The Overlook

it.”
    “I was wondering about that when you left me that mean message today about the cigarette ash.”
    “I don’t suppose you kept mine, Rachel.”
    She paused a long moment before answering.
    “I think you’re still on my phone, too, Harry.”
    This time he had to smile, even though he was back to being Harry with her. There’s hope after all, he thought.
    They were approaching Lankershim Boulevard. To the right it dropped down into a tunnel that went beneath the freeway. To the left it ended at a strip shopping center that included the Easy Print franchise from which the call to paramedics had originated. Bosch’s eyes searched the vehicles in the small parking lot, looking for a Toyota.
    He glided into the left-turn lane and waited to pull into the lot. He swiveled in his seat and checked the parking along both sides of Cahuenga. A quick glance showed no Toyotas but he knew that there were many different car models and pickup trucks in the brand. If they didn’t find the car in the print shop lot, then they would have to work the curbside parking looking for it.
    “Do you have a plate or any description?” Walling asked. “How about a color?”
    “No, no and no.”
    Bosch remembered then that she had the habit of asking multiple questions at once.
    He made the turn on yellow and pulled into the lot. There were no parking spaces available but he wasn’t interested in parking. He cruised slowly, checking each car. There were no Toyotas.
    “Where’s a Toyota when you need one?” he said. “It’s got to be in this area somewhere.”
    “Maybe we should check the street,” Walling suggested.
    He nodded and nosed his car into the alley at the end of the parking lot. He was going to turn left to turn around and go back to the street. But when he checked to see if he was clear on the right he saw an old white pickup truck with a camper shell parked half a block down the alley next to a green trash Dumpster. The truck was facing them and he couldn’t tell what the make of it was.
    “Is that a Toyota?” he asked.
    Walling turned and looked.
    “Bosch, you’re a genius,” she exclaimed.
    Bosch turned and drove toward the truck and as he got closer he could see that it was indeed a Toyota. So could Walling. She pulled out her phone but Bosch reached across and put his hand on it.
    “Let’s just check it out first. I could be wrong about this.”
    “No, Bosch, you’re on a roll.”
    But she put the phone away. Bosch pulled slowly past the pickup, giving it a once-over. He then turned around at the end of the block and came back. He stopped his car ten feet behind it. There was no plate on the back. A cardboard LOST TAG sign had been put in its place.
    Bosch wished he had brought the keys he had found in Digoberto Gonzalves’s pocket. They got out and approached the truck, coming up on either side of it. When he got close Bosch noticed that the rear window hatch of the camper shell had been left open a couple of inches. He reached forward and pulled it up all the way. An air-pressure hinge held it open. Bosch leaned in close to look into the interior. It was dark because the truck was parked in shadow and the windows on the shell were darkly tinted.
    “Harry, you have that monitor?”
    He pulled her radiation monitor out of his pocket and held it up in his hand as he leaned into the darkness of the truck’s cargo hold. No alarm sounded. He leaned back out and put the monitor on his belt. He then reached in to the latch and lowered the truck’s rear gate.
    The back of the truck was piled with junk. There were empty bottles and cans strewn everywhere, a leather desk chair with a broken leg, scrap pieces of aluminum, an old water cooler and other debris. And there by the raised wheel well on the right side was a lead gray container that looked like a small mop bucket on wheels.
    “There,” he said. “Is that the pig?”
    “I think it is,” Walling said excitedly. “I think it is!”
    There was no warning sticker on it or radiation-alert symbol. They had been peeled off. Bosch leaned into the truck and grabbed one of the handles. He pulled it clear of the debris around it and rolled it to the tailgate. The top was latched in four places.
    “Do we open it and make sure the stuff is in there?” he asked.
    “No,” Walling said. “We back off and call in the team. They have protection.”
    She pulled her phone out again. While she called for the radiation team and backup units Bosch moved