FaceOff Read Online Free PDF Page A

were needed, he said, “We generally don’t have basements in LA.”
    “You don’t have snow or a wind chill factor, either, so, you know, fuck you.” He tossed Bosch a bright, tight smile. “Any basement windows out back?”
    Another nod. “Black curtains over them.”
    “Well that’s bad,” Patrick said.
    “Why?”
    “No one puts curtains over their basement windows around here unless they got a home theater or they’re playing Dead Hooker Storage.” He looked around the apartment. “Edward does not strike me as the home theater type.”
    Bosch nodded, his pupils adrenalized to twice their size. “Let’s go back out, call it in legit.”
    “What if he’s down there with her right now?”
    That was the dilemma, wasn’t it?
    Bosch exhaled a long breath. Patrick did the same. Bosch held his hand over the doorknob and said, “On three?”
    Patrick nodded. He wiped his right palm on his jeans and readjusted a two-handed grip on his gun.
    “One. Two. Three.”
    Bosch opened the door.
    The first thing they noticed was the padding on the inside of the door—at least six inches of premium leather soundproofing. The kind one found only in recording studios. The next thing they noticed was the dark. The scant light to find the stairs came from the hall behind them. The rest of the cellar was pitch black. Patrick pointed at the light switch just past Bosch’s ear, raised his eyebrows.
    Bosch shrugged.
    Patrick shrugged.
    Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
    Bosch flicked on the lights.
    The staircase split the cellar like a spine, straight down the center, and they went down it fast. A black heating-oil tank stood at the bottom, quite old, rust fringing the bottom of it.
    Without a word, Bosch went left and Patrick went right.
    The element of surprise was no longer an option for them.
    Only for him.
    ·  ·  ·
    On the side of the cellar that Patrick chose—the front—the framing was old and mostly unfinished. The first “room” he came upon contained a washer, a dryer, and a sink with a cake of grimy brown soap stuck to the top of it. The next room had once been a workshop. A long wood table abutted the wall, an old vise still fastened to the table. Nothing else in there but dust and mice droppings. The last room along the wall was finished, however. The framing was filled in with drywall on one side and brick on the other, a door in the middle. Heavy door. And thick. The frame around it was solid, too. Try and kick in a door like that and you’d finish your day getting fitted for an ankle cast.
    Patrick removed his left hand from his .45 and rubbed it on his jeans. He flexed the fingers and reached for the doorknob, holding the .45 cocked awkwardly at about mid-chest level. It didn’t look pretty, he was sure, but if he had to pull the trigger, he had a fair chance of hitting center mass on anyone but a dwarf or a giant.
    The doorknob squeaked when it turned, proving something a cop had told him years ago—you always made the most noise when you were trying to be quiet. He threw open the door and dropped to his knees at the same time, gun pointing up a bit now, left hand coming back on the grip, sweeping the room from leftto right, sweeping back right to left even as he processed what he saw—
    Edward Paisley’s man cave.
    Patrick edged his way through the doorway onto an Arizona Cardinals rug, drew a bead on a BarcaLounger trimmed in Sun Devils colors. A Phoenix Suns pennant shared space with one from the Phoenix Coyotes and Patrick had to peer at the latter to realize the Coyotes played in the NHL.
    If he learned nothing else from this day, he now knew Arizona had a professional hockey team.
    He found baseball bats signed by Troy Glaus, Carlos Baerga, and Tony Womack. Baseballs signed by Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, framed photos of Larry Fitzgerald and Kurt Warner, Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson, Plexiglas-encased footballs, basketballs, and pucks, Patrick again thinking, They have a