The Last Coyote

silence.
    “Hello?”
    It was a woman’s voice. Bosch felt immediately embarrassed.
    “Yes?”
    “Detective Bosch?”
    “Yes, I’m sorry, I thought it was someone else.”
    “Like who?”
    “Who is this?”
    “It’s Dr. Hinojos.”
    “Oh.” Bosch closed his eyes and the anger came back. “What can I do for you?”
    “I was just calling to remind you that we have a session tomorrow. Three-thirty. You will be there?”
    “I don’t have a choice, remember? And you don’t have to call to remind me about our sessions. Believe it or not, I have an appointment calendar, a watch, an alarm clock, all of that stuff now.”
    He immediately thought he had gone over the top with the sarcasm.
    “Sounds like I caught you at a bad time. I’ll let-”
    “You did.”
    “-you go. See you tomorrow, Detective Bosch.”
    “Good-bye.”
    He snapped the phone closed again and dropped it on the seat. He started the car. He took Ocean Park out to Bundy and then up toward the 10. As he approached the freeway overpass he saw the eastbound cars on top weren’t moving and the on ramp was jammed with cars waiting to wait.
    “Fuck it,” he said out loud.
    He went by the freeway ramp without turning and then under the overpass. He took Bundy up to Wilshire and then headed west into downtown Santa Monica. It took him fifteen minutes to find street parking near the Third Street Promenade. He had been avoiding multilevel parking garages since the quake and didn’t want to start using them now.
    What a walking contradiction, Bosch thought as he prowled for a parking spot along the curb. You live in a condemned house the inspectors claim is ready to slide down the hill but you won’t go into a parking garage. He finally found a spot across from the porno theater about a block from the Promenade.
    Bosch spent the rush hours walking up and down the three-block stretch of outdoor restaurants, movie theaters and shops. He went into the King George on Santa Monica, which he knew was a hangout for some of the detectives out of West L.A. Division, but didn’t see anybody he knew. After that, he ate pizza from a to-go joint and people-watched. He saw a street performer juggling five butcher knives at once. And he thought he might know something about how the man felt.
    He sat on a bench and watched the droves of people pass him by. The only ones who stopped and paid attention to him were the homeless, and soon he had no change or dollar bills left to give them. Bosch felt alone. He thought about Katherine Register and what she had said about the past. She had said she was strong but he knew that comfort and strength could come from sadness. That was what she had.
    He thought about what she had done five years ago. Her husband dead, she had taken stock of her life and found the hole in her memories. The pain. She had sent him the card in hopes he might do something then. And it had almost worked. He had pulled the murder book from the archives but hadn’t had the strength, or maybe it was the weakness, to look at it.
    After it got dark he walked down Broadway to Mr. B’s, found a stool at the bar and ordered a draft with a Jack Daniels depth charge. There was a quintet playing on the small stage in the back, the lead on tenor saxophone. They were finishing up “Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me” and Bosch got the idea he had come in at the end of a long set. The sax was draggy. It wasn’t a clean sound.
    Disappointed, he looked away from the group and took a large swallow of beer. He checked his watch and knew he’d have clear driving if he left now. But he stayed. He picked the shot up and dropped it into the mug and drank deeply from the brutal mix. The group moved into “What a Wonderful World.” No one in the band stepped up to sing the words but, of course, nobody could touch Louis Armstrong’s vocals if they tried. It was okay, though. Bosch knew the words.
    I see trees of green
    Red roses, too
    I see them bloom
    For me and you
    And I think to myself
    What a wonderful world
    The song made him feel lonely and sad but that was okay. Loneliness had been the trash can fire he huddled around for most of his life. He was just getting used to it again. It had been that way for him before Sylvia and it could be that way again. It would just take time and the pain of letting her go.
    In the three months since she had left, there had been the one postcard and nothing else. Her absence had fractured the sense of continuity in his