The Drop

here and that you’re going to be safe after we leave.”
    Bosch continued up. Hardy’s demand that he not go up gave him caution. As soon as he reached the second level, he drew his gun.
    Again the town house followed a familiar design. Two bedrooms and a full bath between them. The front bedroom was apparently where Hardy slept. There was an unmade bed and laundry on the floor. A side table had a dirty ashtray and a bureau had extra oxygen canisters. The walls were yellowed with nicotine and there was a patina of dust and cigarette ash on everything.
    Bosch picked up one of the canisters. There was a label that said it contained liquid oxygen and was to be used by prescription only. There was a phone number for pickup and delivery from a company called ReadyAire. Bosch hefted the canister. It felt empty but he wasn’t sure. He put it back down and turned to the closet door.
    It was a walk-in closet with both sides lined with musty clothes on hangers. The shelves above were stacked with boxes that said U-Haul on the sides. The floor was littered with shoes and what looked like previously worn clothes in a laundry pile. He backed out and left the bedroom, proceeding down the hall.
    The second bedroom was the cleanest room in the home because it appeared to be unused. There was a bureau and a side table but no mattress on the bed frame. Bosch recalled the mattress and box spring he had seen earlier in the garage and realized that the set had probably been moved down from here. He checked the closet and found it crowded but more orderly. The clothes were hung neatly in plastic bags for long-term storage.
    He went back into the hall to check the bathroom.
    “Harry, everything okay up there?” Chu called from downstairs.
    “Everything’s cool. Be right down.”
    He re-holstered his weapon and leaned his head into the bathroom. Dingy towels hung on a rack and one more ashtray was on top of the toilet tank. A plastic air freshener sat next to it. Bosch almost laughed at the sight of it.
    The bathtub enclosure had a plastic curtain with mold on it and the tub completed the motif with a ring of grime that looked years in the making. Disgusted, Bosch turned to go back down the stairs. But then he thought better of it and returned to the bathroom. He opened the medicine cabinet and found the three glass shelves fully racked with prescription bottles and inhalers. He randomly took one off its shelf and read the label. It was a four-year-old prescription for Hardy for something called generic theophylline. He replaced it and took down one of the inhalers. It was another generic prescription, this time for something called albuterol. It was three years old.
    Bosch studied another inhaler. Then another. And then he checked every inhaler and bottle in the cabinet. There were many different generic drugs and some of the bottles were full while most of them were almost empty. But there wasn’t a prescription in the cabinet that was more recent than three years old.
    Bosch closed the cabinet, coming to his own face in the mirror. He looked at his dark eyes for a long moment.
    And suddenly he knew.
    He left the bathroom and walked quickly back to Hardy’s bedroom. He closed the door so he would not be heard from the living room. Pulling his phone as he picked up one of the oxygen canisters, he called the number for ReadyAire and asked to speak to the delivery and pickup coordinator. He was connected to someone named Manuel.
    “Manuel, my name is Detective Bosch. I work for the Los Angeles Police Department and I am conducting an investigation. I need to know very quickly when you last delivered prescription oxygen to one of your customers. Can you help me?”
    Manuel at first thought the call was a joke, a prank perpetrated by a friend.
    “Listen to me,” Bosch said sternly. “This is no joke. This is an urgent investigation and I need this information right now. I need you to help me or put me on with someone who can.”
    There was a silence and Bosch heard Chu call his name out again. Bosch put down the canister and covered his phone with his hand. He opened the bedroom door.
    “I’ll be right down,” he called out.
    He then closed the door and went back to the phone.
    “Manuel, are you there?”
    “Yes. I can put the name into the computer and see what we have.”
    “Okay, do it. The name is Chilton Aaron Hardy.”
    Bosch waited and heard typing.
    “Uh, he’s here,” Manuel said. “But he doesn’t get his