The Wrong Side of Goodbye(6)

He was led to a room paneled in dark wood with dozens of framed 8 x 10 photographs hung in four rows across one wall. There were a couple of couches and a bar at the end of the room. The escort in the suit pointed Bosch to one of the couches.

“Sir, have a seat, and Mr. Vance’s secretary will come for you when he is ready to see you.”

Bosch took a seat on the couch facing the wall of photos.

“Would you like some water?” the suit asked.

“No, I’m fine,” Bosch said.

The suit took a position next to the door they had entered through and clasped one wrist with the other hand in a posture that said he was alert and ready for anything.

Bosch used the waiting time to study the photographs. They offered a record of Whitney Vance’s life and the people he had met over the course of it. The first photo depicted Howard Hughes and a young teenager he assumed was Vance. They were leaning against the unpainted metal skin of a plane. From there the photos appeared to run left to right in chronological order. They depicted Vance with numerous well-known figures of industry, politics, and the media. Bosch couldn’t put a name to every person Vance posed with but from Lyndon Johnson to Larry King he knew who most of them were. In all the photos, Vance displayed the same half smile, the corner of his mouth on the left side curled up, as if to communicate to the camera lens that it wasn’t his idea to pose for a picture. The face grew older photo to photo, the eyelids more hooded, but the smile was always the same.

There were two photos of Vance with Larry King, the longtime interviewer of celebrities and newsmakers on CNN. In the first, Vance and King were seated across from each other in the studio recognizable as King’s set for more than two decades. There was a book standing upright on the desk between them. In the second photo Vance was using a gold pen to autograph the book for King. Bosch got up and went to the wall to look more closely at the photos. He put on his glasses and leaned in close to the first photo so he could read the title of the book Vance was promoting on the show.

STEALTH: The Making of the Disappearing Plane By Whitney P. Vance

The title jogged loose a memory and Bosch recalled something about Whitney Vance writing a family history that the critics trashed more for what was left out than for what it contained. His father, Nelson Vance, had been a ruthless businessman and controversial political figure in his day. He was said but never proven to be a member of a cabal of wealthy industrialists who were supporters of eugenics—the so-called science of improving the human race through controlled breeding that would eliminate undesirable attributes. After the Nazis employed a similar perverted doctrine to carry out genocide in World War II, people like Nelson Vance hid their beliefs and affiliations.

His son’s book amounted to little more than a vanity project full of hero worship, with little mention of the negatives. Whitney Vance had become such a recluse in his later life that the book became a reason to bring him out into public light and ask him about the things omitted.

“Mr. Bosch?”

Bosch turned from the photos to a woman standing by the entrance to a hallway on the other side of the room. She looked to be almost seventy years old and had her gray hair in a no-nonsense bun on top of her head.

“I’m Mr. Vance’s secretary, Ida,” she said. “He will see you now.”

Bosch followed her into the hallway. They walked for a distance that seemed like a city block before going up a short set of stairs to another hallway, this one traversing a wing of the mansion built on a higher slope of the hill.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Ida said.

“It’s okay,” Bosch said. “I enjoyed checking out the photos.”

“A lot of history there.”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Vance is looking forward to seeing you.”

“Great. I’ve never met a billionaire before.”

His graceless remark ended the conversation. It was as though his mention of money was entirely crass and uncouth in a mansion built as a monument to money.

Finally they arrived at a set of double doors and Ida ushered Bosch into Whitney Vance’s home office.

The man Bosch had come to see was sitting behind a desk, his back to an empty fireplace big enough to take shelter in during a tornado. With a thin hand so white it looked like he was wearing a Latex glove, he motioned for Bosch to come forward.

Bosch stepped up to the desk, and Vance pointed to the lone leather chair in front of it. He made no offer to shake Bosch’s hand. As he sat, Bosch noticed that Vance was in a wheelchair with electric controls extending from the left armrest. He saw the desk was clear of work product except for a single white piece of paper that was either blank or had its contents facedown on the polished dark wood.

“Mr. Vance,” Bosch said. “How are you?”

“I’m old—that’s how I am,” Vance said. “I have fought like hell to defeat time but some things can’t be beat. It is hard for a man in my position to accept, but I am resigned, Mr. Bosch.”

He gestured with that bony white hand again, taking in all of the room with a sweep.

“All of this will soon be meaningless,” he said.

Bosch glanced around in case there was something Vance wanted him to see. There was a sitting area to the right with a long white couch and matching chairs. There was an office bar that a host could slip behind if necessary. There were paintings on two walls that were merely splashes of color.