neighborhood, a shortcut on his way to the Medical Examiner’s Office for work or to a Dodgers game for fun.
From downtown he took a quick jog on the 101 Freeway north to Echo Park Road and then took that north again toward the hillside neighborhood where Raynard Waits had been arrested. As he passed Echo Lake he saw the statue known as the Lady of the Lake watching over the water lilies, her hands palms up like the victim of a holdup. As a boy he had lived for almost a year with his mother in the Sir Palmer Apartments across from the lake, but it had been a bad time for her and him and the memory was all but erased. He vaguely remembered that statue but almost nothing else.
At Sunset he turned right and took it down to Beaudry. From there he drove up the hillside to Figueroa Terrace. He pulled to the curb near the intersection where Waits had been pulled over. A few old bungalow homes built in the thirties and forties were still there, but for the most part the houses were postwar concrete-block construction. They were modest with gated yards and barred windows. The cars in the driveways were not new or flashy. It was a working-class neighborhood that Bosch knew would be largely Latino and Asian now. From the back of the homes on the west side there would be nice views of the downtown towers with the DWP Building front and center. The homes on the east side would have backyards that stretched up into the rugged terrain of the hills. And at the top of those hills would be the far parking lots of the baseball stadium complex.
He thought about Waits’s window-washing van and wondered again why he had been on this street in this neighborhood. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where he would have customers. It wasn’t the kind of street where a commercial van would be expected at two in the morning, anyway. The two CRT officers had been correct in taking notice.
Bosch pulled over and put the car in park. He stepped out and looked around and then leaned against the car as he contemplated the questions. He still didn’t get it. Why had Waits chosen this place? After a few moments he opened his cell phone and called his partner.
“You run that AutoTrack yet?” he asked.
“Just did. Where are you?”
“Echo Park. Anything come up near here?”
“Uh-uh, I was just looking. The farthest east it puts him is the Montecito Apartments on Franklin.”
Bosch knew that the Montecito wasn’t near Echo Park but it was not far from the High Tower Apartments, where Marie Gesto’s car had been found.
“When was he at the Montecito?” he asked.
“After Gesto. He moved in, let’s see, in ’ninety-nine, and out the next year. A one-year stay.”
“Anything else worth mentioning?”
“No, Harry. Just the usual. The guy moved house every one or two years. Didn’t like staying put, I guess.”
“Okay, Kiz. Thanks.”
“You coming back to the office?”
“In a little while.”
He closed the phone and got back in the car. He took Figueroa Lane to Chavez Ravine Place and hit another stop sign. At one time the whole area up here was known only as Chavez Ravine. But that was before the city moved all the people out and bulldozed the bungalows and shacks they had called home. A grand housing project was supposed to rise in the ravine, with playgrounds and schools and shopping plazas that would invite back those who had been displaced. But once they cleared it all out the housing project was scratched from the city’s plans and it was a baseball stadium that went in instead. To Bosch it seemed that as far back as he could remember in L.A., the fix was always in.
Bosch had been listening lately to the Ry Cooder CD called Chávez Ravine. It wasn’t jazz but that was okay. It was its own kind of jazz. He liked the song “It’s Just Work for Me,” a dirge about a bulldozer driver who came to the ravine to knock down the poor people’s shacks and refused to feel guilty about it.
You got to go where they send
From downtown he took a quick jog on the 101 Freeway north to Echo Park Road and then took that north again toward the hillside neighborhood where Raynard Waits had been arrested. As he passed Echo Lake he saw the statue known as the Lady of the Lake watching over the water lilies, her hands palms up like the victim of a holdup. As a boy he had lived for almost a year with his mother in the Sir Palmer Apartments across from the lake, but it had been a bad time for her and him and the memory was all but erased. He vaguely remembered that statue but almost nothing else.
At Sunset he turned right and took it down to Beaudry. From there he drove up the hillside to Figueroa Terrace. He pulled to the curb near the intersection where Waits had been pulled over. A few old bungalow homes built in the thirties and forties were still there, but for the most part the houses were postwar concrete-block construction. They were modest with gated yards and barred windows. The cars in the driveways were not new or flashy. It was a working-class neighborhood that Bosch knew would be largely Latino and Asian now. From the back of the homes on the west side there would be nice views of the downtown towers with the DWP Building front and center. The homes on the east side would have backyards that stretched up into the rugged terrain of the hills. And at the top of those hills would be the far parking lots of the baseball stadium complex.
He thought about Waits’s window-washing van and wondered again why he had been on this street in this neighborhood. It wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where he would have customers. It wasn’t the kind of street where a commercial van would be expected at two in the morning, anyway. The two CRT officers had been correct in taking notice.
Bosch pulled over and put the car in park. He stepped out and looked around and then leaned against the car as he contemplated the questions. He still didn’t get it. Why had Waits chosen this place? After a few moments he opened his cell phone and called his partner.
“You run that AutoTrack yet?” he asked.
“Just did. Where are you?”
“Echo Park. Anything come up near here?”
“Uh-uh, I was just looking. The farthest east it puts him is the Montecito Apartments on Franklin.”
Bosch knew that the Montecito wasn’t near Echo Park but it was not far from the High Tower Apartments, where Marie Gesto’s car had been found.
“When was he at the Montecito?” he asked.
“After Gesto. He moved in, let’s see, in ’ninety-nine, and out the next year. A one-year stay.”
“Anything else worth mentioning?”
“No, Harry. Just the usual. The guy moved house every one or two years. Didn’t like staying put, I guess.”
“Okay, Kiz. Thanks.”
“You coming back to the office?”
“In a little while.”
He closed the phone and got back in the car. He took Figueroa Lane to Chavez Ravine Place and hit another stop sign. At one time the whole area up here was known only as Chavez Ravine. But that was before the city moved all the people out and bulldozed the bungalows and shacks they had called home. A grand housing project was supposed to rise in the ravine, with playgrounds and schools and shopping plazas that would invite back those who had been displaced. But once they cleared it all out the housing project was scratched from the city’s plans and it was a baseball stadium that went in instead. To Bosch it seemed that as far back as he could remember in L.A., the fix was always in.
Bosch had been listening lately to the Ry Cooder CD called Chávez Ravine. It wasn’t jazz but that was okay. It was its own kind of jazz. He liked the song “It’s Just Work for Me,” a dirge about a bulldozer driver who came to the ravine to knock down the poor people’s shacks and refused to feel guilty about it.
You got to go where they send
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