Resurrection Walk

“Seems like all you ask are personal questions.”

“True. I guess that’s just me.”

“So, go ahead. Ask away.”

“Are you ill?”

The question caught Bosch off guard. His vanity had led him to believe she was going to ask whether he was married. It took a few moments for him to form a response.

“Mickey told you that?”

“Uh, no. I just could tell. Your aura. It feels weakened, you could say.”

“My aura... well, I was sick but I’m getting better.”

“Sick how?”

“Cancer. But like I said, it’s under control.”

“No, you said you were getting better. That could mean something different from ‘under control.’ I assume you are under care. What kind of cancer is it — or was it?”

“It’s called CML for short.”

“Chronic myeloid leukemia. That’s not a hereditary cancer. It comes from chromosomal changes. Any idea how — I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be asking you this.”

The freeway traffic became clogged and slowed down as they dropped back into Los Angeles at the top of the Valley.

“It’s okay,” Bosch said. “I worked a case where I got exposed to radioactive material. I didn’t know it until it was too late. Anyway, it could have been that, but it could have been a lot of things. I used to smoke. Diagnosing origin is not an exact science. I’m sure as a person of science, you know that.”

Arslanian nodded.

“You said both that the cancer is under control and that you’re getting better,” she said. “Which is it?”

“You’d have to ask my doctor,” Bosch said. “Mickey got me into a clinical trial. That’s why I’ve been working for him — health insurance and the access he has to the upper levels of medical care. Anyway, the doctor in charge of the trial said the treatment they’d tested on me worked. To an extent. It was not full remission but close. They want to do it again and hopefully knock the rest of it out.”

“I hope so too. Where did you go for this trial?”

“UCLA Med.”

Arslanian nodded her approval.

“That’s a good facility,” she said. “Would you allow me to take a DNA sample from you?”

“Why?” Bosch asked.

“It could give us further insight into what’s going on with you biologically. Did they run genetic tests on you at UCLA?”

“Not that I know of. I don’t ask them about everything they’re doing. It’s kind of above my pay grade. But they sure took a lot of blood.”

“Of course. But you might ask them. It could be part of the clinical trial. If not, I’d like to do it.”

“Why? Is this something Mickey wants from me?”

“You are such a detective, Harry Bosch. No, Mickey knows nothing about this. But I would also go to him for a DNA sample. Since you’re half brothers, you have very similar genomes. A comparison might be beneficial to you both. Have you heard of precision medicine?”

“Uh... no, not really.”

“It’s got a lot to do with genetic makeup and targeting care and treatment. Do you have children?”

“A daughter.”

“Same as Mickey. This could be beneficial to them as well.”

Bosch had always been suspicious of science and technology. Not that he didn’t believe that the advances made were good for the world, but he had a detective’s suspicion about early adopters and didn’t buy into the cult-like belief that all scientific discoveries were beneficial. He knew this put him on the outside looking in, an analog man in a digital world, but his instincts had always served him well. For every great technological advancement, there were always people out there looking to misuse it.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thanks for the offer.”

“Anytime,” Arslanian said.

They rode in silence most of the way downtown. It became awkward and Bosch tried to come up with something to say.

“So,” he finally managed. “What have you been doing with the computer there?”

“Just plugging the data into the re-creation program,” Arslanian said. “It will do the work and then in court it will be my job to show and tell. Like it is for you, this is new stuff for juries.”

“We’ll just have a judge making the call on a habeas. No jury.”

“Same thing. Judges need to be schooled too.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a good teacher.”

“Thanks. I’m in the process of patenting the program.”

“I’m sure prosecutors and defense attorneys all over the country will be jumping on this.”

“That’s why I need to protect it. Not to keep them from using it but to protect the investment of time, money, and research my partner at MIT and I put into it.”

Bosch pulled into the entrance tunnel of the Conrad hotel and lowered his window to tell the valet who rushed up that he was just dropping off his passenger.

“Thank you, Harry,” Arslanian said. “I enjoyed our conversation and I hope you think about precision medicine.”

Her door was opened by the helpful valet and she got out.

“I guess I’ll see you in court,” Bosch said.

“I’ll be there,” Arslanian said.

The valet unloaded Arslanian’s equipment from the back seat and Bosch pulled out into traffic. He wished he had said more to her, maybe asked if she wanted to get dinner. He felt embarrassed. As old as he was, he still hesitated to pull the trigger on matters of the heart.

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