I agreed that I knew what he meant but not what he had suggested. I could tell that I had seriously put him out with the plate check.

“Roy, all I can tell you is that I didn’t know. I’m sorry. You’re right. I shouldn’t drag you in and I am sorry I did.”

There was silence and I thought that I had placated him.

“Roy?”

“What?”

“Did you write down the address from the registration?”

“You fucking asshole.”

He vented for another minute but eventually, grudgingly gave me the address Eleanor’s car was registered to. There was no apartment number with it. It looked like she had not only come up a level in wheels. She was living in a house now.

“Thanks, Roy. It’s the last time on that. I promise. Anything come up on the other thing I asked about?”

“Nothing good, nothing useful. The guy’s record is pretty clean. There is some juvenile stuff but it’s all sealed. I didn’t go any further with it.”

“Okay.”

I wondered if the juvenile stuff involved his former Beverly Hills High classmates and now partners.

“The only other thing is that he’s a junior. There is another Linus Simonson on the computer. Going by the age it looks like Daddy.”

“What’s he on there for?”

“He’s got an IRS rap and a bankruptcy. It’s all old stuff.”

“How old?”

“The IRS came first, like they usually do. That was in ’ninety-four. The old man went bankrupt two years later. Who is this guy Linus and why did you want me to check him for a tail?”

I didn’t answer as I found myself looking into a Most Wanted picture on the post office wall. A serial rapist. But I wasn’t really looking at him. I was looking at Linus. I was working the interior circuits as another piece fell into place. Linus said he wasn’t going to make the same mistakes as his father, who had gone belly-up and broke, an IRS collar around his neck. The question that poked through all of that was, how does a guy with no job and no backing from Daddy parlay the thirty grand he’s got in his pocket into the purchase and major renovation of a bar? And then another, and then another.

Loans maybe-if he qualified. Or maybe with a $2 million bank withdrawal.

“Bosch, you there?”

I came out of it.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“I asked you a question. Who is this guy? Is he on the movie deal?”

“It’s looking like it, Roy. What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

“I’m doing what I’m always doing. Why?”

“If you want a piece of this be at my lawyer’s office at nine. And don’t be late.”

“Is this guy connected to Marty? If he’s the guy I don’t want a piece. I want all of it.”

“I don’t know yet. But he’ll get us closer, that’s for sure.”

Lindell wanted to ask more questions but I cut him off. I had more calls to make. I gave him Langwiser’s name and address and he finally said he would be at the law office at nine. I hung up and then called Sandor Szatmari and left a message inviting him to the same meeting.

Lastly I called Kiz Rider in the administration office at Parker Center and extended the invitation to her as well. She went from zero to sixty on the anger speedometer in about five seconds.

“Harry, I warned you about this. You are going to find yourself in a lot of trouble. You can’t just work a case and then call in a gang bang when you think it’s time we were made privy to your private investigations.”

“Kiz, I already did. You just have to decide if you want to be there or not. There will be a nice piece of this for somebody at the LAPD. As far as I’m thinking, it might as well be you. But if you’re not interested, I’ll call RHD.”

“Goddamnit, Harry.”

“In or out?”

There was a long pause.

“I’m in. But, Harry, I’m not going to protect you.”

“I wouldn’t expect it.”

“Who is your lawyer?”

I gave her the information and was ready to hang up. I felt a sense of dread about the damage to our relationship. It seemed permanent to me.

“Okay, see you then,” I finally said.

“Yes, you will,” she replied sternly.

I remembered something I needed.

“Oh, and Kiz? See if you can find the original of the currency report. It should be in the murder book.”

“What currency report?”

I explained and she said she would look for it. I thanked her and hung up. I went out to my car and grabbed the parking ticket off the windshield. I got in and threw it over my shoulder into the backseat for good luck.

It was almost seven on the dashboard clock. I knew things didn’t get going in the Hollywood club scene until ten or later. But I had forward momentum and didn’t want it to ebb away while I just went home and waited. I sat there thinking with my hand over the top of the wheel, ticking my fingertips on the dashboard. Soon they were going through the phrasing that Quentin McKinzie had taught me, and when I realized this, I knew how I could spend the next few hours. I opened up the cell phone again.

Sugar Ray McK was waiting for me in his chair in his room at the Splendid Age. The only indication that he knew he was going out was the porkpie hat he was wearing. He once told me he only wore it when he went out to hear music, which meant he rarely wore it anymore. Under the brim his eyes were sharper than I had seen them in a long while.

“This is going to be fun, dog,” he said and I wondered if he’d been watching too much MTV.

“I hope they’ve got a decent crew for the first set. I didn’t even check.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

He drew out the last word.

“Before we go can I borrow that magnifying glass you use to read the TV guide?”

“Sure can. What do you need?”

He dug the glass out of a pocket on the arm of his chair while I took the last page of the currency report out of my shirt pocket and unfolded it. Sugar Ray handed me the glass and I went over to the bed table and turned on the lamp. I held the page over the top of the shade and then studied Jocelyn Jones’s signature with the magnifier. I got a confirmation of something I had seen earlier while in her office.

“What is it, Harry?” Sugar Ray asked.

I handed him the glass back and started refolding the paper.

“Just something I’ve been working on. Something called forger’s tremor.”

“Hmmm. Man, I got tremors all over.”

I smiled at him.

“We’ve all got ’em, one way or the other. Come on, let’s go. Let’s hear some music.”

“I’m going. You turn that lamp off. That costs money.”

We headed out. As we went down the hallway I thought of Melissa Royal and wondered if she might be visiting her mother. I doubted it. A moment of dread spiked me because I knew the day was coming when I would have to sit down with Melissa and tell her I was the wrong guy.

A porter from the center helped me get Sugar Ray into the car. The Mercedes SUV was probably too high for him to climb into. I realized I would have to think about that if I took him out on any more field trips.

We went over to the Baked Potato and had dinner and watched the first set of the first act, a quartet of journeymen called Four Squared. They were decent but maybe a little tired. They were partial to Billy Strayhorn’s stuff and so am I, so it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter to Sugar Ray either. His face lit up and he kept the beat in his shoulders as he listened. He never spoke while they played and he clapped with enthusiasm after every song. Reverence is what I saw in his eyes. Reverence for the sound and the form.

The players didn’t recognize him. Few people would now that he was down to just skin and bones. But that didn’t bother Sugar Ray. It didn’t diminish our evening by one note.

After the first set, I could see him starting to flag. It was after nine and time for him to sleep and dream. He’d told me once that he still could play in his dreams. I thought we should all be so lucky.