Bosch sat in the parking lot at Garrison Bight and watched the floating houses in darkness. The full moon above cast a line of undulating yellow reflection on the water, like a pathway to the house with the smiley-face pirate on the roof. He watched the lights inside the houses go out one by one. The house where Davy Byrne lived was the last to go dark.
Bosch watched and waited for another hour, the bourbon from hours earlier still backing up like fire in his throat. He contemplated his plan and the risks involved, knowing that one way or another, there would be justice before dawn for Stephen Gallagher, his wife, and his young son and daughter.
Finally, at 3 a.m., he got out of his car and walked toward the gangway leading down to the floating homes. He was wearing clothes as dark as the sky. His hands were gloved and he carried a screwdriver he had bought at the CVS across Front Street from the Pier House.
The gangway was slick with moisture caused by the night’s dropping temperature. He gripped the handrail and moved down it slowly and carefully, mindful that any misstep would set off a flare of pain in his knee. He was managing it at the moment with a fresh dose of painkillers.
Once he was on the concrete pier, he expected to be exposed by motion-sensitive lights on the houses, but no light flashed on. He suspected that the gentle movement of the floating homes would be a constant trigger and that had led to the banishment of such basic security measures.
When he got to the second house from the end, he crossed the gangway onto the foredeck without hesitation. He stopped there and waited and listened, attempting to determine if his arrival had been noticed.
Nothing happened, and he moved to the side deck that led to the rear of the house. He had brought the screwdriver so he could pop the sliding door on the rear deck and gain entrance, but when he got to the back, he saw that the slider had been left open a foot and that a screen door was the only thing between him and entrance to the house.
The screen door was locked, but he used the screwdriver to easily poke a hole through the screening. Then his fingers tore it wide enough to fit his hand through. He reached in, unlocked the door, and then carefully and quietly slid it open.
He slipped into the home. Stepping out of moonlight, he found complete darkness inside. He waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust. He saw a large flat-screen TV attached to a wall and a couch set against the wall opposite, a low table in front of it. Beyond the room where he stood was a dining room and a pass-through window to a kitchen. The glow from a digital clock on a microwave told him it was now 3:10.
On the right he saw the form of a set of stairs leading to the second level. He took a step toward the stairs but stopped when he heard a voice from behind.
“Don’t fucking move.”
Bosch froze. A light came on behind him. He raised his hands to shoulder height and slowly turned. He dropped the screwdriver down his sleeve as he did so.
A man sat on a stuffed chair in the corner next to the sliding door. Bosch had entered and walked right by him in the dark. The man was holding a gun pointed at Bosch’s chest.
It was Finbar McShane. Bosch easily recognized him from the photos on the BOLO sheet in his back pocket. He had a full beard now that had gone to gray and a shaved scalp that was darkly tanned from days on the open water on the Calamity Jane. He had obviously been waiting in the dark for Bosch.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter who I am,” Bosch said. “Who told you I was coming?”
Bosch hoped it hadn’t been Tommy, the bartender at the Chart Room.
“Nobody had to tell me,” McShane said. “I saw you out there today, trying to look like a tourist in your cop clothes. I know tourists and I know cops.”
“I’m not a cop. Not anymore.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means this is over. There are others and they know I’m here. They’ll follow. You’re done…McShane.”
The use of his real name put a momentary alarm in his eyes, but then it was quickly gone, replaced by the confidence of knowing he had the gun and the upper hand.
“Turn around. All the way around.”
Bosch was wearing black jeans and a maroon dress shirt. He hadn’t planned on working under cover of night when he had packed for the trip. He turned, keeping his hands up, showing he had no weapon. He came all the way around and they were looking at each other again.
“Let’s see your ankles,” McShane said.
Bosch nodded. McShane was playing it smart, not coming close to Bosch, in case he was hiding a weapon. Bosch reached down and pulled the legs of his pants up, careful to keep the screwdriver from falling out of his sleeve. He showed that he wore no ankle holster.
“No weapon,” McShane said. “You came to kill me and you didn’t bring a weapon?”
“I didn’t come to kill you,” Bosch said.
“Then what? Why are you here?”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Say what, motherfucker? Stop talking in riddles.”
“That you killed the Gallagher family.”
“Jesus Christ…you’re from L.A. Well, you came a long way for nothing, old man. To end up at the end of an anchor chain in forty feet of water.”
“Is that what happened to Henry Jordan and his wife? You wrapped them in chains, put them in the water? How about Dan Cassidy? Is he down there, too?”
Now Bosch saw a momentary look of surprise on McShane’s face.
“Like I said, there are people who know all about you,” Bosch said. “And they’re coming right behind me. This time you don’t get away.”
“Really? You think?”
“I know. So you have a choice. Tell me about the Gallaghers and we go back to L.A. Or you make your move here and try to run.”
McShane laughed.
“Boy, I guess that’s what you call a no-brainer,” he said.
“I doubt you’ll get much further than Marathon,” Bosch said.
“Yeah? Well, you got some balls, old man, I’ll give you that. But I also got news for you, I’m not going back. And what makes you think I’d even try to drive out of here?”
“Because before I came here, I visited your boat. Calamity Jane? It’s not going anywhere with water in its fuel tanks.”
“You’d better be bluffing, you fuck.”
“I guess you could take a plane, but that’s so easily tracked. The Overseas Highway is your only real choice and that’s a long drive. They’ll pick you up before you get to the mainland.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”
Bosch didn’t answer. He just stared at the gun, ready for it, ready for the end. McShane stood up, keeping it aimed at his heart.
“So you’re wearing a wire, then? Sent in here to get me to confess? Open your fuckin’ shirt.”
Bosch lowered his right hand and started unbuttoning his shirt.
“No, no wire,” he said, opening his shirt. “Just you and me. I want to hear you say it. Then do what you have to do.”
McShane took a step closer.
“I’ll give you what you want, old man. I’ll tell you. But they will be the last words you ever hear.”
“Were they asleep?”
“What?”
“Emma and Stephen Junior. The kids. Were they asleep when you killed them? Or did they know what was coming?”
“Would that make it better for you? If they were asleep, if they didn’t know.”
“Were they?”
“No, they were on their knees. And they knew what was coming. Just like their parents. What do you think of that?”
McShane’s eyes were bright with the memory, and in his dark pupils Bosch saw an emptiness that was void of all humanity. A deep rage welled up in him as he flashed on photos he had once carried of Emma and Stephen Jr. A primal scream for justice came from the darkest folds of his heart.
McShane seemed to sense what was coming and lurched toward Bosch, raising the barrel of the gun toward his face.
“Turn around. Get up against the fucking wall.”
Bosch was ready for it. He dropped his hands and dipped his shoulders to the right as if about to turn as instructed. But then he took a half step back to his left, dropping the screwdriver out of his sleeve and into his hand.
As McShane came in close, Bosch shot his right hand out to grab the gun and deflect its aim upward. At the same moment, he brought his left arm up and drove the screwdriver into McShane’s ribs.
McShane’s body tensed with the impact and he groaned. Still holding him close, Bosch pulled the screwdriver back and then savagely drove it in a second time, this thrust delivered at a new and upward angle. He threw his full weight into McShane and rode him four feet back and crashing into the wall.
He pinned him there, holding the hand with the gun up and keeping pressure on the screwdriver. He felt McShane’s sticky and warm blood on the hand that gripped the tool.
Leaning into McShane, Bosch was close enough now to feel his last, desperate breaths on his face. He had not killed a man so close since the tunnels of fifty years before. He held McShane’s eyes as he felt the tension and strength in his body weaken and start to ebb away with his life.
McShane’s grip on the gun weakened and finally released. The weapon bounced off Bosch’s shoulder and clattered to the floor. Then McShane started to slide down the wall, his eyes holding a surprised look in them.
Bosch let him go and he dropped into a sitting position, propped against the wall, still pierced by the screwdriver. His blood soon flowed down his body and to the floor.
Bosch kicked the gun across the floor, stepped back, and watched McShane bleed out, his eyes losing their focus and finally staring blankly at nothing at all.