Trunk Music

crazy.”
    “They know about the skim, don’t you see? Joey wants his money back and they’re going to squeeze it out of her.”
    “How do you know all of this?”
    “Because I know.”
    Bosch thought of something and looked out through the kitchen door to the living room. Eleanor was still watching the movie and she looked over at him and raised her eyebrows in a question. Bosch shook his head to show his dissatisfaction with the person on the other end.
    “I’m going to Vegas, Lindell. And I think I know where they’ll be. You want to get your people involved? I sure as hell can’t call Metro on this.”
    “How are you so sure she’s even there?”
    “Because she sent up a distress signal. Are you in or out?”
    “We’re in, Bosch. Let me give you a number. You call it when you get over there.”
    After Bosch hung up, he went into the living room. Eleanor had already turned off the tape.
    “I can’t watch any more of that. It’s terrible. What’s going on?”
    “That time you followed Tony Aliso around in Vegas, you said he went to a bank with the girlfriend, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Which bank? Where?”
    “I, uh…it was on Flamingo, east of the Strip, east of Paradise Road. I can’t remember the name. I think it was Silver State National. Yes, that’s it. Silver State.”
    “The Silver State on Flamingo, are you sure now?”
    “Right, yes.”
    “And it looked like she was opening an account?”
    “Yes, but I can’t be sure. That’s the problem with a one-man tail. It’s a small branch bank and I couldn’t hang around inside too long. It looked like she was signing account papers and Tony was just watching. But I had to go out and wait outside until they were done. Remember, Tony knew me. If he even saw me, the tail would be blown.”
    “Okay, I’m going.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Tonight. I have to make some calls first.”
    Bosch went back into the kitchen and called Grace Billets. While filling her in on what he had learned and his hunch about what it all meant, he got a pot of coffee going. After getting her approval to travel, he next called Edgar and then Rider and made arrangements to pick them up at the station in one hour.
    He poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter in deep thought. Felton. There was a contradiction, it seemed to Bosch. If the Metro captain was the Joey Marks organization’s inside man, why had he moved so quickly to go after Goshen when he got the match on the fingerprints Bosch had provided? Bosch played with this for a while and finally decided that Felton must have seen an opportunity in moving Goshen out of the way. He must have believed that his position in the Las Vegas underworld would rise if Goshen were out of the picture. Perhaps he even planned to arrange Goshen’s assassination, thereby ensuring the indebtedness of Joey Marks. Bosch realized that for this plan to work, Felton either didn’t know that Goshen knew he was the organization’s inside man, or he planned to get rid of Goshen before he got a chance to tell anyone.
    Bosch took a sip of the scalding coffee and put these thoughts aside. He went back into the living room. Eleanor was still on the couch.
    “Are you going?”
    “Yeah. I’ve got to pick up Jerry and Kiz.”
    “Why tonight?”
    “Got to be there before the bank opens tomorrow.”
    “You think Veronica is going to be there?”
    “It’s a hunch. I think Joey Marks finally figured out just like we did that if he didn’t whack Tony, then somebody else did and that person had to have been close to him. And that that person now has his money. He knew Veronica from way back and would figure she was up to it. I think he sent Felton over to check into it and to get his money back and take care of her if she was dirty on it. But she must’ve talked him out of it somehow. Probably by mentioning she had two million in skim in a safe deposit box in Vegas. I think that’s what stopped Felton from killing her and instead made him take her with him. She’s probably only alive until they get into that box. I think she gave Felton her husband’s last betting slip because she knew he might cash it and we’d be watching for it.”
    “What makes you think it’s at the bank where I saw him go?”
    “Because we know about everything he had over here, all his accounts. It’s not over here. Powers told me Veronica had told him that Tony dropped the skim into a safe deposit box that she wouldn’t have