rules—for both sides. Bosch signaled with his hand to Sharkey's neck and a coroner's investigator pulled the body away from the wall. Bosch put one hand down on the ground to balance himself and stared for a long time at the ravaged neck and throat. He did not want to forget a single detail. Sharkey's head lolled back, exposing the gaping neck wound. Bosch's eyes never wavered.
When Bosch finally looked up from the body, he noticed that Eleanor was no longer in the tunnel. He stood up and signaled Edgar to come outside to talk. Harry didn't want to have to shout over the sound of the generator. When they got out of the tunnel, he saw that Eleanor was sitting alone on the top step. They walked up past her, and Harry put his hand on her shoulder as he went by. He felt it go rigid at his touch.
When he and his old partner were reasonably away from the noise, Harry said, "So what do the techs have?"
"Not a damned thing," Edgar said. "If it was a gang thing, it's one of the cleanest I've ever seen. Not a single print or partial. The spray can is clean. No weapon. No wits."
"Sharkey had a crew, used to stay at a motel near the Boulevard until today, but he wasn't into gangs," Bosch said. "It's in the files. He was a scammer. You know, with the Polaroids, rolling homosexuals, stuff like that."
"You're saying he's in the gang files but he isn't in a gang?"
"Right."
Edgar nodded and said, "He still could've been taken down by somebody who thought he was a gangbanger."
Wish walked over to them then but said nothing.
"You know this isn't a gang thing, Jed," Bosch said.
"I do?"
"Yeah, you do. If it was, there wouldn't be a full can of paint in there. No gangbanger's going to leave something like that behind. Also, whoever painted the wall in there didn't have the touch. The paint ran. Whoever did it, didn't know about spraying a wall."
"Come here a sec," Edgar said.
Bosch looked at Eleanor and nodded that it was okay.
He and Edgar walked away a few steps and stood near the crime scene tape.
"What did this kid tell you, and how come he was running around loose if he's part of the case?" he asked.
Bosch told him the basics of the story, that they didn't know if Sharkey was important to the case. But somebody apparently did or couldn't risk waiting to find out. As Bosch spoke he looked up over the hills and saw the first light of dawn outlining the tall palms at the top. Edgar took a step away and tilted his head up that way, too. But he wasn't looking at the sky. His eyes were closed. He eventually turned back to Bosch.
"Harry, you know what this weekend is?" he said. "It's Memorial Day weekend. It's the biggest three-day showing weekend of the year. Start of the summer season. Last year I sold four houses on this weekend, made almost as much as I made all year as a cop."
Bosch was confused by the sudden departure in the conversation. "What are you talking about?"
"What I'm talking about is . . . I'm not going to be busting my ass on this case. It isn't going to fuck up my weekend like the last one. So, what I'm saying is if you want it, I'll go to Pounds and tell him you and the FBI want to take it 'cause it goes with the one you are already working. Otherwise, I'm going to work it strictly as a nine-to-five."
"You tell Pounds whatever you want, Jed. It's not my call."
Bosch started back toward Eleanor, and Edgar said, "Just one thing. Who knew you had found the kid?"
Bosch stopped and looked at Eleanor. Without turning around, he said, "We took him off the street. We interviewed him over on Wilcox. The reports went to the bureau. What do you want me to say, Jed?"
"Nothing," Edgar said. "But, Harry, maybe you and the FBI there should have looked out for your witness a little better. Maybe saved me some time and that boy some life."
Bosch and Wish walked silently back to the car. Once inside Bosch said, "Who knew?"
"What do you mean?" she said.
"What he asked back there, who knew about Sharkey?" She thought for a moment. Then said, "On my end, Rourke gets the daily summary reports, and he got the memo on hypnosis. The summaries go to