“No. Let’s talk in the morning. I want to know about the ballistics as soon as you know.”

“You got it.”

Bosch headed to the door but she stopped him.

“It’s weird, isn’t it, when sometimes you can’t tell the good guys from the bad.”

He looked back at her.

“Yeah, it’s weird.”

The house still smelled of fresh paint when Bosch finally got home. He looked at the wall he had started to paint three days before and it seemed long ago. He didn’t know when he’d finish now. The house had been a ground-up rebuilding job after the earthquake. He’d only been back a few weeks after more than a year of living in a residence hotel near the station. The earthquake, too, seemed long ago. Things happened fast in this city. Everything but the moment seemed like ancient history.

He got out the number Felton had given him for Eleanor Wish and called it but there was no answer, not even a machine picking up. He hung up and wondered if she had gotten the note he left for her. His hope was that they would somehow be together after this case was over. But if it came to that, he realized, he wasn’t sure how he’d deal with the department’s prohibition against associating with a convicted felon.

His thoughts about this spun into the question of how Fitzgerald had found out about her and the night they had spent together in her apartment. It seemed to him it was likely that Fitzgerald would maintain contacts with Metro, and he guessed that maybe Felton or Iverson had informed the deputy chief about Eleanor Wish.

Bosch made two sandwiches of lunch meat from the refrigerator and then took them, two bottles of beer and the box of tapes Fitzgerald had given him over to the chair next to his stereo. As he ate, he arranged the tapes in chronological order and then started playing them. There was a photocopy of a log and pen register with entries showing what time of day Aliso either received or made the calls and what number he had called.

More than half the calls were between Aliso and Layla, either placed to the club-Bosch could tell because of the background music and noise-or a number he assumed was her apartment. She never identified herself on any of the calls, but on the occasions Tony called her at the club he asked for her by her stage name, Layla. Other than that, he never used her name. Most of their conversations were about the minutia of daily life. He called her most often at home in the midafternoon. In one call to her home, Layla was angry at Aliso for waking her up. He complained that it was already noon and she reminded him that she had worked until four at the club. Like a chastened boy, he apologized and offered to call back. He did, at two.

In addition to the conversations with Layla there were calls to other women involving the timing of a scene that needed to be reshot for one of Tony’s movies and various other film-related business calls. There were two calls placed by Aliso to his home but both of his conversations with his wife were quick and to the point. One time he said he was coming home and the other time he said he was going to be held up and wouldn’t be home for dinner.

When Bosch was done it was after midnight and he had counted only one of the conversations as being of even marginal interest. It was a call placed to the dressing room at the club on the Tuesday before Aliso was murdered. In the midst of their rather boring, innocuous conversation, Layla asked him when he was coming out next.

“Comin’ out Thursday, baby,” Aliso replied. “Why, you miss me already?”

“No-I mean, yeah, sure, I miss you and all, Tone. But Lucky was asking if you were coming. That’s why I asked.”

Layla had a soft, little-girl voice that seemed unpracticed or fake.

“Well, tell him I’ll be in Thursday night. You working then?”

“Yeah, I’m working.”

Bosch turned off the stereo and thought about the one call that mattered. It meant Goshen knew, through Layla, that Aliso was coming out. It wasn’t much, but it could probably be used by a prosecutor as part of an argument for premeditation. The problem was that it was tainted evidence. In legal terms, it did not exist.

He looked at his watch. It was late but he decided to call. He took the number off the log where Layla’s number had been recorded by a pen register which read the tones that sounded when a number was punched into a phone. After four rings it was answered by a woman with a slow voice laced with practiced sexual intent.

“Layla?”

“No, this is Pandora.”

Bosch almost laughed but he was too tired.

aging

“Where’s Layla?”

“She isn’t here.”

“This is a friend of hers. Harry. She tried to call me the other night. You know where she is or where I could reach her?”

“No. She hasn’t been around for a couple days. I don’t know where she is. Is this about Tony?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, she’s pretty upset. I guess if she wants to talk to you, she’ll call you again. You in town?”

“Not right now. Where d’you guys live?”

“Uh, I don’t think I’m going to tell you that.”

“Pandora, is Layla scared of something?”

“Of course she is. Her old man gets killed. She thinks people might think she knows something, but she doesn’t. She’s just scared.”

Bosch gave Pandora his home number and told her to have Layla call if she checked in.

After he hung up he looked at his watch and took out the little phone book he kept in his jacket. He called Billets’s number and a man answered. Her husband. Bosch apologized for the late call, asked for the lieutenant and wondered while he waited what the husband knew about his wife and Kizmin Rider. When Billets picked up, Bosch told her about his review of the tapes and how little value they had.

“The one call establishes Goshen’s knowledge of Aliso’s trip to Vegas, as well as his interest in it. But that’s about it. I think it’s kind of marginal and we’ll be okay without it. When we find Layla, we should be able to get the same information from her. Legally.”

“Well, that makes me feel better.”

Bosch heard her exhale. Her unspoken worry had obviously been that if the tapes contained any vital information, they would have to have been brought forward to prosecutors, thereby alienating Fitzgerald and ending her own career.

“Sorry for the late call,” Bosch said, “but I thought you might want to know as soon as I knew.”

“Thanks, Harry. I’ll see you in the morning.”

After he hung up he tried Eleanor Wish’s line once more and again there was no answer. Now the slight worry he’d had in his chest bloomed into a full-fledged concern. He wished he was still in Vegas so he could go to her apartment to see if she was there and just not answering or if it was something worse.

Bosch got himself another beer from the refrigerator and went out to the back deck. The new deck was larger than its predecessor and offered a deeper view into the Pass. It was dark and peaceful out. The usual hiss of the Hollywood Freeway far below was easily tuned out. He watched the spotlights from Universal Studios cut across the starless sky and finished his beer, wondering where she was.

On Wednesday morning, Bosch got to the station at eight and typed out reports detailing his moves and investigation in Las Vegas. He made copies and put them in the lieutenant’s mailbox and then clipped the originals into the already inch-thick murder book that Edgar had started. He filed no report on his conversations with Carbone and Fitzgerald or his review of the tapes OCID had made off Aliso’s office phone. His work was only interrupted by frequent walks to the watch office for coffee.

He had completed these chores by ten o’clock but waited another five minutes before calling the department’s gun shop. He knew from experience that he should not call before the time the report on the bullet comparisons was to be finished. He threw in the extra five minutes just to make sure. It was a long five minutes.