Trunk Music

opened the bottom drawer. It was empty.
    “How long you lived here, Goshen?”
    “Moved in right after I kicked your sister out on her ass. Put her on the street. Last I seen, she was selling it over on Fremont outside the Cortez.”
    Bosch straightened up and looked at him. Goshen was smiling. He wanted to provoke something. He wanted to control things, even handcuffed on the bed. Even if it cost him some blood.
    “My mother, now my sister, who’s next, my wife?”
    “Yeah, I got something planned for her. I’ll-”
    “Shut up, would you? It’s not working, understand? You’re not getting to me. You can’t get to me. So save your strength.”
    “Everybody can be gotten to, Bosch. Remember that.”
    Bosch looked at him and then stepped into the master bathroom. It was a large room with a separate shower and tub, almost in the same configuration as the room Tony Aliso had used at the Mirage. The toilet was in a small closet-size room behind a door with a slatted grill. Bosch started there. He quickly lifted the top of the water tank and found nothing unusual. Before putting the porcelain top back in place he leaned over the toilet and looked down the wall behind the tank. What he saw made him immediately call for the uniform in the bedroom.
    “Yes, sir?” the cop said.
    He looked like he wasn’t yet twenty-five. His black skin had almost a bluish tint to it. He kept his hands on his equipment belt in a relaxed mode, his right just a few inches from his gun. It was the standard pose. Bosch saw that the nameplate above his breast pocket said Fontenot.
    “Fontenot, take a look down here behind the tank.”
    The cop did as he was asked without even taking his hands off his belt.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “I think it’s a gun. Why don’t you step back and let me pull it out.”
    Bosch flattened his hand and reached it down into the two-inch space between the wall and the tank. His fingers closed on a plastic bag attached to the back of the tank with gray duct tape. He managed to pull it free and get the bag out. He held it up for Fontenot to see. The bag contained a blue metal pistol equipped with a three-inch screw-on silencer.
    “A twenty-two?” Fontenot asked.
    “Oh, yeah,” Bosch said. “Go get Felton and Iverson, would you?”
    “Right away.”
    Bosch followed Fontenot out of the bathroom. He was holding the bag containing the gun the way a fisherman holds a fish by its tail. When he stepped into the bedroom he couldn’t help but smile at Goshen, whose eyes noticeably widened.
    “That ain’t mine,” Goshen immediately protested. “That’s a plant, you fuck! I don’t be-Get me my goddamned lawyer, you son of a bitch!”
    Bosch let the words go by but studied the look. He saw something flash in Goshen’s eyes. It was there for only a second and then he covered up. It wasn’t fear. He didn’t think that was something Goshen would let slip into his eyes. Bosch believed he had seen something else. But what? He looked at Goshen and waited a moment for the look to return. Was it confusion? Disappointment? Goshen’s eyes showed nothing now. But Bosch believed he knew the look. What he had seen had been surprise.
    Iverson, Baxter and Felton then filed into the room. They saw the gun and Iverson yelped in triumph.
    “Sayonara, bay-bee!”
    His glee showed on his face. Bosch explained how and where he had found the weapon.
    “These fuckhead gangsters,” Iverson said, looking at Goshen. “Think the cops never saw The Godfather? Who’d you put it there for, Goshen? Michael Corleone?”
    “I said get me my fucking lawyer!” Goshen yelled.
    “You’ll get your lawyer,” Iverson said. “Now get up, you piece of shit. You gotta get dressed for the ride in.”
    Bosch held him at gunpoint while Iverson took one of the cuffs off. Then they both pointed guns at him while he got dressed in black jeans, boots and T-shirt-the shirt manufactured for a much smaller man.
    “You guys are always tough in numbers,” Goshen said as he went about putting the clothes on. “You ever come up against me alone, then it’s going to be wet ass time.”
    “Come on, Goshen, we don’t have all day,” Iverson said.
    When he was done, they cuffed him and stuffed him into the back of Iverson’s car. Iverson locked the gun in the trunk, then they went back inside the house. In a short meeting inside the front hallway it was decided that Baxter and two of the other detectives would stay behind to finish the