pulled off the road again next to the cliffs that look down to the beach and the Pacific. The horizon was blurred white by the marine layer. The Ferris wheel on the Pacific Park pier stood still, and without its neon blazing.
“I did it because Marty Gessler was a friend of mine.”
“Yeah, I could sort of tell from the file. Close friends?”
My meaning was obvious.
“Close,” he said.
“Wasn’t that sort of a conflict, you leading the case?”
“Let’s just say my relationship with her was not known until we were down the road a ways on the investigation. I then cashed in every chip I had to stay on it. Not that it did a hell of a lot of good. Here we are three-plus years later and I still have no idea what happened to her. Then you call up and tell me something that was brand-fucking-new to me.”
“So you were being square. There was no record of her talking to Dorsey about the currency number?”
“Nothing we found. But she kept a lot of stuff on her computer and that’s gone, man. There had to be stuff she hadn’t backed up on the office box. You know, the rule is back everything up every night before going home, but nobody does that. Nobody has the time.”
I nodded and thought about things. I was gathering a lot of information but had little time to process it. I tried to think about what else I needed to ask Lindell while I was with him.
“I’m still not tracking something,” I finally said. “Why was it one way up in the interrogation room and another way out here? Why are you talking to me, Roy? Why let me see the file?”
“REACT is a BAM squad, Bosch. By Any Means. There are no rules with these guys. The rules went out the window September eleventh, two thousand one. The world changed, so did the bureau. The country sat back and let it happen. They were watching the war over there in Afghanistan when they were changing all the rules here. Homeland security is what it’s all about now and everything else can take a back-fucking-seat. Including Marty Gessler. You think the ninth floor took over this case because an agent is missing? They couldn’t care less. There is something else and whether or not they find out what happened to her doesn’t matter. To them, that is. It’s not the same for me.”
Lindell stared straight ahead as he spoke. I understood a little better what was happening now. The bureau told him to cease and desist. It could keep him in check but I was a free agent. Lindell would help me when and if he could.
“So you’ve got no idea what their interest is in this case.”
“Not a clue.”
“But you want me to keep going.”
“If you ever repeat it I’ll deny it. But the answer is yes. I want to be your client, podjo.”
I put the Benz in drive and pulled back onto the roadway. I headed back toward Westwood.
“I can’t pay you, of course,” Lindell said. “And I probably can’t contact you after today, either.”
“Tell you what. Stop calling me podjo and we’ll call it even.”
Lindell nodded as though I had been serious and to say that he had agreed to the deal. We drove in silence while I dropped down the California Incline to the coast highway and took it up to Santa Monica Canyon and then back up to San Vicente.
“So what did you think about what you read up there?” Lindell finally asked.
“Looked like you made all the right moves to me. What about the gas station guy who saw her that night? He checked out?”
“Yeah, we came down on him six ways till Sunday. He was clean. The place was busy and he was there till midnight. We have him on the security video. And he never left the booth after she came and went. His alibi for after midnight checked out, too.”
“Anything else from the video? I didn’t see anything in the file.”
“Nah, the video was worthless. Other than the fact it shows her and it was the last time she was ever seen.”
He looked out the window. Three years later and Lindell was still hooked in deeply on this one. I had to remember that. I had to filter everything he said and did through that prism.
“What are the chances of me getting a look at the whole investigative file?”
“I’d say somewhere between zero and none.”
“The ninth floor?”
He nodded.
“They came up and popped the drawer out and took it. I won’t see that stuff again. I probably won’t even get the goddamn drawer back.”
“Why didn’t they put the freeze on me? Why you?”
“Because I knew you. But mostly because you’re not supposed to even know about them.”
I nodded as I turned onto Wilshire, the federal building in sight up ahead.
“Look, Roy, I don’t know if the two things are connected, know what I mean? I’m talking about Martha Gessler and the thing in Hollywood. Angella Benton. Martha made a call on it but it doesn’t mean that they are connected. I’ve got other things I’ll be chasing down. This is just one of them. Okay?”
He looked out the window again and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“I said nobody ever called her Martha until she disappeared. Then it was in the papers and on TV that way. She hated that name, Martha.”
I just nodded because there was nothing else to do. I turned into the federal parking lot and drove up to the plaza to drop him off.
“That phone number in the file, it’s okay to call you on that?”
“Yeah, anytime. Make sure your own phones are safe before you do.”
I thought about that until I brought the Benz to a stop at the curb in front of the plaza. Lindell looked out the window and surveyed the plaza as if he was judging whether it was safe to get out.
“You get back to Vegas much?” I asked him.
He answered without looking back at me. He kept his eyes on the plaza and the windows of the building looming above.
“Whenever I get the chance. Have to go in disguise. A lot of people over there don’t like me.”
“I can imagine.”
His undercover work coupled with my team’s homicide investigation had toppled a major underworld figure and most of his minions.
“I saw your wife over there about a month ago,” he said. “Playing cards. I think it was at the Bellagio. She had a nice stack of chips in front of her.”
He knew Eleanor Wish from that first case in Vegas. That was when and where I had married her.
“Ex-wife,” I said. “But that wasn’t why I was asking.”
“Sure, I know.”
Seemingly satisfied with the view he opened the door and got out. He looked back in at me and waited for me to say something. I nodded.
“I’ll take your case, Roy.”
He nodded back.
“Then call me anytime. And watch yourself out there, podjo.”
He gave me the rogue’s got-you-last smile and closed the door before I could say anything.
14
Around the detective squad rooms of the LAPD’s numerous stations the state of Idaho is called Blue Heaven. It’s the goal line, the final destination for a good number of the detectives who go the distance, put in their twenty-five years and then cash out. I hear there are whole neighborhoods up there full of ex-cops from L.A. living side by side by side. Realtors from Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint run business-card-size ads in the police union
