He moved in toward the lighted window. The door next to it had a large NO ADMITTANCE sign posted, with a threatening kicker: “Violators Will Be Shot.”
Bosch proceeded undaunted. The curtain had not been closed all the way. There was a two-inch gap that allowed Bosch to visually sweep the room by shifting to his right or left outside.
There were two men in the room. They were white, dark-haired, and both wearing wifebeaters that revealed heavily tattooed arms and shoulders. They were at a table, playing cards and drinking a clear liquid directly from a bottle with no label. In the center of the table was a pile of pale-colored pills, and Bosch realized that the dosage levels of oxycodone pills made up the betting scheme of the game.
One of the men apparently lost a bet, and while his opponent gleefully used his hand to pull the pot to his side, the other angrily swiped some of the cards off the table and to the floor. The arm movement made Bosch’s eyes follow, and it was then that he saw a third person in the room.
There was a nude woman lying on a threadbare couch to the left side. Her face and body were turned in toward the rear cushions and she appeared to be asleep or unconscious. Bosch could not see her face, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. He leaned his head down for a moment as he filled with revulsion. He had avoided undercover work for all his years in law enforcement for this very reason. As a homicide investigator he had seen the worst of what humans can do to one another. But by the time Bosch was a witness, the crime had been committed and the suffering was over. Every case left its psychological mark but it was balanced by the fulfillment of justice. Bosch didn’t solve every case, but there was still accomplishment in giving every case his best work.
But when you went undercover, you moved from the safe confines of justice done and entered the world of the depraved. You saw how humans preyed on one another, and there was nothing you could do about it without blowing cover. You had to take it in and live with it to see the case through. Bosch wanted to charge into the trailer and save that woman from another minute of abuse, but he couldn’t. Not now. There was a greater justice he was looking for.
Bosch turned his eyes from the woman and looked at the two men. It seemed clear to him that they were speaking Russian, and the words inked on their arms appeared to be Russian as well. Both men had what cops called convict bodies: outsize upper torsos heavily muscled by years of prison workouts — push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups — and legs neglected in the process. One was clearly older. He was midthirties, with a soldier’s short haircut. Bosch placed the other man at about thirty, with dyed blond hair.
He studied their body sizes and movements and compared them to what he recalled of the videos from the pharmacy shooting and the drop-off and pickup at Whiteman. Could these two be the shooters? It was impossible to know for sure, but Bosch believed that there was a clue in the apparent casualness with which the men in the room had abused the woman. They had most likely drugged her, raped her, and left her unclothed on the couch. Bosch believed any man who did that was capable of the same casualness when it came to murder. His gut told him these were the two men who had gunned down José Esquivel and his son.
And they would lead him to Santos.
Bosch saw a reflection of light on the aluminum skin of the mobile home and turned to see a man with a flashlight approaching. He quickly ducked down and then moved back toward the vans and slipped into the channel between them.
“Hey!”
He had been spotted. He moved to the rear of the vehicles and had to make a decision.
He quickly dropped below the window level of the vans and moved back up on the outside of the van farthest from the mobile home. The man with the flashlight came running up and proceeded down the passage between the vans, the last place he had seen the intruder.
Bosch waited a second and broke for the corner of the trailer. He knew if he could get there, he could use the structure as a blind between him and the flashlight. As he ran, he heard the man talking feverishly and realized he must have a radio. That meant there might be at least one other person in the camp on security patrol.
Bosch made it to the corner of the trailer without drawing another shout. He pressed hard against the wall and looked around the edge. He located the flashlight out near the generator. That gave him an almost fifty-yard lead. He was about to break for the encampment when he saw another flashlight moving down a pathway in his direction. Bosch had no choice. He charged to his left, hoping to get to the cover of an old RV before the second searcher spotted him.
Lungs burning, he passed the back end of the RV before being hit with light. He heard more voices and shouting and realized the commotion had drawn the Russians out of the mobile home to see what was going on.
Bosch kept moving, even as fatigue from the exertion started to grip him. He followed the edge of the camp all the way around until he reached the portable toilets. He thought about hiding inside one but decided against it. He turned and entered the camp and started following the pathway back to the bus. He walked casually after using his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face.
He didn’t make it. In the clearing behind the bus, they were waiting. Bosch was hit with the lights first and then shoved to the ground from behind.
“What the fuck you think you are doing?” a voice said.
Bosch held his hands up off the dirt and sand and splayed his fingers.
“I was just using the toilet,” he called out. “I thought that was okay. Nobody told me I couldn’t leave the—”
“Get him up,” said a Russian.
Bosch was roughly pulled up off the ground and held by both arms by the sheriff and a man he assumed was his deputy.
The two men Bosch had seen playing cards were standing in front of him. The older one came in close enough for Bosch to smell the vodka on his breath.
“You like a Peeping Tom?” he asked.
“What?” Bosch exclaimed. “No, I had to use the shitter.”
“No, you Peeping Tom. Sneaking around, peeping in the window.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Who else, then? You see any Peeping Tom? No, just you.”
“I don’t know but it wasn’t me.”
“Yah, we see about dat. Search him. Who is this guy?”
The sheriff and deputy started going through Bosch’s pockets.
“He’s new,” said the sheriff. “He’s the one who had the gun.”
He pulled Bosch’s wallet out of his pocket and was about to yank it off its chain.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Bosch said.
He unsnapped the belt loop so the wallet and chain came free. The sheriff threw it to the Russian.
“Gimme the light,” he said.
The deputy held his light out while the Russian looked through the wallet.
“Reilly,” he said.
He pronounced it really.
The sheriff found the bottle of laxatives and held it up for the Russian to see. The blond Russian said something in their native tongue but the one holding Bosch’s wallet seemed to ignore it.
“Why do you sweat, Reilly?” he asked instead.
“Because I need a hit,” Bosch said. “They only gave me one.”
“He was fighting on the van,” the sheriff said.
“There was no fight,” Bosch said. “Just some pushing. It wasn’t fair. I need the hit.”
The Russian slapped the wallet against his other hand as he contemplated the situation. He then handed it back to Bosch.
Bosch thought he had made it. Returning the wallet meant the Russian would let his trespass go.
But he was wrong.