Trunk Music

Bosch said. “I’m looking for a buddy of mine. Tony Aliso. He been in there lately?”
    “Haven’t seen him this week. Haven’t seen him since Thursday or Friday. I was wondering how you got the dressing room number.”
    “Yeah, from Tony.”
    “Well, Layla isn’t here tonight, so Tony wouldn’t be coming in anyway, I don’t think. But you can come on out. He don’t have to be here for you to have a good time.”
    “Okay, Rhonda, I’ll try to swing by.”
    Bosch hung up. He took a notebook out of his pocket and wrote down the name of the business he had just called, the directions to it and the names Rhonda and Layla. He drew a line under the second name.
    “What was that?” Rider asked.
    “A lead in Vegas.”
    He recounted the call and the inference made about the person named Layla. Rider agreed that it was something to pursue, then went back to the files. Bosch went back to the desk. He studied the things on top of it before going to the things in it.
    “Hey, Chuckie?” he asked.
    Meachum, leaning against the door with his arms folded in front of him, raised his eyebrows by way of response.
    “He’s got no phone tape. What about when the receptionist isn’t out there? Do phone calls go to the operator or some kind of a phone service?”
    “Uh, no, the whole lot’s on voice mail now.”
    “So Aliso had voice mail? How do I get into it?”
    “Well, you’ve got to have his code. It’s a three-digit code. You call the voice mail computer, punch in the code and you pick up your messages.”
    “How do I get his code?”
    “You don’t. He programmed it himself.”
    “There’s no master code I can break in with?”
    “Nope. It’s not that sophisticated a system, Bosch. I mean, what do you want, it’s phone messages.”
    Bosch took out his notebook again and checked the notes for Aliso’s birthday.
    “What’s the voice mail number?” he asked.
    Meachum gave him the number and Bosch called the computer. After a beep he punched in 721 but the number was rejected. Bosch drummed his fingers on the desk, thinking. He tried 862, the numbers corresponding with TNA, and a computer voice told him he had four messages.
    “Kiz, listen to this,” he said.
    He put the phone on speaker and hung up. As the messages were played back Bosch took a few notes, but the first three messages were from men reporting on technical aspects of a planned film shoot, equipment rental and costs. Each call was followed by the electronic voice which reported when on Friday the call had come in.
    The fourth message made Bosch lean forward and listen closely. The voice belonged to a young woman and it sounded like she was crying.
    “Hey, Tone, it’s me. Call me as soon as you get this. I almost feel like calling your house. I need you. That bastard Lucky says I’m fired. And for no reason. He just wants to get his dick into Modesty. I’m so…I don’t want to have to work at the Palomino or any of those other places. The Garden. Forget it. I want to come out there to L.A. Be with you. Call me.”
    The electronic voice said the call had come in at 4 A.M. on Sunday-long after Tony Aliso was dead. The caller had not given her name. It was therefore obviously someone Aliso would have known. Bosch wondered if it was the woman Rhonda had mentioned, Layla. He looked at Rider and she just shook her shoulders. They knew too little to judge the significance of the call.
    Bosch sat in the desk chair contemplating things a few moments. He opened a drawer but didn’t start through it. His eyes traveled up the wall to the right of the desk and roamed across the photos of the smiling Tony Aliso posed with celebrities. Some of them had written notes on the photos but they were hard to read. Bosch studied the photo of his celluloid alter ego, Dan Lacey, but couldn’t read the small note scrawled across the bottom of the photo. Then he looked past the ink and realized what he was looking at. On Aliso’s desk in the photo was an Archway mug crammed with pens and pencils.
    Bosch took the photo off the wall and called Meachum’s name. Meachum came over.
    “Somebody was in here,” Bosch told him.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “When was the trash can emptied outside?”
    “How the hell would I know? What are-”
    “The surveillance camera out there on the roof, how long you keep the tapes?”
    Meachum hesitated a second but then answered.
    “We roll ’em over every week. We’d have seven days off that camera.