said nobody to get hurt. You understand? I said nobody to-”
Bosch pulled the gun back and brought it down hard on the man’s nose. His head snapped back against the concrete. Bosch pushed the barrel into his neck.
“I don’t care what you said. They killed her, you fuck! Do you understand that?”
The man was dazed and bleeding, his eyes blinking as he wavered in and out of consciousness. With his right hand, Bosch slapped his cheek.
“Stay awake. I want you to see it coming.”
“Please, no…I am very sorry, sir. Please don’t-”
“Okay, this is what you’re going to do. You want to live, then you tell me who rented room fifteen fourteen on Friday. Fifteen fourteen. You tell me right now.”
“Okay, I tell you. I show you.”
“Okay, you show me.”
Bosch pulled his weight back off him. The man was bleeding from the mouth and nose and Bosch was bleeding from the knuckles of his left hand. He quickly reached up and pulled the security fence all the way down to the counter.
“Show me. Now.”
“Okay, it is here.”
He pointed to the briefcase he had been loading. He reached into it and Bosch raised the gun and pointed it at his head.
“Easy.”
The man pulled out a stack of room registration forms. Bosch saw his own on top. He reached over and grabbed it off the stack and crumpled it into the pocket of his coat. All the while he kept his aim on the man.
“Friday, room fifteen fourteen. Find it.”
The man put the stack of forms on the back counter and started going through them. Bosch knew he was taking too much time. The police would come any moment to the hotel desks and find them. It had been at least fifteen minutes since the shootings on fifteen. He saw a shelf under the front counter and put the gun there. If the police caught him with it, he’d go to prison, no matter what.
Looking at the robber’s gun as he placed it down prompted the realization that he had left his ex-wife and the mother of his daughter lying dead and alone up there on fifteen. It put a spear through Bosch’s chest. He closed his eyes for a moment to try to push the thought and vision away.
“Here it is.”
Bosch opened his eyes. The man was turning to him from the rear counter. Bosch heard a distinct metal snap. He saw the man’s right arm start to swing around and up from his side and Bosch knew there was a knife before he saw it. In a split-second decision, he chose to block rather than parry the attack. He moved forward and into the man, raising his left forearm to block the knife and driving his right fist toward his attacker’s throat.
The knife tore through the sleeve of Bosch’s jacket and he felt the blade slice into the inside of his forearm. But that was all the damage he took. His punch to the throat sent the man backwards and he fell on the overturned stool. Bosch dropped on him again, grabbing his knife hand by the wrist and smashing it back repeatedly against the floor until the weapon clattered loose on the concrete.
Bosch raised himself up while still holding the man down by the throat. He could feel blood sliding down his arm from the wound. He thought again about Eleanor lying dead up on fifteen. Her life and everything taken from her before she could even say a word. Before she could see her daughter safe again.
Bosch raised his left fist and struck the man viciously in the ribs. He did it again and again, punching body and face, until he was sure most of the man’s ribs and jaw were broken and he’d lapsed into unconsciousness.
Bosch was winded. He picked up the switchblade and folded it closed and dropped it into his pocket. He moved off the man’s unmoving body and gathered the fallen registration forms. He then got up and shoved them back into the counterman’s briefcase and closed it. He leaned over the counter to look out through the security gate. It was still clear in the aisle, though he could now hear announcements being made through a bullhorn coming from the elevator alcove. He knew that police procedure would have to be to shut the place down and secure it.
He raised the security gate two feet and then grabbed the gun off the shelf and put it into his rear waistband. He climbed over the