“Cops on the payroll are always a pain in the ass,” he said. “I had to put an end to that pronto.”

I took another step backwards, but for every step I took, Simonson did likewise. The shotgun was only three feet away. I knew I’d be unable to escape its kill range if I tried to make a move. All I could do was play for time. Somebody in the neighborhood had to have heard the shots and made a call.

Simonson aimed the weapon at my heart.

“I’m going to enjoy this. This one’s for Cozy.”

“Cozy?” I asked, though I had already put it together. “Who the hell is Cozy?”

“You hit him that day. With your bullets. And he didn’t make it.”

“What happened to him?”

“What do you think happened? He died in the back of the van.”

“You buried him? Where?”

“Not me. I was sort of busy that day, remember? They buried him. Cozy liked boats. They gave him a burial at sea, you could say.”

I took another step back. Simonson followed. I was walking out from beneath the deck. If the cops ever showed up they could put a bead on him from above.

“What about the FBI agent? What happened to Marty Gessler?”

“See that’s the thing. When Dorsey told me about her and what the plan was, that was when I knew he had to go. I mean, he was -”

The shotgun suddenly pointed skyward as the foot Simonson had put his weight down on went out from under him. He took a classic pratfall, landing on his back. I was on him then like a wild man. We rolled and fought for control of the shotgun. He was younger and stronger and quickly was able to hold the top position. But he was an inexperienced fighter. His focus was on controlling the struggle rather than on simply overpowering his opponent.

I had my left hand wrapped around the snubbed barrel while the other was gripped at the trigger guard. I managed to squeeze my thumb into the guard behind his finger. I closed my eyes and an image came to me. Angella Benton’s hands. The image from memory and dreams. I channeled all my strength into my left arm and pushed. The angle of the gun shifted. I closed my eyes and depressed the trigger with my thumb. The loudest sound I have ever heard in my life roared through my head as the shotgun discharged. My face felt like it had caught on fire. I opened my eyes and looked up at Simonson and saw that he no longer had a face.

He rolled off of me and an inhuman sound gurgled from the pulp that had been his face. His legs kicked like he was riding an invisible bicycle. He rolled back and forth as his hands balled into fists as tight as stones, and then he stopped and went still.

Slowly, I sat up, registering what had happened. I touched my own face and found it intact. I was burned from the discharge gases but otherwise I was okay. My ears were ringing and for once I couldn’t hear the ever present sound of the freeway below.

I saw a glint in the brush and reached for the object. It was a water bottle. It was full, unopened. I realized that Simonson had slipped on the water bottle I had knocked off the deck a few days before. And it had saved my life. I twisted the cap off the bottle and poured water over my face, washing away the blood and the sting of the burn.

“Don’t move!”

I looked up from my position and saw a man leaning over the deck railing, pointing another gun at me. The moon reflected off the badge on his uniform. The cops had finally arrived. I dropped the bottle and spread my hands wide.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not moving.”

I leaned back, my arms still spread. My head rested on the ground and I pulled great gulps of air into my lungs. The ringing in my ears was still there but I could now also hear my heart as it slowed its cadence to the normal beat of life. I looked up into the dark, sacred night, to the place where those not saved on earth wait for the rest of us above. Not yet, I thought. No, not yet.

While the cop on the deck above kept his gun on me his partner dropped through the trapdoor and made his way down the slope to me. He had a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other and the wild eyes of a man who has no idea what he has stepped into.

“Roll over and put your hands behind your back,” he ordered, adrenaline drawing his voice high and tight.

I did as I was instructed and he put his flashlight down on the ground as he cuffed my wrists, thankfully not in the style of the FBI. I tried to calmly talk to him.

“Just so you know, I -”

“I don’t want to know anything from you.”

“- I’m LAPD retired. Out of Hollywood. Pulled the pin last year after twenty-five-plus.”

“Good for you. Why don’t you save it for the suits?”

My house was in North Hollywood Division. I knew there was no reason why they should know me or care.

“Hey,” said the one from above. “What’s his name? Put the light on him.”

The man on the ground put the light in my face from a foot away. It was blinding.

“What’s your name?”

“Harry Bosch. I worked homicide.”

“Har-”

“I know who he is, Swanny. He’s all right. Get the light out of his face.”

Swanny took the light away.

“Yeah, fine. But the cuffs stay on. The suits can sort it all-ah, Jesus!”

He had put his light on the faceless body in the brush to my left. Linus Simonson, or what was left of him.

“Don’t puke, Swanny,” came the voice from above. “It’s a crime scene.”

“Fuck you, Hurwitz, I’m not gonna puke.”

I heard him moving around. I tried to lift my head to watch him but the brush was too tall. I could only listen. It sounded like he was moving from body to body. I was right.

“Hey, we got a live one down here! Call it in.”

That would be Banks, I assumed. I was glad to hear it. I had the feeling I was going to need a survivor to back up my account. I figured that with Banks facing the fall by himself for the whole thing, he would cut a deal to save his ass and tell the story.

I rolled over and sat up. The cop was kneeling next to Banks on the dirt below the deck. He looked over at me.

“I didn’t tell you to move.”

“I couldn’t breathe with my face in the dirt.”

“Don’t fucking move again.”

“Hey, Swanny,” Hurwitz called down. “The stiff in the house? He’s got a badge. FBI.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah, holy shit.”

And they were right. It was a holy shit case. Within the hour the place was swarmed. By the LAPD. By the LAFD. By the FBI. By the media. By my count, there were six helicopters circling in the sky through most of the night, the cacophony so loud I found myself preferring the shotgun blast ringing in my ears.

The LAFD used a chopper to bring Banks up out of the canyon on a stretcher. When they were done with him I called the paramedics over and they put a clear aloe-based gel over the gas burns on my face. They gave me an aspirin and told me the injuries were minor and that there would be no scarring. It felt to me like I’d had my face laser-peeled by a blind surgeon.

I was uncuffed long enough to climb up the slope and then up through the trapdoor. In my house I was recuffed and made to sit on a couch in the living room. From there I could see Milton’s legs extending from the hallway as a crime scene team hovered over him.

Once all of the suits started showing up it started getting serious. Most of them followed the same pattern. They came in, somberly studied Milton’s body, then walked through the living room without looking at me and out onto the deck, where they looked down at the other three bodies. Then they came back in, looked at me without saying a word and went into the kitchen, where somebody had taken it upon himself to open up my new bag of coffee and put the percolator into heavy rotation.

This went on for at least two hours. At first I didn’t know any of them because they were North Hollywood detectives. But then the command decision was made to shift the investigation-LAPD’s part of it-to Robbery-Homicide Division. When the RHD dicks started showing up it started getting like old-home week. I knew many of them and had even worked side by side with some. It wasn’t until Kiz Rider showed up from the chief’s office that anybody thought to take the cuffs off my wrists. She angrily demanded that I be released from the bindings and when nobody made a move to do it, she did it herself.