Bosch looked at the instrument in the old man’s gray hands. He remembered the day on the Sanctuary as clearly as he remembered any other moment of his life.

“You played ‘The Sweet Spot’ and then ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ ”

“I played the ‘Tennessee Waltz,’ too. By request of a young man in the front row. He’d lost both his legs and he asked me to play that waltz.”

Bosch nodded solemnly.

“Bob Hope told us his jokes and Connie Stevens sang ‘Promises, Promises.’ A cappella. In less than an hour it was all over and the chopper took off. Man, I can’t explain it but it meant something. It made something right in a messed-up world, you know? I was only nineteen years old and I wasn’t sure how or why I was even over there.

“Anyway, I’ve listened to a lot of saxophone since then but I haven’t heard it any better.”

Bosch nodded and stood up. His knee creaked loudly. He guessed it wouldn’t be too long before he was in one of these places. If he was lucky.

“I just wanted to tell you that,” he said. “That’s all.”

“You were in the tunnels over there, huh? I heard about them.”

Bosch nodded.

“Coulda used you going about this bin Laden character.”

He pointed up to the TV, as if that were where the terrorist was.

Bosch shook his head.

“Nah, it’s a different game. Back then they gave you a flashlight and a forty-five, said good luck and dropped you in a hole. Now it’s sound and motion detectors, heat sensors, infrared… it’s a different game.”

“Maybe. But a hunter is still a hunter.”

Bosch look lu"›Bosched at him for a moment before speaking.

“Take it easy, Sugar Ray.”

He headed toward the door and one more time Sugar Ray stopped him.

“Hey, Santa Claus.”

Bosch turned back.

“You strike me as a man who is alone in the world,” Sugar Ray said. “That true?”