couldn’t carry her lunch. For the last time, get a delay.”
Belk stood up and walked around the table to pick up the fallen pen. After straightening up, he adjusted his tie and his cuffs and sat back down. He leaned over his pad and without looking at Bosch said, “You’re just afraid of her, aren’t you, Bosch? Don’t want to be on the stand with the cunt asking questions. Questions that might expose you for what you are: a cop who likes killing people.”
Now he turned and looked at Bosch.
“Well, it’s too late. Your time has come and there is no backing away. No delays. Show time.”
Harry stood up and bent over the fat man.
“Fuck you, Belk. I’m going outside.”
“That’s nice,” Belk said. “You know, you guys are all the same. You blow some guy away and then come in here and think that just because you wear that badge that you have some kind of a divine right to do whatever you want. That badge is the biggest power trip going.”
Bosch went out to the bank of phones and called Edgar. He picked up on the homicide table after one ring.
“I got your message last night.”
“Yeah, well, that’s all there is. I’m gone. RHD came up this morning and took my file. Saw them snoopin’ around your spot, too, but they didn’t take anything.”
“Who came?”
“Sheehan and Opelt. You know ’em?”
“Yeah, they’re okay. You coming over here on the subpoena?”
“Yeah, I gotta be there by ten.”
Bosch saw the door to courtroom 4 open and the deputy marshal leaned out and signaled to him.
“I gotta go.”
Back in the courtroom, Chandler was at the lectern and the judge was speaking. The jury was not in the box yet.
“What about the other subpoenas?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, my office is in the process of notifying those people this morning, releasing them.”
“Very well, then. Mr. Belk, ready to proceed?”
As Bosch came through the gate Belk passed him on the way to the lectern without even looking at him.
“Your Honor, since this is unexpected, I would ask for a half-hour recess so I can consult with my client. We would be ready to proceed after that.”
“Very well, we’re going to do exactly that. Recess for a half hour. I’ll see all parties back here then. And Mr. Bosch? I expect you to be in your place there, the next time I come out ready to begin. I don’t like sending marshals up and down the halls when the defendant knows where he ought to be and when he ought to be there.”
Bosch said nothing.
“Sorry, Your Honor,” Belk said for him.
They stood as the judge left the bench and Belk said, “Let’s go down the hall to one of the lawyer-client conference rooms.”
“What happened?”
“Let’s go down the hall.”
As he was going through the courtroom door, Bremmer was coming in, holding his notebook and pen.
“Hey, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Half-hour recess.”
“Harry, I have to talk to you.”
“Later.”
“It’s important.”
At the end of the hall near the lavatories there were several small attorney conference rooms, all about the size of the interrogation rooms at the Hollywood station. Bosch and Belk went into one and took chairs on either side of a gray table.
“What happened?” Bosch asked.
“Your heroine rested.”
“Chandler rested without calling me?”
This seemed to make no sense to Bosch.
“What’s she doing?” he asked.
“She’s being extremely shrewd. It’s a very smart move.”
“Why?”
“Look at the case. She is in very good shape. If it ended today and went to the jury, who would win? She would. See, she knows you have to get on the stand and defend what you did. Like I told you the other day, we win or lose with you. You either take the ball and ram it down her throat or you fumble it. She knows that and if she was to call you, she would ask the questions first, then I would come in with the fungoes-the easy ones that you’d hit out of the park.
“Now she’s reversing that. My choice is to not call you and lose the case, or to call you and essentially give her the best shot at you. Very shrewd.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Call you.”
“What about the delay?”
“What delay?”
Bosch nodded. There was no changing it. There would be no delay. He realized he had handled it badly. He had approached Belk the wrong way. He should have tried to make Belk believe it had been his own idea to go for a delay. Then it would have worked. Instead, Bosch was beginning to feel the jitters-that uneasy feeling that came with approaching the unknown. He felt the way he did before he climbed down into a VC tunnel for the first time in Vietnam. It was fear, he knew, blossoming like a black rose in the pit of his chest.
“We’ve got twenty-five minutes,” Belk said. “Let’s forget about delays and try to work out how we want your testimony to go. I am going to lead you down the path. The jury will follow. But remember, you have to take it slow or you will lose them. Okay?”
“We got twenty minutes,” Bosch corrected him. “I need to go out for a smoke before I sit up there on the stand.”
Belk pressed on as if he hadn’t heard.
“Remember, Bosch, there could be millions of dollars at stake here. It may not be your money but it may be your career.”
“What career?”
Bremmer was hanging around the door to the conference room when Bosch came out twenty minutes later.
“Get it all?” Harry asked.
He walked by him and headed toward the escalator. Bremmer followed.
“No, man, I wasn’t listening. I’m just waiting for you. Listen, what’s going on with the new case? Edgar won’t tell me shit. Did you get an ID or what?”
“Yeah, we ID’d her.”
“Who was it?”
“Not my case, man. I can’t give it out. Besides, I give it to you and you’ll run to Money Chandler
