“I don’t know yet. Look, I’m still downtown and was just heading home myself. I’m in the car. Sit tight and I’ll be there in five minutes. Stay in the office and keep the door locked.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not moving.”

“And don’t shoot me when I get there.”

“I won’t.”

I reached over and hung up the office phone. I didn’t need 911 if Bosch was coming. I picked the gun back up.

“Hey, Haller?”

“What?”

“What did he want?”

“What?”

“The guy. What did he come there for?”

“That’s a good goddamn question. But I don’t have the answer.”

“Look, stop fucking around and tell me!”

“I’m telling you! I don’t know what he’s after. Now quit talking and get over here!”

I involuntarily squeezed my hands into fists as I yelled and put an accidental shot into the floor. I jumped as though I had been shot at by someone else.

“Haller!” Bosch yelled. “What the hell was that?”

I pulled in a deep breath and took my time composing myself before answering.

“Haller? What’s going on?”

“Get over here and you’ll find out.”

“Did you hit him? Did you put him down?”

Without answering I closed the phone.

Thirty-two

Thirty-two

Bosch made it in six minutes but it felt like an hour. A dark image appeared on the other side of the glass and he knocked sharply.

“Haller, it’s me, Bosch.”

Carrying the gun at my side, I unlocked the door and let him in. He, too, had his gun out and at his side.

“Anything since we were on the phone?” he asked.

“Haven’t seen or heard him. I guess I scared his ass away.”

Bosch holstered his gun and threw me a look, as if to say my tough-guy pose was convincing no one except maybe myself.

“What was that last shot?”

“An accident.”

I pointed toward the hole in the floor.

“Give me that gun before you get yourself killed.”

I handed it over and he put it into the waistband of his pants.

“You don’t own a gun — not legally. I checked.”

“It’s my investigator’s. He leaves it here at night.”

Bosch scanned the ceiling, until he saw the two holes I had put there. He then looked at me and shook his head.

He went over to the blinds and checked the street. Broadway was dead out there this time of night. A couple nearby buildings had been converted into residential lofts but Broadway still had a way to go before recapturing the nightlife it had had eighty years before.

“Okay, let’s sit down,” he said.

He turned from the window to see me standing behind him.

“In your office.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to talk about this.”

I moved into the office and took a seat behind the desk. Bosch sat down across from me.