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“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 andkeeping 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.
