easy silence. Surveillance jobs were the bane of most detectives' existence. But in his fifteen years on the job Bosch had never minded a single stakeout. In fact, many times he enjoyed them when he was with good company. He defined good company not by the conversation but by the lack of it. When there was no need to talk to feel comfortable, that was the right company. Bosch thought about the case and watched the traffic pass by the vault. He recapped the events as they had occurred, in order, from start to present. Revisiting scenes, listening to the dialogue over again. He found that often this reaccounting helped him make the next choice or step. What he mulled over now, poking at it like a loose tooth with his tongue, was the hit-and-run. The car that had come at them the night before. Why? What did they know at that point that made them so dangerous? It seemed to be a foolish move to kill a cop and a federal agent. Why was it undertaken? His mind then drifted to the night they had spent together after all the questions were asked by all the supervisors. Eleanor was spooked. More so than he. As he had held her in her bed, he felt as though be were calming a frightened animal. Holding and caressing her as she breathed into his neck. They had not made love. Just held each other. It had somehow seemed more intimate.
"Are you thinking about last night?" she asked then.
"How did you know?"
"A guess. Any ideas?"
"Well, I think it was nice. I think we—"
"I'm talking about who tried to kill us last night."
"Oh. No, no ideas. I was thinking about the after."
"Oh. . . . You know, I didn't thank you, Harry, for being with me like that, not expecting anything."
"I should thank you."
"You're sweet."
They drifted into their own thoughts again. Leaning against the door with his head against the side window, Bosch rarely took his eyes off the vault. Traffic on Wilshire was light but steady. People heading to or from the clubs over on Santa Monica Boulevard or around Rodeo Drive.
There was probably a premiere at nearby Academy Hall. It seemed to Bosch that every limousine in L.A. was working Wilshire this night. Stretch cars of all makes and colors cruised by, one by one. They moved so smoothly they seemed to float. They were beautiful, and intriguing with their black windows. Like exotic women in sunglasses. A car built just for this city, Bosch thought.
"Has Meadows been buried?"
The question surprised him. He wondered what tumble of thought led to it. "No," he answered. "Monday, over at the veterans cemetery."
"A Memorial Day funeral, sounds kind of fitting. So his life of crime did not disqualify him from being placed in such sacred ground?"
"No. He did his time over there in Vietnam. They've saved a space for him. There's probably one there for me, too. Why did you ask?"
"I don't know. Just thinking is all. Will you go?"
"If I'm not sitting here watching this vault."
"That will be nice of you. I know he meant something to you. At one point in your life."
He let it drop, but then she said, "Harry, tell me about the black echo. What you said the other day. What did you mean?"
For the first time he looked away from the vault and at Eleanor. Her face was in darkness, but headlights from a passing car lit the interior of the car for a moment and he could see her eyes on his. He looked back at the vault.
"There isn't anything really to tell. It's just what we called one of the intangibles."
"Intangibles?"
"There was no name for it, so we made up a name. It was the darkness, the damp emptiness you'd feel when you were down there alone in those tunnels. It was like you were in a place where you felt dead and buried in the dark. But you were alive. And you were scared. Your own breath kind of echoed in the darkness, loud enough to give you away. Or so you thought. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Just . . . the black echo."
She let some time slide between them before she said, "I think your going to the funeral is nice."
"Is something wrong?"
"What do you mean?"
"What I said. The way you're talking. You haven't seemed right since last night. Like something—I don't know, forget it."