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“That’s him,” Bosch said. “You knew him?”
“Nah, man, I was with the whites. I just knew he was a badass. Up there they called him Killin’ Guillen.”
“I heard that.”
“You know, you sound more and more like a cop. And you never said what you’re doing here, man.”
“I was a cop. A long time ago. I came in here looking for something.”
“For what?”
“The pillow they used to leave in there for whoever they threw in.”
“That’s fucked up. What were you going to do with that old thing?”
“Show it to a guy. Did you know a Poe named Bishop back in the day?”
“Bishop? I don’t know, man, I didn’t know their names. Why were you going to give the guy a pillow?”
“It’s a long story. You mind if I take a look in there? I’m not going to touch you or take anything. I just want to look.”
“Just keep the fucking light out of my eyes.”
“Not a problem.”
Bosch crawled all the way to the door, careful not to shine the flashlight directly into the opening.
“Okay, coming in,” he said.
Pointing the light down on the tiles to illuminate his path through the dust and debris, Bosch crawled through the square door and into the hollow. He then sat with his knees up, the back of his head against the underside of one of the steps.
The space smelled of sweat and rotting food. Claustrophobic desperation. He kept the light down but it bounced off the tile and illuminated the room. Walker was a white man with blurred prison tattoos on his neck. He had thinning, greasy hair and a hard stare from deep-set eyes that held a sharp focus on Bosch. He looked like he was at least fifty, which meant he probably wasn’t forty. He sat with his arms folded and propped on his knees.
“You’re old,” he said.
“Yeah, I am,” Bosch said.
“So what’s this all about? Why are you here?”
“I’m looking for answers. A friend of mine died when I was here. Nobody ever did anything about it. I’m trying to.”
“Oh, fuck, that must’ve been a hundred years ago.”
“Take it easy. I’m not that old.”
“Well, there are no answers here, man.”
Bosch slowly tilted the flashlight a few degrees up to get more illumination and Walker didn’t protest. Bosch looked up to the wooden rafters that supported the stair landing above them. He saw the initials and the curses written or carved into the wood. His own initials were up there somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where. Charlie’s initials were probably up there too.
“When did you go to Soledad, Walker?” he asked.
“In ’06,” Walker said. “I killed a guy with a car I stole. Ran him over. It was an accident but they gave me eighteen years for it. They actually gave me twenty-five but I got out. Eighteen years for a fucking accident.”
Bosch decided not to mention the nuances of the law that made an accident a crime.
“You going to tell me whether Walker is your first or last name?”
“Bobby Walker. Happy now?”
