The Black Echo

Silence filled the room again and it seemed so loud that Bosch hoped a nurse or even Galvin Junior would stick a head in to see if everything was all right. He needed a cigarette badly. He realized it was the first time today that he had thought about smoking. Eleanor looked down at her feet now, and he looked over at his untouched food. He picked up the roll and started to toss it up and down in his hand like a baseball. After a while Eleanor’s eyes made their third trip around the room without seeing whatever it was she was looking for. Bosch couldn’t figure it out.

“Didn’t you get the flowers I sent?”

“Flowers?”

“Yes, I sent daisies. Like the ones growing on the hill below your house. I don’t see any in here.”

Daisies, Bosch thought. The vase he had knocked against the wall. Where are my goddam cigarettes, he wanted to yell.

“They’ll probably come later. They only make deliveries up here once a day.”

She frowned.

“You know,” Bosch said, “if Rourke knew we’d found the second vault and were watching it, and if he knew that we watched Tran go in and clear his box, why didn’t he get his people out? That really bothers me about this whole thing. Why’d he go through with it?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe… well, I’ve been thinking that maybe he wanted them to go down. He knew those guys, maybe he knew it would work out that they’d go down shooting, that without them he’d get to keep all the diamonds from the first vault.”

“Yeah. But you know, I’ve been remembering things all day. About when we were down there. It’s been coming back, and I remember that he didn’t say he’d get it all. He said something about his share being bigger now with Meadows and the other two dead. He still used the word ‘share,’ like there was still someone else to split it with.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe, but it’s just semantics, Harry.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve got to go. You know how long they’ll keep you?”

“Haven’t been told, but I think tomorrow I’ll take myself out. Thinking about going to Meadows’s funeral over at veterans.”

“A Memorial Day funeral. Sounds appropriate to me.”

“Want to go with me?”

“Mmmm, no. I don’t think I want anything more to do with Mr. Meadows… But I’ll be at the bureau tomorrow. Clearing out my desk and writing up status sheets on the cases I’ll have to pass to other agents. You could come by if you’d like. I’ll brew you some fresh coffee like before. But, you know, I don’t really think they are going to let you out so fast, Harry. Not with a bullet wound. You need to rest. You need to heal some.”

“Sure,” Bosch said. He knew she was saying good-bye to him.

“Okay, then, maybe I’ll see you.”

She leaned over and kissed him good-bye, and he knew it was good-bye to everything about them. She was almost out the door before he opened his eyes.

“One last thing,” he said, and she turned at the door and looked back at him. “How’d you find me, Eleanor? You know, in the tunnels with Rourke.”

She hesitated and her eyebrows went up again.

“Well, I went down with Hanlon. But when we got out of the hand-dug tunnel we split up. He went one way in that first line and I went the other. I picked the winner. I found the blood. Then I found Franklin. Dead. And after that I was a little lucky. I heard the shots and then the voices. Mostly Rourke’s voice. I followed that. Why did you think of that now?”

“I don’t know. It just sort of came up. You saved my life.”

They looked at each other. Her hand was on the door handle and it was open just enough so that Bosch could look past her and see Galvin Junior still there, sitting in a chair in the hallway.

“All I can say is thanks.”

She made a shushing sound, dismissing his gratitude.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“Don’t quit.”

He saw the crack in the door disappear, Junior with it. She stood there silently.

“Don’t leave.”

“I must. I’ll see you, Harry.”

She pulled the door all the way open now.

“Good-bye,” she said, and then she was gone.

***

Bosch remained motionless on the hospital bed for the better part of an hour. He was thinking about two people: Eleanor Wish and John Rourke. For a long time he closed his eyes and dwelt on the look on Rourke’s face as he crumpled and went down into the black water. I’d be surprised, too, Bosch thought, but there was also something else there, something he couldn’t exactly identify. Some kind of knowing look of recognition and resolution-not of his dying, but of another, secret knowledge.