Dark Sacred Night (Harry Bosch Universe #31)(70)

Ballard knew it was all supposition. Extrapolation upon extrapolation. But something about the scenario held her. She needed to run with those three shake cards and knew just where to start.

She looked up at the wall clock and saw that the shift had gone by quickly. It was already five a.m. and she realized that Bosch had not shown up, as he had said he would. She thought about calling him but didn’t want to wake him if he had instead decided to get a full night’s sleep.

Ballard looked at the three shake cards spread on the desk in front of her. She wanted to dive right in on them but she had an allegiance to Bosch and how he said the review of the cards should go. She moved to the final box and started looking through more cards.

Two hours later she had finished going through the last box. She had pulled no cards. Bosch still had not shown up. She checked her phone to see if she had somehow missed a call or text from him but there was nothing. She wrote him a text instead.

I’m heading to USC in 30—you coming?



She sent it and waited. There was no immediate reply.

Ballard went back to work and used the next half hour before leaving to run the three names from the van through the computer in an attempt to get current addresses and legal status. She determined that, over the four years that followed the van incident, Tanya Vickers was arrested nine times for prostitution and drug offenses before she died of a heroin overdose at age thirty-five.

The porno actor, Kurt Pascal, had no record and was still listed in Department of Motor Vehicle Records as living on Kester in Sherman Oaks, but the record was old. The driver’s license had expired two years ago without being renewed.

The cameraman, Wilson Gayley, was also unaccounted for. In 2012 he was sentenced to prison after being convicted of intentionally infecting a person with a sexually transmitted disease. He spent three years in prison and completed a year on parole. He then dropped off the grid. Ballard could find no record of him having a driver’s license in any state.

Ballard had her work cut out for her, but it was now eight a.m. and she was supposed to meet Professor Calder at USC in thirty minutes to pick up the GRASP data. She couldn’t miss the window of time he had given her, because he had a three-hour computer lab starting at nine.

She put the four boxes of FI cards on top of the file cabinets that ran the length of the bureau, grabbed a rover from the charging station, and headed out the back door.

It was after eight by the time she pulled out of the parking lot, and Ballard felt no concern about calling and waking Bosch. But her call went straight to his voice mail.

“Bosch, it’s Ballard. What happened to you? I thought we were doing this together. I’m on my way to USC. Call me. I found some shake cards I really like.”

She disconnected, half expecting Bosch to call her back right away.

He didn’t.

Ballard looked up a number in her phone and called it. Beatrice Beaupre was a director of adult films as well as a previous performer. All told, she had almost twenty years in the business. Ballard knew her because the year before she had rescued Beaupre from a man with plans to kill her. In that regard Beaupre owed Ballard, and she was calling now to collect.

Ballard knew that at this hour Beaupre was either wrapping up a night’s work at her studio out in Canoga Park or she was asleep and dead to the world.

The call was answered after one ring.

“What?”

“Beatrice, it’s Renée Ballard.”

Beaupre was known by several different names in the porno field. Few people called her by or even knew her given name.

“Ballard, what are you doing? I was about to crash. Been working all night.”

“Then I’m glad I got you beforehand. I need your expertise.”

“My expertise. What, you want to try bondage or something?”

“Not quite. I want to run a few names by you, see if anything clicks.”

“Okay.”

“First one is Kurt Pascal. He’s supposedly a porn actor. Was, at least, nine years ago.”

“Nine years ago. Shit, the industry’s turned over twice in that time. People come and go—no pun intended.”

“So you don’t know him.”

“Well, I know these guys by their stage names and that ain’t no stage name. Let me get to my computer. See if he’s in the database under his real name.”

“What database is that?”

“Adult casting. Hold on.”

Ballard heard typing and then:

“Pascal? P-A-S-C-A-L?”

“That’s what I have, yeah.”

“Okay, yeah, he’s here. I don’t recognize the photo, so I would say I never worked with him. What did he do?”

“Nothing. Does it say where he lives?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s got his management listing and then age and body details. He’s a ten hard, which explains why he got into the business and apparently stayed. He’s thirty-five and that’s kinda old for the game.”

Ballard thought for a moment about what would be the best way to connect with Pascal. For the time being she moved on.

“What about a guy named Wilson Gayley?” she asked. “He might be a cameraman.”

“Is that a performing name?” Beaupre asked. “I don’t make gay porn, so I wouldn’t know him.”