George Mason sat on the leather chair, laptop on his knees, and watched Sebastian Bosch, silhouetted in front of the television screen in the dark condominium. He sat on an ottoman, naked save for a pair of black boxer briefs, and gazed at the chaos that flashed in front of him - explosions, dust, crumbling storefronts, shattered glass, and news reporters stumbling through debris – video files assembled together as if by a mad editor.
Bosch, at the age of forty-seven, had been a science fiction author for twelve years, whose popular space operas were of the kind found in the backpacks of teenage boys or on the shelves of Hollywood executives. He had been a lecturer at McGill University and Oxford in the field of Astrophysics, his oratory skills and handsome visage allowing him to capture the attention of television executives. They approached him to host a popular program, "Our Galaxy, Our Home," which he subsequently re-christened "The Universe with Seb." The combination of a large audience and a streak of creativity resulted in the publication of his previously unpublished short fiction in Analog Magazine. Subsequently, major publishers sought out his short stories before he ventured into writing longer fiction, his highly popular "Infinite Cosmos" trilogy birthing a lucrative Hollywood franchise. Though highly accomplished, he was not one to be tamed by success, and was a man of eccentricities and navigated the murky waters of tabloid gossip. Treks through the Belizean jungle, conversations with dubious shamans, and indulging in ayahuasca had garnered attention from journalists and documentarians.
Mason rubbed his heavy eye lids. For the past six months he had been a constant presence in the condominium, now dark and lit only by the light of the television screen. He narrowed his eyes on his client.
“Mason,” said Bosch without turning his neck. “I’m going to need those videos sooner rather than later. It’s almost midnight. I need to see whatever comes next. Anything new.”
“Yeah,” sighed Mason as his fingers glided across the laptop keys, uploading the video files to the television. He had grown accustomed to his clients' demands, but as long as they were willing to pay for his secret services, all was well; in the end, payment was all that mattered, given the dangerous nature of his work.
Mason lowered his left arm, the hard metal of the pistol tucked under his armpit grazing his elbow. Regardless of the client, he always carried a weapon, a habit acquired after years of living in the shadows on account of the services he provided. He was a gatekeeper of the near future – a man with a functioning Time Chamber – one who the scions of industry needed in order to glimpse over the horizon of time. A man with such a device lived with target on his back and was hunted by those who wished to claim such technology. The men and women who sought out his services were beyond the status of the merely rich. Their hobbies ranged from collecting ancient mummies to cars, hunting lions to ducks, and planning coups in Africa to games of poker. These people, reasoned Mason, may be his clients, but were dangerous none the less. His men, armed and stationed at the entrance to the condominium at the Montreal Ritz-Carlton, would ensure that no one got near to him without his consent. Having long been accustomed to dealing with industrialists and politicians, he found this most recent man to be a unique addition to his clientele.
Mason ran a dry tongue over his teeth. He eyed the back of the naked man, the light from the whirlwind of destruction dancing on muscled shoulders. Amidst the chaos that flashed across the flat surface of the television screen, the image of a man flicker in and out like a specter peering through the cracked plastered slats of a haunted manor. Occasionally blurred and pixilated but sometimes clear, the image of that of a weary yet handsome and bearded man in a field army jacket — Blackwood. The men had first heard the name after a field correspondent, in front of collapsed brickwork, uttered laconically, “Blackwood’s followers had carried out multiple attacks throughout the year.” Initially, such a sentence meant nothing to the two men, but another visit to the Time Chamber would permanently capture Bosch’s attention. The next images of Blackwood were of him seated on a wicker chair in a dimly lit room lined with dusty bookshelves, engaged in conversation with someone out of sight. Though the video had skipped numerous times and the audio stuttered uncontrollably, within a minute, Bosch had heard the fragments of a sentence that would go on to haunt him, "Bosch...f-favored writer."
These words, uttered by a man seemingly destined to unleash widespread destruction, became Bosch’s obsession. Seated within the confines of the Time Chamber with a camera by his side as it recording the rift in time and space, he realized that his books were the favorites of a madman of the highest order and a terrorist of the worst kind.
Bosch had allowed his condominium in one of Montreal’s most luxurious buildings to fall into disarray. Piles of books and magazines were scattered across the tiled floor; many were about art and war, but the greater part consisted of biographies of Dali, Marinetti, D’Annunzio, Picasso, Karl May, Highsmith, Herge, Disney, along with countless other publications detailing the lives of authors and artists. These books were strewn about in dozens, having long since been scoured from stores and libraries. These were the people who haunted the corners of Sebastian Bosch’s mind—the artists tainted by their associations with the malevolent forces of the modern world or known for their unpalatable personalities and with enough skeletons in their closet to fill a small graveyard. Though their legacies were secured by the worth of their artwork, they would still, on occasion, be dragged through the glowing embers of scorn by historians and journalists.
After a vista of time had opened up in front of his eyes, Bosch realized that his reputation was not safe in the hands of people he did not know. Faceless writers, hidden behind bright screens with hands hovering over worn keys, would write about him after a madman uttered his name. Deep within his mind, he knew he would be ruined, or at the very least, have a shadow cast upon him after death. Ever since his mother had died when he was young, and his father drank himself to an early grave, he had been in control of his life and earned his success through hard work and strength of character, gaining more than he could have ever imagined. He was not going to lose it all because a terrible man had read his work. Bosch would be different from those whose lives were now printed words on pages strewn about his feet. Rather than riding the tiger of history into an unknown horizon, he would mount it and steer it toward a new destination. With regular payments in gold to George Mason, he would, even if only seated in the Time Chamber for brief intervals, glimpse the edge of an unseen horizon and calculate his next move on humanity’s chessboard.
Bosch wondered about the future world Blackwood would burn to a cinder and whether his name would be thrown about. What would writers of popular history pronounce? Would they claim that paperbacks read on subways or left laying on nightstands caused a domino effect of destruction? Some assert that Karl May’s pulp novels of the American frontier may have given Hitler an appetite for conquest. If that were the case, what should he do? Recall his novels?
For months, Bosch would lie on his bed, the soft rustle of dry cotton breaking the silence in the dark room, his teeth running under his soiled fingernails, thinking of the future that had not yet come to pass. He was certain that writers of popular history would, when the studio lights were on them, look directly into the camera and mention his name if ever asked about Blackwood's life.
The new videos files that Mason uploaded to the television screen were similar to what the two men had seen for months. Cars on fire. Bodies lying dead on a highway. Police running down a suburban street. Bosch lowered his eyes and placed his head in his hands. Who was Blackwood? Where was he now? What was his ideology? These questions were almost impossible to answer. The Time Chamber could not be piloted like an aircraft or programmed like a computer; it merely gave glimpses of events ripped out of time and assembled in a chaotic collage.
Classical historians had long compared their study of the archaic past to looking through a large keyhole into a dark room, with only minimal light illuminating frescoes or the broken fragments of lost empires. Unlike them, Bosch knew what he had seen; he heard the voice of Blackwood. Once seated within the tall metal cylinder deep underground, he was given the chance to see and hear history not yet witnessed by any man, though it was never the full picture. For Bosch, it was the darkness not yet pierced by the light that obsessed him. He had seen death and destruction on a wide scale but did not know the reason as to why this would come to pass. He felt himself to be like the cursed King Tantalus of Greek lore, forever hungry for the fruit hanging from a tree in Hades but never within reach.
Gibbon had used texts translated by monks to compose his magnum opus on Rome’s decline. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries were the centuries of photography and sound, with events forever captured on celluloid; images of the two world wars haunting old film canisters in dusty vaults. These wars were the bread and butter of publishers who printed books for enthusiasts on the topic. Bosch had once ranted to Mason that the writers of these books could forever alter or destroy the reputation of any man if he had ever once tied the shoelaces of der Führer or painted a locomotive fresco on a train station for Il Duce. Most people could separate the art from the artist, but for the mother at the kitchen table or the father who values himself as a historian at dinner parties, whatever is spoken on television or printed in a book from a discount bin is as good as gospel.
“Tell me Mason. How will they look at me? You know…what will my legacy be in the end?” asked Bosch.
The muscles at the corners of Mason’s mouth tightened. His client had asked the same question ever since that fateful day in chamber.
“I don’t know,” said Mason, the words coming from his mouth like smoke from a cigar.
“God only knows how they’ll write about me in their books and journals. Not to mention the newspapers and documentary films. The last thing I need is for some kid decades from now to come home and spew something that’s either none of their business or an outright lie.”
Mason rubbed the bridge of his nose as his mind raced back. The meeting between the two men had been initiated by the wealthy socialite Rebecca Tancredi, whose sexual affair with Bosch had allowed him to enter Mason’s secretive world. Tancredi’s father, Emilio, head of Les Aliments Tancredi, had been a previous client.
After an invitation to a quiet Westmount mansion of white stone and columns, prospective clients were blindfolded by muscular hands before being led below ground, with only the hum of an elevator and a hiss of sliding doors indicating the entrance into the hidden chamber where Mason held court around a glass table.
Mason had made up his mind about the relationship between Tancredi and Bosch the moment he saw them together. The young woman's shy glances towards the author were never reciprocated, and he assumed that he merely enjoyed her sexually—nothing more. She was smitten by a man who did not care; he was a man who existed for himself. As for her relationship with Mason, it had always been business related and had, up until this moment, never involved a third party. Sexual desires could become a liability. Mason mused that Tancredi had failed in her restraint and had brought along a prospective client solely because she was smitten with him.
“Mason…can I call you that? Just Mason?” said Bosch as he rubbed his hands against his knees.
“Yes, that’s fine,” responded Mason cooly.
“Well,” continued Bosch, “I’m here thanks to Rebecca. I’d like to see if it’s true, that’s all. You know…that you can see the ‘beyond’ so to speak. The future. Well…not the far future, but only few years that is.”
To see if it’s true. Mason had spun the words through his mind, a machine of tissue long since honed to detect any tone of intrigue or deceit. A minute passed. He rubbed his upper lip. He would give this writer the respect of a prospective client.
“Yes,” said Mason. “We can see what the future has in store for you. For a price that is.”
Sebastian Bosch, despite his materialistic academic background, was a reader of all things esoteric, and had attracted many adoring fans, the majority of whom scoured his books, hoping to uncover hidden meanings. Bosch, aloof and uninterested, only fueled their fascination. He spoke of his desire to stretch the horizons of his mind and see what the masses could not see, to experience something that authors had not – visions beyond space and time. He had traveled a great deal, drank blood from skulls with the Aghori in India, crossed the Gobi Desert, sat in sweat lodges with Native Americans, and pondered the stars in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. Mason had always wondered how such a man had reached the height of academia.
“People think that Nostradamus was a fake, a phony, Mason,” said Bosch. “But not me. I’m pretty sure the guy had something on the universe. He just kept it to himself. Like, he was able to feel time and space coming up before him. He saw what the people around him didn’t, y’see. I need to do that.” A grin crawled across his face.
When Bosch had finished speaking, Mason stood up and held out his hand. “It appears you will have your wish Mr. Bosch.” He turned to Tancredi whose red lips curled into a shy smile. “Miss Tancredi had previously spoken to me about your interest in my services.”
Tancredi then placed, as was expected, a small black box of gold ingots on the table, which was quickly passed along to the armed men above.
“Yes, you will see the future. Come. We will proceed.”
Mason had ushered Bosch down another hallway through sliding glass doors and into a large vault roughly hewn into the earth. In the center stood a tall silver cylinder large enough for two men to stand abreast within. The Time Chamber resembled a metal tree, its pinnacle a mass of wires and conduits connected to machinery hidden deep within the surrounding stone, all of which serviced a master computer near the wall. The chamber yawned open with the press of a button, and Bosch was seated within, a camera on a tripod at his right-hand side. He was carefully buckled down before adhesive pads connected to wires were placed on his forearms and on the sides of his head, the ends of which led to the computer on the stone wall. The door slid shut, and Mason stepped back, gliding his hands across the keyboard of the master computer. The screen flashed, the cylinder shook, the stone walls trembled, and within a mere instant, a new vista of time and space opened before Bosch’s eyes.
Mason pressed his hands against his brow as his attention returned to the present. Bosch did not move. His questions for the last few months would have been more fitting for a panicked child scared of what was under the bed than for a grown man. Mason had no answers to his questions. The ingots had been handed over. Upon payment, Mason would detach himself emotionally from his clients and focus solely on the covert operations at hand. After decades of hiding in the shadows, wearing a mask of human indifference took its toll on one’s mind. Unmarried and childless for decades, with his last tear shed at his son's funeral, the fear of death lingered as his sole human emotion until he met Bosch. Now, after months spent with the man, the root of sympathy had begun burrow into himself.
Mason saw a man engrossed in a future he had not yet lived and obsessed with a someone he believed admired his books. He knew this man was bound to go insane. Bosch had a childlike look in his eyes, much like the young son he had lost in a car crash; the thought of which still lingered in his mind like a splinter never removed, now encased in a callus. Would he humor him? Could, or should he? Mason rubbed his watering eyes and looked up. Bosch, Mason believed, was no threat. He was just a dreamer.
The scraping of the ottoman’s wooden feet on the floor echoed around the dark room. Mason widened his eyes. Bosch walked towards the kitchen, nearly knocking over a man-sized wooden carving of a Burmese Buddha, and poured himself a glass of mineral water before returning to sit on the edge of the couch. As his lips curled to form words, Mason abruptly cut in, like a school principal scolding a petulant child.
"You're fixated on a far-flung tomorrow,” he said, deciding to humor his client. “We’ve both known it ever since you heard your name. You have to realize that what you see is just a bunch a fragments in time. It’s not a story to be re-written by you.”
Bosch's eyes widened. Mason had never wondered about the sanity of his clientele. A sigh escaped his lips. He had introduced this man to the new chapter of his life. He would, he thought, delve into the mind of Sebastian Bosch, the author with the child’s eyes.
"Mason, you don't understand,” said Bosch.” “Blackwood, the terrorist, or whatever he is. My books…he knows of them, reads them! The words are gonna enter his mind. I heard him with my own ears. Didn’t you hear it? It was your video files after all.” Bosch threw an arm towards the television screen. “My pen made an effect on him enough to mention me. It’s not a world war, I’m certain about that. Those reporters would have said something.”
“Yeah.” Mason shrugged.
Bosch put the glass down and held his head in his hands. “Do you know what they’ll do right? The writers, the historians, the ones who’ll delve into the story of this Blackwood guy. They’ll take anything I’ve done in my life – and trust me, I’m no angel – and blow it out of proportion. Any woman I’ve been with will become a victim of my lust. The drugs, everything that’s no one’s business will be fixated upon. Anybody I’ve wronged in any small way will get their fifteen minutes of fame and add to the list of crap thrown against me. I’ve never hurt a fly. They did it to May. The man was no angel himself and conned a few people in his life, but he’s still admired in Germany, regardless if Hitler read his books. May was lucky. He’s got a fan base outside America. I, on the other hand, have Hollywood films with my name splashed across them. Journalists have the biggest voices nowadays, Mason. Many don’t give second chances.”
Bosch ran a hand against his sweaty forehead. “Highsmith, Picasso, Caravaggio…an racist antisemite, a sexual rogue and an a murdering pimp. They’re still read and collected by the big classes. You know them, Mason. Those big-wigs in their loft apartments. The ones at the parties who write all the good reviews and have the proper degrees. Me, on the other hand, I write stuff for kids. Yeah, it sells and bought me all this.” Bosch waved his hands towards the walls. “But I’m no Nobel laureate. I’m easy pickings.”
Mason rubbed his chin. The soft patting of bare feet on the tiled floor sounded through the darkness as Bosch began pacing around the room. The light from the explosions on the television screen danced and reflected along the contours of his body, now sleek with sweat, as if he were Mars himself strolling through a fiery battlefield.
“And you know what will make this all the worse? The ones that’ll get this ball rolling aren’t gonna be paid? Slander is cheap to produce and doesn’t get a paycheck. Someone with too much time on their hands, with visions of grandeur, will dig up anything on anyone. The new church ladies of today are just obnoxious kids shouting in the ears of corporate bosses that just want a nice, squeaky-clean product to sell to the most people. Trust me, they like their history books to be like super hero movies. Nothing’s allowed to be grey or neutral anymore.”
"But you won’t know for sure,” said Mason. “Remember, the images are just snapshots."
"I've studied those video files, Mason. Trust me! I know how it unfolds. My books, read by a maniac can't be my legacy. I need to be remembered for more."
"Bosch, you’re going to drive yourself nuts. What you think you know may just be a fraction of the truth."
A flicker of arrogance danced in Bosch's eyes. "I know enough. I can manipulate the narrative. I need to transcend that nutjob’s shadow. The future is a canvas, and I’m gonna paint whatever I want on it!” His face became a hard mask as he turned towards Mason. “Nowadays, the world is different. Get connected to the wrong crowd, even if it’s just your name thrown around, and you’re finished. Done. The end.”
Mason closed the laptop on his knees. The illuminated wristwatch read twelve-forty-five.
"I fear," Bosch continued, "that my stuff’ll be branded as dangerous. Banned, maybe. The stuff I’ve written isn’t any Turner Diaries bullshit.”
Mason cocked his head to one side. Bosch turned to stare at the television screen as the endless procession of explosions and strewed bodies flashed through the liquid crystal display. “Another thing that still bothers me,” said Bosch in a low voice, “are the parts I don’t see. The things your machine won’t show.”
Bosch walked towards the darkness of the open kitchen and slammed his hand on the ceramic top of the central island. “Your right! We can’t control it. For the most part it’ll just show us events like splattered drops of paint an- ”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” interrupted Mason.
“Yeah, I know. I just…just couldn’t bring myself to believe that. I kept going, y’know, trying to get all the answers. But don’t worry I’ve got a plan.” Bosch walked back towards the couch. “I’ve been thinking about it for a month. It’ll be hard, mostly for my readers, but I’ve gotta do it.”
Bosch crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I have to grab the bull by the horns. Accelerate what must be done and turn my life upside down! Change everything more than ever! There’s only so many times I can get into that machine of yours. It needs to be now. I gotta go…out there.” Bosch thrust an arm out towards a window. “I don’t know what I’ll find. Maybe I gotta cast off this life.”
Mason rubbed his chin and looked at the man in front of him. Bosch, he reckoned, had crossed a Rubicon. The images of a future not yet known were propelling him into the wilderness.
Bosch left the living room. “First…no more of this garbage,” he said as he retreated into the shadows of his bedroom. Moments later he returned carrying large white plastic a bag. He walked over to the bathroom and following the sound of flushing water, returned to the living room and sat on the couch.
“That’s it,” he said rubbing his hands together. A jagged smile etched its way across his pallid face. “All gone. The cocaine, the ketamine, all of it. Down the bowl!” He raised his arms upwards, stretching before standing up again.
“This is where I leave you for tonight,” said Bosch as he faced Mason. “I’m gonna hit the hay. Tomorrow’s a new day and I’m gonna start with a bang. That stuff’s gone. My dealer won’t be getting a dollar outta me.” He grunted and stretched out his hand. “What do I care, really.”
The two men shook hands, Mason peering into his client’s eyes, two twinkling spots reflecting the light of the large screen in the dark room. Mason knew that Bosch was bound to change the trajectory of his life, even if he thought it was a fool’s errand. The future that Bosch had seen in the Time Chamber had been wrenched out of time and space. It was the events that were not seen, the darkness that Bosch’s eyes could not pierce, that propelled him forward and kindled a mania in him.
Bosch began to walk towards his bedroom door. “I’m off to bed. Feel free to grab any booze from the cabinet on the way out. Also, leave the last hard drive you have with me. We’ll talk within the week.” Mason received Bosch's farewell. He handed over the black hard drive from his attaché case and walked towards the door which was promptly opened by a tall muscular man in a black balaclava and bomber jacked concealing a large pistol. No words were exchanged. A nod from Mason was enough.
As the bolt of the door slid into place, Mason would never see Bosch in person again, and would only ever know of his whereabouts from the large black mirror that hung on his living room wall, his life now only a patchwork quilt of news reports, late-night interviews, and Hollywood gossip.
Bosch’s books remained popular on account of their Hollywood adaptations, even though he granted less interviews to the Hollywood press. When he did grant an audience with a reporter, his hair was noticeably untamed, demeanor and hand gestures slower, and voice deeper, while his once colorful clothes were replaced with white polo shirts.
The quilt grew larger within the following two years. Mason heard reports of three luxury vehicles, with their registration markers removed, having been discarded like the toys of an ill-tempered child. A battleship grey Porsche 911 – 993 lay overturned in a ditch in Ville Sainte-Jérôme; a red BMW M3 lay derelict in an alleyway behind a dive bar in Griffintown; a yellow Ferrari Dino 246 GT was retrieved from the Saint Lawrence River under the north side of the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Mason knew full well the identity of the owner.
Later on in the year, journalists reported that trashcans in Parc Lafontaine, Dorchester Square, and Lac aux Castors became the funeral pyres for discarded laptops and large external hard drives, all of which were charred black and beyond use. Gazing at the fires on the evening news, Mason knew this had been Bosch’s doing. Video evidence of the Time Chamber was occasionally handed over, though the penalty for making such information public was death at the hands of the men Mason employed.
Another year passed, and rumors about Bosch's mental state slithered through the tightly guarded garden of the publishing elite, amidst the clinking of champagne goblets and the shy laughter of literary agents around restaurant tables.
Soon, it came to the attention of millions that Bosch would embark on a meandering trek through North and Central America entirely on foot. He walked from Montreal to New York City before traversing the central plains and the Rocky Mountains to reach Los Angeles. Continuing southward, he crossed the Rio Grande and traveled down to Belmopan before eventually heading back northwards to Arizona. His body grew muscled and hard, his face became kissed by the sun, and his hair grew long and he soon sprouted a short, thick beard. He looked more like a crazed man from the Holy Land of the archaic past then a man of modern comforts. His shoes wore away and he paid no attention to the lenses of video cameras thrust in his way by the phalanx of journalists who followed him like a mercenary army.
As the "expedition of the author," christened by Time Magazine, slowly faded from the news, the memory of Bosch gradually receded from Mason’s mind. It wasn't until an unsuspecting barmaid in a gentlemen’s bar resurrected the image of the man.
On a Friday night in April, Mason sat at the neon-lit bar at Club Babylon, the cavalcade of flesh and nubile bodies of the naked women on stage having numbed his mind. He drank a gin tonic and stared at the black napkin under his glass tumbler. It was Four-o’clock and the volume of the music had decreased to a low hum, becoming the soundtrack to a parade of drunk patrons stepping out into the cold air on the rue Stanley.
The barmaid, twenty years of age, with breasts barely held back by a flimsy white bustier, casually glanced at her cellphone near Mason’s line of sight. His heavy eyelids twitched as his head pointed down to the bright rectangle. There, he saw a bearded man.
The man on the screen sat on a wicker chair in a dimly-lit room, the cracked spines of books lining the shelves which encircled him like a ring of warriors around a chieftain. His long dark hair rested on shoulders clad in a field green army jacked. Clear words in thick font run along the bottom of the screen proclaiming “See the writer who had run away from it all!” Mason saw the man who had walked out of his life speak words—though barely audible—that turned the gears of memory in his mind.
The music in the club had been shut off, and Mason, struggling to hear the bearded man amid the clinking of empty bottles and glasses, caught the words, "Bosch... writer..." The barmaid quickly gave him a shy smile and pocketed the cell phone. Mason’s eyes darted up.
He leaned back and pushed away his glass tumbler, the low backrest of the stool creaking under his weight. He ran the tip of his index finger along his lower lip as he shut his eyes. Was that truly Bosch, he wondered? He was a high-profile author who had run away from his previous life, after all. Surely the barmaid wouldn’t casually hand over her cell phone just so he could watch a video about a recluse. Asking for a barmaid’s cell phone in a gentlemen’s club might cause a stir behind the bar. That was the last thing Mason needed. His men were nearby, but in a place like this, their job was to prevent undesirables from getting too close. Weapons and the threat of force would put a spotlight on him.
Mason finished his gin tonic, donned his coat, and stepped out into the cold April morning. He was driven northwards in a chauffeured black Rolls-Royce Cullinan. On the soft leather seat, he closed his eyes as the image of the bearded man lingered in his mind. Mason could only assume that Bosch was now scraping out some sort of existence far from the comfortable condominium where he once lived. But what did he say? Why did it sound so much like what Blackwood had uttered years before?
Mason opened his eyes; his eyelids felt like they were made of metal on rusted hinges. Rubbing his brow, he gazed out the window as the Rolls-Royce ascended towards Westmount. Would Bosch have changed his name? He had used various pseudonyms when his first stories were published by Analog Magazine, so it wasn't entirely out of the question. Why did he utter his name in the third person? Mason was sure it was him; the words on the screen alluded to it. Who else could it have been? Mason's eyelids felt weighted again. Perhaps Bosch spoke his name from the perspective of one who was casting away their former life?
The Rolls-Royce came to a stop. Mason would think about what he had seen in the morning.