The Concrete Blonde (hb-3)

so Edgar wouldn’t notice him. Bosch saw no sign of Chandler and assumed that she had left the bar through the other door and gone down to the garage and her car. Edgar probably had wisely declined a ride over to the Parker Center lot.
    As Edgar passed the stand Bosch stepped out behind him.
    “Jerry, whereyat?”
    Edgar jumped as if an ice cube had been pressed against his neck and whipped around.
    “Harry? What’re you-hey, you wanna grab a drink? That’s what I was looking to do.”
    Bosch let him stand there and squirm for a few seconds before saying, “You already had your drink.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Bosch took a step toward him. Edgar looked genuinely scared.
    “You know what I mean. A beer for you, right? Bloody Mary for the lady.”
    “Listen, Harry, look, I-”
    “Don’t call me that. Don’t ever call me Harry again. Understand? You want to talk to me, call me Bosch. That’s what the people who aren’t my friends call me, the people I don’t trust. Just call me that.”
    “Can I explain? Har-uh, I’d like the chance to explain.”
    “What’s to explain? You fucked me over. Nothing to explain about that. What’d you tell her tonight? You just run down everything we just talked about in Irving’s office? I don’t think she needs it, pal. The damage is already done.”
    “No. She left a long time ago. I was in there most of the time alone thinking about how to get out of this. I didn’t tell her shit about today’s meeting. Harry, I didn’t-”
    Bosch took one more step and in a quick motion brought his hand up, palm out, and hit Edgar in the chest, knocking him backward.
    “I said don’t call me that!” he yelled. “You fuck! You-we worked together, man. I taught you... I’m in that courtroom getting fucked in the ass and I find out you’re the guy, you’re the goddamn leak.”
    “I’m sorry. I-”
    “What about Bremmer? You the one who told him about the note? Is that where you’re going for a drink now? Going to meet Bremmer? Well, don’t let me stop you.”
    “No, man, I haven’t talked to Bremmer. Look, I made a mistake, okay? I’m sorry. She screwed me, too. It was like blackmail. I couldn’t-I tried to get out of it but she had me by the shorthairs. You gotta believe me, man.”
    Bosch looked at him for a long moment. It was fully dark now but he thought he saw that Edgar’s eyes were shiny in the glow of the streetlights. Maybe he was holding back tears. But what were they tears for, Bosch wondered. For the loss of the relationship they had? Or were they tears of fear? Bosch felt the surge of his power over Edgar. And Edgar knew he had it.
    In a low and very even voice Bosch said, “I want to know everything. You are going to tell me what you did.”

    * * *

    The quartet at the Wind was on a break. They sat at a table in the back. It was a dark, wood-paneled room like hundreds of others in the city. A red leatherette pad ran along the edge of the cigarette-scarred bar and the barmaids wore black uniforms and white aprons and they all had too much red lipstick on their thin lips. Bosch ordered a double shot of Jack Black straight up and a bottle of Weinhard’s. He also gave the barmaid money for a pack of cigarettes. Edgar, who now wore the face of a man whose life had run out on him, ordered Jack Black, water back.
    “It’s the damn recession,” Edgar began before Bosch asked a question. “Real estate is in the toilet. I had to drop that gig and we had the mortgage and, you know how it is, man, Brenda had gotten used to a cert-”
    “Fuck that. You think I want to hear about how you sell me out because your wife has to drive a Chevy instead of a BMW? Fuck you. You-”
    “It’s not like that. I-”
    “Shut up. I’m talking. You’re going to-”
    They both shut up while the barmaid put the drinks and cigarettes down. Bosch put a twenty on her tray. He never took his dark, angry eyes off Edgar.
    “Now, skip the bullshit and tell me what you did.”
    Edgar threw back his shot and washed it down with water before starting.
    “Uh, you see, uh, it was late Monday afternoon, this was after we’d been out to the scene at Bing’s and I was back at the office. And I got a call at the office and it was Chandler. She knew something was up. I don’t know how she knew, but she knew about the note we got and the body being found. She musta gotten tipped by Bremmer or something. She started asking questions, you know, ‘Was it confirmed as the