her office safe had been the bait and Milton had taken it. Before leaving her office I had set up another one of Biggar amp; Biggar’s cameras-the radio-on her desk and trained it toward the bookcase which hid the safe.
“He stumbled around looking for a while but then he found it. He took the whole safe out of the wall. It’s gone.”
She had emptied everything from the safe the night before. I had put in a folded piece of paper. It said, “Fuck you, with a capital F.” I imagined Milton unfolding it and reading it-if he had managed to get the safe open.
“Anything else hit in the offices?”
“A couple drawers pulled out here and there. The quarter jar in the coffee room. All just cover to make it look like a regular burglary.”
“Anybody call the police to report it?”
“Yes, but nobody’s shown up yet. Typical.”
“Keep the surveillance out of it. For now.”
“I know. Like we said. What should I do now?”
“You still have Peoples’s e-mail address?”
“Sure do.”
The night before, she had gotten the e-mail address rather easily from a former colleague who worked at the U.S. Attorney’s office.
“Okay, send Peoples another e-mail. Attach the latest surveillance and tell him I’ve changed the deadline to noon today. I hear from him by then or he can start watching CNN for the results. Send it as soon as you can.”
“I’m on-line now.”
“Good.”
I sipped coffee while listening to her type. Andre Biggar had included in the briefcase I borrowed the computer attachment Langwiser would need to view the memory card taken from the radio camera. She could now attach a file containing the surveillance recording to an e-mail.
“It’s away,” she finally said. “Good luck, Harry.”
“I’ll probably need it.”
“Remember, call me tonight by midnight or I’ll follow the instructions.”
“Gotcha.”
I hung up and went back to the convenience store for a second cup of coffee. I was already wired from Langwiser’s report but I figured I might be needing the spare caffeine before the day was finished.
When I got back to the house the phone was ringing. I got the door unlocked and got inside just in time to grab the phone off the kitchen counter.
“Yeah?”
“Mr. Bosch? John Peoples here.”
“Good morning.”
“Not really. When can you come in?”
“I’m on my way.”
28
Special Agent Peoples was waiting for me in the first-floor lobby of the federal building in Westwood. He was standing when I got there. Maybe he’d been standing there the whole time since he’d made the call.
“Follow me,” he said. “We’re going to make this quick.”
“Whatever works.”
After giving a uniformed guard the nod he led me through a security door using a card key and then he used it again to access the elevator I was already familiar with.
“You guys got your own elevator and everything,” I said. “Pretty cool.”
Peoples wasn’t impressed. He turned so he was looking right at me.
“I’m doing this because I have no choice. I’ve decided to agree to this extortion because I believe in the greater good of what I’m trying to accomplish here.”
“Is that why you sent Milton into my lawyer’s office last night? Was that all part of the greater good you’re talking about?”
He didn’t answer.
“Look, you can hate me and that’s fine. That’s your option. But let’s not bullshit each other. Don’t hide behind that stuff, because we both know what’s going on here. Your guy crossed the line and got caught. Now it’s just time to pay the price. That’s what this is about. It’s that simple.”
“And meantime an investigation is compromised and lives may be at stake.”
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?”
The elevator opened on the ninth floor. He led me out without answering. The ever handy card key got us through another door and into a squad room where several agents were working at desks. As we passed through, most of them stopped what they were doing to look at me. I assumed that they had either been briefed on who I was and what I was doing or just the occurrence of a non-agent in the inner sanctum was worth noting.
When I was halfway across the room I spotted Milton sitting at a desk near the back. He was leaning back in his chair giving me his best show of being relaxed. But I could sense the anger pulsing beneath the facade. I winked at him and turned my attention away.
Peoples led me into a small room with a desk and two chairs. On the desk was a cardboard box. I looked into it and recognized my own notebook and the file I had kept on Angella Benton. There was also the file from Lawton Cross’s garage and a black binder full of documents two inches thick. I assumed it was the copy of the LAPD’s murder book. I got excited just looking at it. It was the full deck of cards I had been looking for.
“Where’s the rest?” I asked.
Peoples walked around behind the desk and opened the middle drawer. He removed a file and dropped it on the top of the desk.
“In there you will find subject location reports covering the two dates you requested. I don’t think they will help you but it’s what you wanted. You can look at them here but you cannot take them with you. They will not leave this office. Do you understand that?”
I nodded, deciding not to push it.
“What about Aziz?”
“When you are ready I will put you in a room with him. But he won’t talk to you. You’ll be wasting your time.”
“Well, it’s mine to waste.”
“Then, before you leave here, you will call your attorney and instruct her to turn over to me the original and all copies of the surveillance recordings you have from last night and the night before.”
I shook my head.
“Sorry, that’s not the deal.”
“It certainly is.”
“No, I never said I would turn over the recordings. What I said was that I would not go public with them. There’s a difference. I’m not going to turn over the only leverage I’ve got. I’m not stupid, John.”
“We had a deal,” he said, his cheeks beginning to quiver with anger.
“And I’m keeping the deal. Exactly as offered.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a cassette tape. I held it out to him.
“If you don’t believe me you can listen for yourself. I was wearing a wire last night in the booth.”
I watched his eyes register that I now even had him directly tied in.
“Take it, John. Call it a goodwill gesture. It’s the original. No copies were made.”
He slowly reached up and took the tape. I moved around behind the desk.
“Why don’t I take a look at what you’ve got in the file while you go do whatever you have to do to get Aziz ready?”
