More tow truck humor, Bosch guessed. Mackey handed him a clipboard with an information page and a pen attached.
“Fill that out,” he said. “Then we’re set.”
“Okay.”
Bosch started to fill the form in with the false name and address he had come up with earlier. Mackey pulled a microphone off the dashboard and spoke into it.
“Hey, Kenny?”
A few moments later there was a response.
“Go ahead.”
“Tell Spider not to leave yet,” Mackey said. “I’m bringing in a tire that needs a valve.”
“He’s not going to like that. He’s already washed up.”
“Just tell him. Out.”
Mackey returned the microphone to its dash holder.
“Think he’ll stay?” Bosch asked.
“You better hope so. Or you’re going to be waiting till tomorrow for your tire to get done.”
“I can’t do that. I have to get back on the road.”
“Yeah? Where to?”
“ Barstow.”
Mackey started the tow truck and turned his body to the left so he could look out the side window and make sure it was okay to pull off the shoulder onto the road. He could not see Bosch from this position. Bosch quickly hiked the left sleeve on his T-shirt up so that more than half of the skull tattoo was visible.
The tow truck pulled into the street and they started off. Bosch glanced out his window and saw the cars belonging to both Rider and the other surveillance team in the parking lot of the golf course. Bosch put his elbow on the sill of the open window and his hand on the top frame. Out of Mackey’s view, he was able to give the thumbs-up sign to the watchers.
“What’s out in Barstow?” Mackey asked.
“Home, that’s all. I want to get home tonight.”
“What have you been doing down here?”
“This and that.”
“What about South-Central? What were you doing down there with those people last week?”
Bosch understood the reference to those people as meaning the predominant minority population of South L.A. He turned and looked pointedly at Mackey, as if telling him he was asking too many questions.
“This and that,” he said evenly.
“That’s cool,” Mackey responded, taking his hands off the wheel in a backing off gesture.
“Tell you what, though, it doesn’t matter what I was doing, you can just fucking keep this city, man.”
Mackey smiled.
“I know what you mean,” he said.
Bosch thought they were close to sharing more than small talk. He believed Mackey had gotten a glimpse of the tattoos and was trying to draw from Bosch a signal as to what kind of person he was. He thought the moment was right for another subtle move toward the newspaper article.
Bosch put the newspaper down on the seat between them, making sure the photo of Rebecca Verloren was still noticeable. He then started putting his shirt back on. He leaned forward and extended his arms to do it. He didn’t look at Mackey but knew the skull on his left arm would be very noticeable as he did this. He put his right arm into the shirt first and then brought the shirt behind his back and put his left arm into its sleeve. He leaned back and started buttoning the shirt.
“Just a little too third world around here for me,” Bosch said.
“I’m with you on that.”
“Yeah? Is this where you’re from?”
“My whole life.”
“Well, pal, you ought to take your family-if you have a family-and the flag with you and leave. Just fucking leave this place.”
Mackey laughed and nodded.
“I got a friend says the same thing. All the time.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not an original idea.”
“Got that right.”
Then the radio interrupted the momentum of the conversation.
“Hey, Ro?”
Mackey grabbed the mike.
“Yeah, Ken?”
“I’m gonna run over to KFC while Spider’s waiting on you. You want something?”
“Nah, I’ll go out later. Out.”
He hung the mike up. They drove in silence for a few moments while Bosch tried to think of a way to naturally get the conversation going again and in the right direction. Mackey had driven down to Burbank Boulevard and gone right. They were coming up on Tampa. He would turn right again and then it would be a straight shot to the station. In less than ten minutes the ride would be over.
But it was Mackey who got it going again.
“So where’d you do your time?” he suddenly asked.
Bosch waited a moment so that his excitement wouldn’t show.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I saw your markings, man. It’s no big deal. But they’re either homemade or prison-made. That’s obvious.”