement to make his afternoon check of the ash can. The man suddenly turned around and walked back out to Spring and away. He looked back once uneasily over his shoulder as he went.
    “He knows me.”
    Bosch looked back at Chandler.
    “He knows you?”
    “He used to be a lawyer. I knew him then. Tom something-or-other. I can’t remember at the-Faraday, that’s it. I guess he didn’t want me to see him that way. But everybody around here knows about him. He’s the reminder of what can happen when things go terribly wrong.”
    “What happened?”
    “It’s a long story. Maybe your lawyer will tell you. Can I ask you something?”
    Bosch didn’t answer.
    “Why didn’t the city settle this case? Rodney King, the riots. It’s the worst time in the world to take a police case to trial. I don’t think Bulk-that’s what I call him, because I know he calls me Money. I don’t think he’s got a hold on this one. And you’ll be the one hung out to dry.”
    Bosch thought a moment before answering.
    “It’s off the record, Detective Bosch,” she said. “I’m just making conversation.”
    “I told him not to settle. I told him if he wanted to settle, I’d go out and pay for my own lawyer.”
    “That sure of yourself, huh?” She paused to inhale on her cigarette. “Well, we’ll see, I guess.”
    “I guess.”
    “You know it’s nothing personal.”
    He knew she would get around to saying that. The biggest lie in the game.
    “Maybe not for you.”
    “Oh, it is for you? You shoot an unarmed man and then you take it personally when his wife objects, when she sues you?”
    “Your client’s husband used to cut the strap off the purses of his victims, tie it in a slipknot around their neck and then slowly but steadily strangle them while he was raping them. He preferred leather straps. He didn’t seem to care about what women he did this to. Just the leather.”
    She didn’t even flinch. He hadn’t expected her to.
    “That’s
late
husband. My client’s late husband. And the only thing that is for sure in this case, that is provable, is that you killed him.”
    “Yeah, and I’d do it again.”
    “I know, Detective Bosch. That’s why we’re here.”
    She pursed her lips in a frozen kiss which sharply set the line of her jaw. Her hair caught the glint of the afternoon sun. She angrily stubbed her cigarette out in the sand and then went back inside. She swung the door open as if it were made of balsa wood.

Chapter 4
    Bosch pulled into the rear parking lot of the Hollywood station on Wilcox shortly before four. Belk had used only ten minutes of his allotted hour for his opening statement and Judge Keyes had recessed early, saying he wanted to start testimony on a separate day from openers so the jury would not confuse evidentiary testimony with the lawyers’ words.
    Bosch had felt uneasy with Belk’s short discourse in front of the jurors but Belk had told him there was nothing to worry about. He walked in through the back door near the tank and took the rear hallway to the detective bureau. By four the bureau is usually deserted. It was that way when Bosch walked in, except for Jerry Edgar, who was parked in front of one of the IBMs typing on a form Bosch recognized as a 51-an Investigating Officer’s Chronological Record. He looked up and saw Bosch approaching.
    “Whereyat, Harry?”
    “Right here.”
    “Got done early, I see. Don’t tell me, directed verdict. The judge threw Money Chandler out on her