There was also a faded color photo of Bosch
and his mother. It was the only photograph of her he had, so he had always
wanted to keep it safe rather than display it. He looked at it now for a few
moments, this time his eyes drawn to his own image at eight years old rather
than to his mother’s. He studied the hopefulness in the boy’s face and wondered
where it had gone.
He put the photo to the side and dug further
into the strongbox until he found what he was looking for.
It was an old sock stuffed with a
rubber-banded roll of money. Without pulling it out of the sock now or counting
it, Bosch shoved it into the side pocket of his jacket. The roll of money was
the earthquake fund, mostly large bills he had been accumulating slowly—a
twenty here and a fifty there—since the last big earthquake in 1994. In L.A., nobody
wanted to be stuck without cash when the big one hit. ATMs would be knocked
off-line and banks would be closed in a time of civic catastrophe. Cash would
be king and Bosch had been planning accordingly for over twenty years. By his
estimate, there was close to ten thousand dollars dollars in the sock.
He put the other items back into the box,
taking one last look at the mother-and-son photo. (ibid, pp. 383-384)
Bosch reached into the pocket of his jacket
and pulled out the sock containing the cash roll. He handed it to Cisco.
“Use this. It should get a month at that
place. Maybe longer if she needs it.”
Cisco reluctantly took it.
“This is cash? You just want to give it to
me?” (ibid, p. 388)
“Let me guess,” he said.
“Earthquake money?” “Yeah,” Bosch said. “I thought, what the hell, put it to
good use.” “Yeah, but you know you just jinxed the whole city. As soon as you
spend the earthquake money, the big one hits. Everybody knows that.” “Yeah,
well, we’ll just have to see. I’ll let you get back to it. Thanks, Cisco.”
(ibid, p. 389)
