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Of course some cops turn in the badge and set out for Nevada to bake in the desert and pick up part-time work in the casinos. Some disappear into northern California -there are more retired cops in the backwoods of Humboldt County than there are marijuana growers, only the growers don’t know it. And some head south to Mexico, where there are still spots where an air-conditioned ranch house with an ocean view is affordable on an LAPD pension.
The point is, few stick around. They spend their adult lives trying to make sense of this place, trying to bring a small measure of order to it, and then can’t stand to stay here once their job is done. The work does that to you. It robs you of the ability to enjoy your accomplishment. There is no reward for making it through.
One of the few men I knew who turned in the badge but not the city was named Burnett Biggar. He gave the city its twenty-five years-the last half of it in South Bureau homicide-and then retired to open up a small business with his son near the airport. Biggar amp; Biggar Professional Security was on Sepulveda near La Tijera. The building was nondescript, the offices unpretentious. Biggar’s business was primarily geared toward providing security systems and patrols to the warehouse industries around the airport. The last time I had spoken to him- which was probably two years earlier-he had told me he had more than fifty employees and business was going good.
But out of the other side of his mouth he confided that he missed what he called the real work. The vital work, the work that made a difference. Protecting a warehouse full of blue jeans made in Taiwan could be profitable. But it didn’t even begin to touch what you got out of putting a stone killer on the floor and the cuffs on his wrists. It wasn’t even close, and that was what Biggar missed. It was because of that I thought I could approach him for help with what I wanted to do for Lawton Cross.
There was a small waiting room with a coffee machine but I wasn’t there that long. Burnett Biggar came down a hallway and invited me back to his office. As befitting his name, he was a large man. I had to follow him down the hallway rather than walk next to him. His head was shaved, which was a new look for him as far as I knew.
“So Big, I see you traded the Julius for the Jordan, huh?”
He rubbed a hand over his polished scalp.
“Had to do it, Harry. It’s the style. And I’m getting gray.”
“Aren’t we all.”
He led me into his office. It wasn’t small and it wasn’t big. It was basic, with wood paneling and framed commendations, news clips and photos from his days with the department. It was probably all very impressive to the clients.
Biggar swung around behind a cluttered desk and pointed me to a chair in front of it. As I sat down I noticed a framed slogan on the wall behind him. It said “Biggar amp; Biggar is getting Better amp; Better.”
Biggar leaned forward and folded his arms on his desk.
“So, Harry Bosch, I don’t think I was expecting to see you maybe ever again. It’s funny seeing you in that chair.”
“Funny seeing you, too. I don’t think I was expecting it either.”
“You come here for a job? I heard you quit last year. You were the last guy I ever thought about quitting.”
“Nobody goes the distance, Big. And I appreciate the offer but I already have a job. I’m just looking for a little help.”
Biggar smiled, the skin pulling tight around his eyes. He was intrigued. He knew I wasn’t ever going to be the corporate or industrial security type.
“I never heard you ask for help on a goddamn thing. What do you need?”
“I need a setup. Electronic surveillance. One room, nobody can know the camera is there.”
“How big’s the room?”
“Like a bedroom. Maybe fifteen by fifteen.”
“Ah, man, Harry, don’t go down that road. You start that sort of snooping and you’ll lose sight of yourself. Come work for me. I can find some -”
“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s actually an offshoot of a homicide I’m working. The guy’s in a wheelchair. He sits and watches TV all day. I just want to be able to make sure he’s okay, you know? There’s something going on with the wife. At least I think so.”
“You mean like abuse?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Something.”
“Does the guy know you’re going to do this?”
“No.”
“But you’ve got access to the room?”
“Pretty much. Think you can help me out?”
“Well, we got cameras. But you have to understand most of our work is industrial application. Heavy-duty stuff. Sounds to me like all you need is a nanny cam, something that you can just pick up at Radio Shack.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t want to be too obvious about it. The guy was a cop.”
Biggar nodded, digested it quickly and stood up.
“Well, come on back to the tech room and take a look at what we’ve got. Andre’s back there and he can fix you up.”
He led me back into the hallway and toward the back of the building. We entered the tech room, which was about the size of a double garage and was crowded with workbenches and shelves of all manner of electronics equipment. There were three men gathered around one of the workbenches. They were looking at the screen of a small television. A grainy black-and-white surveillance tape was playing. I recognized one of the men, the largest, as Andre Biggar, Burnett’s son. I had never met him but I knew it was him by his size and resemblance to Burnett. Right down to the shaved scalp.
Introductions were made and Andre explained that he was reviewing a tape showing a burglary of a client’s warehouse. His father explained what I was looking for and the son led me to another workbench, where he could display and review equipment. He showed me cameras housed in a vase, a lamp, a picture frame and finally a clock. Thinking about how Lawton Cross had complained about not being able to see the time on his television, I stopped Andre right there.
“This will do. How does it work?”
It was a round clock about ten inches across.
“This is a classroom clock. You want to put this on the wall of a bedroom? It will stick out like tits on a -”
“Andre,” his father said.
“It’s not being used as a bedroom,” I said. “It’s like a TV room. And the subject told me he can’t see the time on the corner of the screen on CNN. So this will make sense when I bring it in.”
Andre nodded.
“Okay. You want sound? Color?”
“Sound, yes. Color would be good but not necessary.”
“All right. Are you going to transmit, or you want to go self-contained?”
I looked at him blankly and he knew I didn’t understand.
“I build these two ways. One is you have a camera in the clock and you transmit picture and sound to a receiver that records it on video. You would have to find a secure place for the recorder within about a hundred feet to be sure. Are you going to be outside the house in a van or something?”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Okay, the second option is to go digital and put everything in the camera and record internally to a digital tape or memory card. The drawback is capacity. With a digital tape you get about two hours real time, then you have to change it out. With a card you get even less.”
“That won’t work. I was only planning to check on it every few days.”
I started thinking of how I would be able to hide the receiver inside the house. Maybe the garage. I could pretend I was going to the garage to throw something away and I could hide the receiver somewhere Danny Cross wouldn’t see it.
