The concrete blonde - By Michael Connelly Page 0,37

of the two other adult film actresses who were killed by the Dollmaker. But this was the first time this uneasiness had hit him.

On the video, the actress took the finger out of her mouth and began to moan loudly, living up to her billing. Bosch fumbled with the sound knob and turned it down. But he could still hear her, her moans turned into shouts, from videos in other booths. Other men were watching the same show. It made Bosch feel creepy knowing the video had drawn the interest of different men for different reasons.

The curtain behind him rustled and he heard someone move behind him into the booth. At the same moment he felt a hand move up his thigh to his crotch. He reached into his jacket for his gun as he turned but then saw it was the coin changer.

“What can I do for you, darling?” she cooed.

He pushed her arm away from him.

“You can start by getting out of here.”

“C'mon, lover, why look at it on TV when you can be doing it? Twenty bucks. I can't go lower. I have to split it with the management.”

She was pressed against him now and Bosch couldn't tell if it was his breath or hers that was lousy with cigarettes. Her breasts were hard and she was pushing them against his chest. Then suddenly she froze. She had felt the gun. Their eyes held each other for a moment.

“That's right,” Bosch said. “If you don't want to go for a ride to the cage, get out of here.”

“No problem, Officer,” she said.

She parted the curtain and was gone. Just then the screen went back to the directory. Bosch's two dollars were up.

As he walked out, he heard Magna Cum Loudly yelling in false joy from the other booths.

8

On the ride on the freeway to the next valley, he tried to imagine that life. He wondered what hope she might still have had and still nurtured and protected like a candle in the rain, even as she lay there on her back with distant eyes turned toward the stranger inside her. Hope must have been the only thing she had left. Bosch knew that hope was the lifeblood of the heart. Without it there was nothing, only darkness.

He wondered how the two lives—killer's and victim's—had crossed. Maybe the seed of lust and murderous desire had been planted by the same loop Bosch had just seen. Maybe the killer had rented the video Bosch had just paid fifty dollars for. Could it have been Church? Or was there another out there? The box, Bosch thought, and pulled off at the next exit, Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima.

He pulled to the curb and took the video box out of the brown paper bag the small guy had provided. He turned the light on in the car and studied every surface of the box, reading every word. But there was no copyright date that would have told him when the tape was made, whether it had been made before or after Church's death.

He got back on the Golden State, which took him north into the Santa Clarita Valley. After exiting on Bouquet Canyon Road he wound his way through a series of residential streets, past a seemingly endless line of California custom homes. On Del Prado, he pulled to the curb in front of the house with the Ritenbaugh Realty sign out front.

Sylvia had been trying to sell the house for more than a year, without luck. When he thought about it, Bosch was relieved. It kept him from facing a decision about what he and Sylvia would do next.

Sylvia opened the door before he reached it.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What do you have?”

“Oh, it's something from work. I've gotta make a couple calls in a while. Did you eat?”

He bent down and kissed her and moved inside. She had on the gray T-shirt dress she liked to wear around the house after work. Her hair was loose and down to her shoulders, the blonde highlights catching the light from the living room.

“Had a salad. You?”

“Not yet. I'll fix a sandwich or something. I'm sorry about this. With the trial and now this new case, it's … well, you know.”

“It's okay. I just miss you. I'm sorry about how I acted on the phone.”

She kissed him and held him. He felt at home with her. That was the best thing. That feeling. He had never had it before and he would forget it at times