The Last Coyote Read Free Page B

easily contain their own fears.
    “Chinatown was great,” Bosch said sarcastically. “You ought to try it some day. It’s got me sitting here counting cars on the freeway.”
    “Well, at least you won’t run out.”
    “Yeah. What’s going on with you?”
    “Pounds finally did it.”
    “Did what?”
    “Stuck me with somebody new.”
    Bosch was silent a moment. The news gave him a sense of finality. The thought that maybe he would never get his job back began to creep into his mind.
    “He did?”
    “Yeah, he finally did. I caught a case this morning. So he stuck one of his suckups with me. Burns.”
    “Burns? From autos? He’s never worked homicide. Has he ever even worked CAPs?”
    Detectives usually followed one of two paths in the department. One was property crimes and the other was crimes against persons. The latter included specializing in homicide, rape, assault and robbery. CAPs detectives had the higher-profile cases and usually viewed property crime investigators as paper pushers. There were so many property crimes in the city that the investigators spent most of their time taking reports and processing the occasional arrest. They actually did little detective work. There was no time to.
    “He’s been a paper guy all the way,” Edgar said. “But with Pounds that doesn’t matter. All he cares about is having somebody on the homicide table who isn’t going to give his shit back to him. And Burns is just the guy. He probably started lobbying for the job the minute the word went out about you.”
    “Well, fuck him. I’m gonna get back to the table and then he goes back to autos.”
    Edgar took his time before answering. It was as if Bosch had said something that made no sense to him.
    “You really think that, Harry? Pounds ain’t going to stand for you coming back. Not after what you did. I told him when he told me I was with Burns that, you know, no offense but I’d wait until Harry Bosch came back and he said if I wanted to handle it that way, then I’d be waitin’ until I was an old man.”
    “He said that? Well, fuck him, too. I still got a friend or two in the department.”
    “Irving still owes you, doesn’t he?”
    “I guess maybe I’ll find out.”
    He didn’t go further with it. He wanted to change the subject. Edgar was his partner but they had never gotten to the point where they completely confided in each other. Bosch played the mentor role in the relationship and he trusted Edgar with his life. But that was a bond that held fast on the street. Inside the department was another matter. Bosch had never trusted anyone, never relied on anyone. He wasn’t going to start now.
    “So, what’s the case?” he asked, to divert the conversation.
    “Oh, yeah, I wanted to tell you about it. This was weird, man. First the killing’s weird, then what happened after. The call out was to a house on Sierra Bonita. This is about five in the A.M. The citizen reports he heard a sound like a gunshot, only muffled-like. He grabs his deer rifle out of the closet and goes outside to take a look. This is a neighborhood that’s been picked clean lately by the hypes, you know? Four B and Es on his block alone this month. So, he was ready with the rifle. Anyway, he goes down his driveway with the gun—the garage is in the back—and he sees a pair of legs hanging out of the open door of his car. It was parked in front of the garage.”
    “He shoots him?”
    “No, that’s the crazy thing. He goes up with his gun but the guy in his car is already dead. Stabbed in the chest with a screwdriver.”
    Bosch didn’t get it. He didn’t have enough of the facts. But he said nothing.
    “The air bag killed him, Harry.”
    “What do you mean, the air bag killed him?”
    “The air bag. This goddamn hype was stealing the air bag out of the steering wheel and somehow the thing went off. It inflated instantly, like it was supposed to, and drove the screwdriver right into his heart, man. I’ve never seen