Trunk Music

the airport. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get some help from the John Qs out there.”
    “Maybe,” Edgar said.
    “Okay then, let’s do it,” Billets said.
    The three of them stood up while Billets stayed seated. Bosch took his time taking the tape out of the VCR so that the other two were out of the office when he was done, and he was alone with Billets.
    “I’d heard that you didn’t have any actual time on a homicide table while you were coming up,” he said to her.
    “That’s true. My only job as an actual detective was working sexual crimes in Valley Bureau.”
    “Well, for what it’s worth, I would have assigned things just the way you just did.”
    “But did it annoy you that I did it instead of you?”
    Bosch thought a moment.
    “I’ll get over it.”

PART II
    BOSCH FELL ASLEEP a few minutes after belting himself into a window seat on the Southwest shuttle from Burbank to Las Vegas. It was a deep, dreamless sleep and he didn’t wake until the clunk of the landing gear hitting the tarmac jolted him forward. As the plane taxied to its gate he came out of the fog and felt himself re-energized by the hour-long rest.
    It was high noon and 104 degrees when he walked out of the terminal. As he headed toward the garage where his rental car was waiting, he felt his newfound energy being leached away by the heat. After finding his car in its assigned parking stall, he put the air-conditioning on high and headed toward the Mirage.
    Bosch had never liked Las Vegas, though he came often on cases. It shared a kinship with Los Angeles; both were places desperate people ran to. Often, when they ran from Los Angeles, they came here. It was the only place left. Beneath the veneer of glitz and money and energy and sex beat a dark heart. No matter how much they tried to dress her up with neon and family entertainment, she was still a whore.
    But if any place could sway him from that opinion it was the Mirage. It was the symbol of the new Las Vegas, clean, opulent, legit. The windows of its tower glinted gold in the sun. And inside no money had been spared in its rich casino design. As Bosch walked through the lobby he was first mesmerized by the white tigers in a huge glassed-in environment that any zookeeper in the world would salivate over. Next, as he waited in line to check in, he eyed the huge aquarium behind the front desk. Sharks lazily turned and moved back and forth behind the glass. Just like the white tigers.
    When it was Bosch’s turn to check in, the desk clerk noticed a flag on his reservation and called security. A day-shift supervisor named Hank Meyer appeared and introduced himself. He said that Bosch would have the complete cooperation of the hotel and casino.
    “Tony Aliso was a good and valued customer,” he said. “We want to do what we can to help. But it’s highly unlikely that his death had anything to do with his stay here. We run the cleanest ship in the desert.”
    “I know that, Hank,” Bosch said. “And I know it is a reputation you don’t want blemished. I’m not expecting to find anything inside the Mirage, but I need to go through the motions. So do you, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Did you know him?”
    “No, I didn’t. I’ve been on day shift the entire three years I’ve been here. From what I understand, Mr. Aliso primarily gambled at night.”
    Meyer was about thirty and had the clean-cut image that the Mirage, and now all of Las Vegas, wanted to present to the world. He went on to explain that the room Aliso had last stayed in at the hotel was sealed and was being held that way for Bosch’s inspection. He gave Bosch the key and asked that he return it as soon as he was finished with the room. He also said the poker pit dealers and sports book clerks who worked the night shift would be made available for interviews. All of them knew Aliso because of his regular visits.
    “You have an eye in the sky over the poker tables?”
    “Uh, yes, we do.”
    “You have video from Thursday going into Friday? I’d like to see it if you do.”
    “That won’t be a problem.”
    Bosch made arrangements to meet Meyer at the second-floor security office at four. That was when the casino shifts changed and the dealers who knew Aliso would report for work. He could look at the surveillance tape from the poker pit’s overhead camera then as well.
    A few minutes later, alone in his room, Bosch sat on the bed and looked around. The room was smaller than he had expected but it was