When he recovered his cool, Bosch asked Eleanor what her point was.
“No point,” she said. “I just… respect that. If it were me, I would have liked to have done the same thing, I think. I hope I would have been brave enough.”
He looked over at her, the darkness shielding both their faces. It was late now and no car lights drifted by to show them to each other.
“You go ahead and take the first shift sleeping,” he said. “I drank too much coffee.”
She didn’t answer. He offered to get out a blanket he had put in the trunk, but she declined.
“Did you ever hear what J. Edgar Hoover said about justice?” she asked.
“He probably said a lot, but I don’t recall any of it offhand.”
“He said that justice is incidental to law and order. I think he was right.”
She said nothing else and after a while he could hear her breathing turn deeper and longer. When the rare car drove by he would look over at her face as the light washed across it. She slept like a child, with her head leaning against her hands. Bosch cracked the window and lit a cigarette. He smoked and wondered if he could or would fall in love with her, and she with him. He was thrilled and disquieted by the thought, all at the same time.
PART VII
Gray dawn came up over the street and filled the car with weak light. The morning also brought with it a gentle drizzle that wet the street and put a smear of condensation on the lower half of the windows of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. It was the first rain of any kind in months that Bosch could remember. Wish slept and he watched the vault: overhead lights still glowed on the chrome-and-brushed-steel finish. It was past six o’clock, but Bosch had forgotten the check-in call to Rourke and let Eleanor sleep. In fact, during the night he had never wakened her so that he could take a turn sleeping. He just never got tired. Houck checked in on the radio at three-thirty to make sure someone was awake. After that there were no disturbances and no activity in the vault room. For the rest of the night Bosch thought alternately of Eleanor Wish and the vault he watched.
He reached for the cup on the dashboard and checked for even a cold gulp of coffee, but it was empty. He dropped the empty over the seat to the floor. As he did this, he noticed the package from St. Louis on the backseat. He reached back and grabbed the manila envelope. He pulled out the thick sheaf of papers and idly looked through them while glancing up at the vault every few seconds.
Most of Meadows’s military records he had already seen. But he quickly noticed that there were several that had not been in the FBI jacket Wish had given him. This was a more complete record. There was a photostat of his draft report notice and medical exam. There were also medical records from Saigon. He had been treated twice for syphilis, once for acute stress reaction.
Paging through the package, he stopped when his eyes fell on a copy of a two-page letter from a Louisiana congressman named Noone. Curious, Bosch began to read. It was dated 1973 and was addressed to Meadows at the embassy in Saigon. The letter, bearing the official congressional seal, thanked Meadows for his hospitality and help during the congressman’s recent fact-finding visit. Noone noted that it had been a pleasant surprise to find a fellow New Iberian in the strange country. Bosch wondered how much of a coincidence it had been. Meadows had probably been assigned to security for the congressman so they would hit it off and the legislator would go back to Washington with a high opinion of personnel and morale in Southeast Asia. There are no coincidences.
The second page of the letter congratulated Meadows on a fine career and referred to the good reports Noone had received from Meadows’s commanding officer. Bosch read on. Meadows’s involvement in stopping an illegal entry into the embassy hotel during the congressman’s stay was mentioned; a Lieutenant Rourke had furnished details of Meadows’s heroics to the congressman’s staff. Bosch felt a trembling below his heart, as if the blood was draining from it. The letter finished with some small talk about the home parish. There was the large, flowing signature of the congressman and a typed notation in the bottom left margin:
cc: U.S. Army, Records Division, Washington, D.C. Lt. John H. Rourke, U.S. Embassy, Saigon, V.N. The Daily Iberian; attention news editor
Bosch stared at the second page for a long time without moving or breathing. He actually thought he felt the beginning sensation of nausea and wiped his hand across his forehead. He tried to think if he had ever heard Rourke’s middle name or initial. He couldn’t remember. But it didn’t matter. There was no doubt. No coincidences.
Eleanor’s pager sounded, startling them both like a shot. She sat forward and began fumbling with her purse until she found the pager and shut off the noise.
“Oh, God, what time is it?” she said, still disoriented.
He said it was six-twenty and only then remembered that they were supposed to have checked in with Rourke on a landline twenty minutes earlier. He slid the letter back into the stack of papers and put them back in the envelope. He threw it back on the backseat.
“I’ve got to call in,” Wish said.
“Hey, take a couple of minutes to wake up,” Bosch replied quickly. “I’ll call in. I’ve got to find a restroom anyway, and I’ll get some coffee and water.”
He opened the door and stepped out before she could protest the plan. She said, “Harry, why did you let me sleep?”
“I don’t know. What’s his number?”
“I should call him.”
“Let me. Give me the number.”
She gave it to him and Bosch walked around the corner and a short distance to the twenty-four-hour diner called Darling’s. He was in a daze the whole way, ignoring the panhandlers who had come out with the sun, trying to fathom that it was Rourke who was the inside man. What was he doing? There was a part of this that was missing and Bosch couldn’t figure it. If Rourke was the insider, then why would he allow them to set up surveillance on the vault? Did he want his people caught? He saw the pay phones out front of the restaurant.
“You’re late,” Rourke said after picking up on half a ring.
“We forgot.”
“Bosch? Where’s Wish? She’s supposed to make the call.”
“Don’t worry about it, Rourke. She’s watching the vault like she’s supposed to. What are you doing?”
“I’ve been waiting to hear from you people before I headed in. Did you two fall asleep or what? What is happening there?”
“Nothing is happening. But you already know that, don’t you?”
There was a silence during which an old panhandler walked up to the booth and asked Bosch for money. Bosch put his hand on the man’s chest and firmly pushed him away.