Bosch looked at his watch and was deciding something.
“Edward Gunn.”
Bosch looked up at him.
“Jaye Winston?”
McCaleb nodded.
“She asked me to take a look.”
The elevator came and they stepped onto it with a crowd of people who had been in the courtroom. They all seemed to be looking at Bosch while trying not to show it. McCaleb decided not to continue until they were off.
On the first floor they headed toward the exit.
“I told her I’d profile it. A quick one. To do it I need to get a handle on Gunn. I thought maybe you could tell me about that old case and about what kind of guy he was.”
“He was a scumbag. Look, I have about forty-five minutes max. I need to get on the road. I’m running down wits today, making sure everybody’s ready to go after openers.”
“I’ll take the forty-five if you can spare it. Any place to eat around here?”
“Forget the cafeteria here – it’s awful. There’s a Cupid’s up on Victory.”
“You cops always eat at the best.”
“It’s why we do what we do.”
Chapter 10
They ate their hot dogs at an outdoor table without an umbrella. Though it was a mildly warm winter day, McCaleb found himself sweating. On any given day the Valley could be counted on to be fifteen to twenty degrees warmer than Catalina and he wasn’t used to the change. His internal heating and cooling systems had never been normal since the transplant and he was prone to quick chills and sweats.
He began with some small talk about Bosch’s current case.
“You ready to become Hollywood Harry with this case?”
“Yeah, no thanks,” Bosch said between bites of what was billed as a Chicago dog. “I think I’d rather be on midnight shift in the Seventy-seventh.”
“Well, you think you got it together? You got him?”
“Never know. The DA’s office hasn’t won a big one since disco. I don’t know how it will go. The lawyers all say it depends on the jury. I always thought it was the quality of the evidence but I’m just a dumb detective. John Reason brought in O. J.’s jury consultant and they’re acting pretty happy with the twelve in the box. Shit, John Reason. See, I’m even calling the guy by the name the reporters use. It shows how good he is at controlling things, sculpting things.”
He shook his head and took another bite of his lunch.
“Who is the big guy I saw him with?” McCaleb asked. “The guy standing behind him like Lurch.”
“Rudy Valentino, his investigator.”
“That’s his name?”
“No, it’s Rudy Tafero. He’s former LAPD. He worked Hollywood detectives until a few years back. People in the bureau called him Valentino ’cause of his looks. He got off on it. Anyway, he went private. Has a bail bonds license. Don’t ask me how but he started getting security contracts with a lot of Hollywood people. He showed up on this one right after we popped Storey. In fact, Rudy brought Storey to Fowkkes. Probably got a nice finder’s fee for that.”
“And how about the judge? How’s he going to be?”
Bosch nodded as if he had found something good in the conversation.
“Shootin’ Houghton. He’s no Second Chance Lance. He’s no bullshit. He’ll slap Fowkkes down if he needs to. At least we have that going for us.”
“Shootin’ Houghton?”
“Under that black robe he’s usually strapped – or at least most people think so. About five years ago he had a Mexican Mafia case, and when the jury came in guilty a bunch of the defendants’ buddies and family in the audience got mad and nearly started a riot in the courtroom. Houghton pulled his Glock and put a round into the ceiling. It quieted things down pretty quick. Ever since he’s been reelected by the highest percentage of any incumbent judge in the county. Go in his courtroom and check the ceiling. The bullet hole’s still there. He won’t let anybody fix it.”
Bosch took another bite and looked at his watch. He changed the subject, talking with his mouth full.
“Nothing personal but I take it they’ve hit the wall on Gunn if they’re going to outside help already.”
McCaleb nodded.
“Something like that.”
He looked down at the chili dog in front of him and wished he had a knife and fork.
“What’s wrong? We didn’t have to come here.”
“Nothing. I was just thinking. Between pancakes at Dupar’s this morning and this, I might need another heart by dinner.”
“You want to stop your heart, next time you go to Dupar’s top it off with a stop at Bob’s Donuts. Right there in the Farmers’ Market. Raised glaze. A couple of those and you’ll feel your arteries harden and snap like icicles hanging off a house. They never came up with suspect one, right?”
“Right. Nothing.”
“So what makes you so interested?”
“Same as Jaye. Something about this one. We think whoever it was might be just starting.”
Bosch just nodded. His mouth was full.
McCaleb appraised him. His hair was shorter than McCaleb had remembered it. More gray but that was to be expected. He still had the mustache and the eyes. They reminded him of Graciela’s, so dark there was almost no delineation between iris and pupil. But Bosch’s eyes were weary and slightly hooded by wrinkles at the corners. Still, they were always moving, observing. He sat leaning slightly forward, as if ready to move. McCaleb remembered that there had always been a spring-loaded feel to Bosch. He felt as though at any moment or for any reason Bosch could put the needle into the red zone.
Bosch reached inside his suit coat and took out a pair of sunglasses and put them on. McCaleb wondered if that had been in response to realizing that McCaleb had been studying him. He bent down, raised up his chili dog and finally took a bite. It tasted delicious and deadly at the same time. He put the dripping mess back on the paper plate and wiped his hand on a napkin.
“So tell me about Gunn. You said he was a scumbag. What else?”
“What else? That’s about it. He was a predator. Used women, bought women. He murdered that girl in that motel room, no doubt in my mind.”
“But the DA kicked the case.”
“Yeah. Gunn claimed self-defense. He said some things that didn’t add up but not enough to add up to charges. He claimed self-defense and there wasn’t going to be enough to go against that in a trial. So they no- billed it, end of story, on to the next case.”
“Did he ever know you didn’t believe him?”
“Oh, sure. He knew.”
“Did you try to sweat him at all?”
Bosch gave him a look that McCaleb could read through the sunglasses. The last question went to Bosch’s credibility as an investigator.
“I mean,” McCaleb said quickly, “what happened when you tried to sweat him?”
“Actually, the truth is we never really got the chance. There was a problem. See, we did set it up. We brought him in and put him in one of the rooms. My partner and I were planning to leave him there a while, let him percolate a little and think about things. We were going to do all the paper, put it in the book and then take a run at him, try to break his story. We never got the chance. I mean, to do it right.”
