The Radicals by Ryan McIlvain

Author:Ryan McIlvain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2018-02-13T05:00:00+00:00

We followed Bosch’s town car at a length of three or four cars, sometimes more, never less. Sam knew the route well. Up Water Street and onto the FDR with the infinitesimal low river like a diamond slick running off to our right, the Brooklyn Bridge’s giant legs in the rearview and the Manhattan Bridge’s looming up ahead quick and gray. Then the long flat climb to the top of the island, the Art Deco monuments on the Brooklyn side, the low row houses of Queens, ferries on the water, the black whirring freeway rails. At the entrance to 278 Sam split off and let the town car continue on its way. We doubled back into Queens and started for the House.

“You’re assuming he doesn’t have pressing business in Yonkers,” I said. “Or maybe White Plains?”

Sam didn’t acknowledge the joke. “Anyway, you know the rest,” he said.

“He never stops off in midtown for any business?”

“Not that I’ve seen. He’s persona non grata at Soline headquarters—they’ve had to purge him, or appear to have purged him. No, it’s just Wall Street to home now, Wall Street to home…He was in there a lot longer than usual today. I don’t know what that means—if anything.”

“Do you know how much Bosch pays on his house in property taxes alone?” I said.

“Half a million.”

“Oh, come on! You guessed too high! You’re supposed to guess something semi-reasonable—remember, we’re just talking about property taxes.”

“Fifteen dollars.”

“Three hundred grand, wise ass. On property taxes alone.”

“You got that from the Architectural Digest piece?”

“The real estate website—there are all sorts of stats on there, more photos too. Rooms the size of ballrooms. I think there might actually be a ballroom in there. They’ve got a perfect blue lake that backs up to their land and a little stream that runs through it with a little bridge over it like something out of a fucking Jane Austen novel. Who knows how blue the lake actually is—these photos are like soft-core porn with all the lighting and the touch-ups. The colors are like the Platonic ideals of colors, the Platonic ideal of a blue lake or a red Persian throw rug in front of a fireplace the size of a Studebaker. Do you know how many bathrooms he’s got in that place?”

“Thirty,” Sam said.

“Fuck you.”

“Zero,” Sam said. “No bathrooms at all. Just a porta potty out front that they have to share with the construction workers.”

“Seven! Seven bathrooms! What the hell does an empty-nest couple need with seven bathrooms?”

“Seven’s a biblical number, as I’m sure you know. Maybe he’s a spiritual man.”

“I think we can assume Larry Bosch is a deeply spiritual man,” I said. “Anyway, now what?”

“Now we do it again.”

“You mean tomorrow?”

“Maybe.”

“What does ‘maybe’ mean?”

“It means maybe.”

“Well, what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking he’s trying to move his money, do something to shelter it, protect it. Three hundred grand is a lot to pay for property taxes, but in the scheme of things, in the scheme of Westchester County and all that criminal wealth, a ten-million-dollar house is middle-of-the-road.

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