“This what’s playing?” he asked. “Art Pepper meets the Rhythm Section?”
Bosch stepped over.
“Yeah. Art Pepper and Miles’s side men. Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, Philly Joe Jones on drums. Recorded here in L.A., January 19, 1957. One day. The cork in the neck of Pepper’s sax was supposedly cracked but it didn’t matter. He had one shot with these guys. He made the most of it. One day, one shot, one classic. That’s the way to do it.”
“These guys were in Miles Davis’s band?”
“At the time.”
McCaleb nodded. Bosch leaned close to look at the CD cover in McCaleb’s hands.
“Yeah, Art Pepper,” he said. “When I was growing up I never knew who my father was. My mother, she used to have a lot of this guy’s records. She hung out at some of the jazz clubs where he’d play. Handsome devil, Art was. For a hype. Just look at that picture. Too cool to fool. I made up this whole story about how he was my old man and he wasn’t around ’cause he was always on the road and making records. Almost got to the point I believed it. Later on – I mean years later – I read a book about him. It said he was junk sick when they took that picture. He puked as soon as it was over and went back to bed.”
McCaleb studied the photograph on the CD. A handsome man leaning against a tree, his sax cradled in his right arm.
“Well, he could play,” McCaleb said.
“Yeah, he could,” Bosch agreed. “Genius with a needle in his arm.”
Bosch stepped over and turned the volume up slightly. The song was “Straight Life,” Pepper’s signature composition.
“Do you believe that?” McCaleb asked.
“What, that he was a genius? Yeah, he was with the sax.”
“No, I mean do you think that every genius – musician, artist, even a detective – has a fatal flaw like that? The needle in the arm.”
“I think everybody’s got a fatal flaw, whether they’re a genius or not.”
Bosch turned it up louder. McCaleb put his beer down on top of one of the floor speakers. Bosch picked it up and handed it back. He used his palm to wipe the wet ring off the wood surface. McCaleb turned the music down.
“Come on, Harry, give me something.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I made the journey up here. Give me something on Gunn. I know you don’t care about him – the wheel turned and he didn’t walk away. But I don’t like the way this one looked. This guy – whoever he is – is still out there. And he’s going to do this again. I can tell.”
Bosch shook his shoulders like he still didn’t care.
“All right, here’s something. It’s thin but it might be worth a try. When he was in the tank the night before he got put down and I checked in on him, I also talked with the Metro guys who brought him in on the DUI. They said they asked him where he’d been drinking and he said he’d come out of a place called Nat’s. It’s on the Boulevard about a block from Musso’s and on the south side.”
“Okay, I can find it,” McCaleb said, a what-about-it tone in his voice. “What’s the connection?”
“Well, see, Nat’s was the same place he’d been drinking that night six years ago that I first made his acquaintance. It’s where he picked up that woman, the one he killed.”
“So he was a regular.”
“Looks it.”
“Thanks, Harry. I’ll check it out. How come you didn’t tell this to Jaye Winston?”
Bosch shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I didn’t think about it and she didn’t ask.”
McCaleb almost put his beer down on the speaker again but instead handed it to Bosch.
“I might go check down there tonight.”
“Don’t forget.”
“Forget what?”
“You hook the guy who did it, you shake his hand for me.”
McCaleb didn’t respond. He looked around the place as if he had just walked in.
“Can I use the bathroom?”
“Down the hall on the left.”
McCaleb headed that way while Bosch took the bottles into the kitchen and put them in the recycle bin with the others. He opened the refrigerator and saw he was down to one soldier left in the six-pack he’d bought on the way home from tricking Annabelle Crowe. He closed the refrigerator when McCaleb stepped into the room.
“That’s a crazy fucking picture you got hanging in the hallway,” he said.
“What? Oh, yeah. I like that picture.”
“What’s it supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess it means the big wheel keeps turning. Nobody walks away.”
McCaleb nodded.
“I suppose.”
“You heading down there to Nat’s?”
“Thinking about it. You want to go?”
Bosch considered it even though he knew it would be foolish. He had to review half of the murder book in preparation for his continuing testimony the next morning.
“Nah, I better do some work here. Get ready for tomorrow.”
“Okay. How’d it go today, anyway?”
“So far so good. But we’re playing softball right now – direct. Tomorrow the ball goes to John Reason and he throws it back inside and fast.”
“I’ll watch the news.”
McCaleb stepped over and stuck his hand out. Bosch shook it.
“Be careful out there.”
“You, too, Harry. Thanks for the beers.”
“No problem.”
He walked McCaleb to the door and then watched him get into a black Cherokee parked on the street. It started up right away and pulled away, leaving Bosch standing in the lighted doorway.
Bosch locked up and turned off the living room lights. He left the stereo on. It would automatically turn off at the end of Art Pepper’s classic moment in time. It was early but Bosch was tired from the pressures of the day and the alcohol moving in his blood. He decided he would sleep now and wake up early to prepare for his testimony. He went into the kitchen and got the last bottle of beer out of the refrigerator.
On the way down the hall to his bedroom he stopped and looked at the framed picture McCaleb had referred to. It was a print of the Hieronymus Bosch painting called The Garden of Earthly Delights. He’d had it for a long time, since he was a kid. The surface of the print was warped and scratched. It was in bad shape. It had been Eleanor who moved it from the living room to the hallway. She didn’t like it being in the place where they sat every night. Bosch never understood whether that was because of what was in the painting or because the print was old and deteriorated.
As he looked at the landscape of human debauchery and torment depicted in the painting, Bosch thought about maybe moving it back to its spot in the living room.
In Bosch’s dream he was moving through dark water, unable to see his hands in front of his own face. There was a ringing sound and he pushed upward through the darkness.
He came awake. The light was on but all was silent. The stereo was off. He started to look at his watch when the phone rang again and he quickly grabbed it off the bedside table.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Harry, it’s Kiz.”
His old partner.
“Kiz, what’s up?”
“You okay? You sound… out of it.”
“I’m fine. I was just… I was asleep.”
He looked at his watch. It was just after ten.
“Sorry, Harry, I thought you’d be burning the oil, getting ready for tomorrow.”
“I’m going to get up early and do it.”
“Well, you did good today. We had the box on in the squad. Everybody was pulling for you.”
“I’ll bet. How is it going down there?”
“It’s going. In a way I’m starting over. I’ve got to prove myself to them.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be passing those guys like they’re standing still. Just like you did with me.”