“It’s going to be close, Harry. I think. But even if it’s one of those statement verdicts that are popular these days against the LAPD, she’ll get rich.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“You haven’t been in federal court before have you?”
“No. I try not to make it a habit.”
“Well, in a civil rights case, if the plaintiff wins-in this case, Chandler-then the defendant-in this case the city is paying your tab-has to pay the lawyer’s fees. I guarantee you, Harry, that in her closing argument tomorrow Money will tell those jurors that all they need to do is make a statement that you acted wrongly. And even damages of a dollar make that statement. The jury will see that as the easy way out. They can say you were wrong and only give a dollar in damages. They won’t know, because Belk is not allowed to tell them, that even if the plaintiff wins a dollar, Chandler bills the city. And that won’t be a dollar. More like a couple hundred thousand of them. It’s a scam.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, that’s the justice system.”
Bremmer pulled into the lot and Bosch pointed out his Caprice in one of the front rows.
“You going to be all right to drive?” Bremmer asked.
“No problem.”
Bosch was about to close the door when Bremmer stopped him.
“Hey, Harry, we both know I can’t reveal my source. But I can tell you who it isn’t. And I’ll tell you it is not someone you’d expect. You know? Edgar and Pounds, if that’s who you think it is, forget it. You’d never guess who it was, so don’t bother. Okay?”
Bosch just nodded and shut the door.
21
After fumbling to find the right one, Bosch put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. He briefly considered whether he should try to drive or whether he should go get coffee from the cafeteria first. He looked up through the windshield at the gray monolith that was Parker Center. Most of the lights were on but he knew the offices had emptied. The lights of the squad rooms were always left on to give the appearance that the fight against crime never sleeps. It was a lie.
He thought of the couch that was kept in one of the RHD interrogation rooms. That was also an alternative to driving. Unless, of course, it was already taken. But then he thought of Sylvia and how she had come to court despite what he had said about not wanting her there. He wanted to get home to her. Yes, he thought, home.
He put his hand on the key but then dropped it away again. He rubbed his eyes. They were tired and there were so many thoughts swimming in the whiskey. There was the sound of the tenor sax floating there, too. His own improvisational riff.
He tried to think of what Bremmer had just said, that Bosch would never guess who the source was. Why had he said it that way? He found that more tantalizing than wondering who his source actually was.
It didn’t matter, he told himself. All would be over soon. He leaned his head against the side window, thinking about the trial and his testimony. He wondered how he had looked up there, all eyes on him. He never wanted to be in that position again. Ever. To have Honey Chandler cornering him with words.
Whoever fights monsters, he thought. What had she told the jury? About the abyss? Yes, where monsters dwell. Is that where I dwell? In the black place? The black heart, he remembered then. Locke had called it that. The black heart does not beat alone. In his mind he replayed the vision of Norman Church being knocked upright by the bullet and then flopping helplessly naked on the bed. The look in the dying man’s eyes stayed with him. Four years later and the vision was as clear as yesterday. Why was that, he wanted to know. Why did he remember Norman Church’s face and not his own mother’s? Do I have the black heart, Bosch asked himself. Do I?
The darkness came up on him then like a wave and pulled him down. He was there with the monsters.
There was a sharp rap on the glass. Bosch abruptly opened his eyes and saw the patrolman next to the car holding his baton and flashlight. Harry quickly looked around and grabbed the wheel and put his foot on the brake. He didn’t think he had been driving that badly, then he realized he hadn’t been driving at all. He was still in the Parker Center lot. He reached over and rolled the window down.
The kid in the uniform was the lot cop. The lowest-rated cadet in each academy class was first assigned to watch the Parker Center lot duringP.M. watch. It was a tradition but it also served a purpose. If the cops couldn’t prevent car break-ins and other crime in the parking lot of their own headquarters, then it begged the question, where could they stop crime?
“Detective, are you all right?” he said as he slid his baton back into the ring on his belt. “I saw you get dropped off and get in your car. Then when you didn’t leave I wanted to check.”
“Yes,” Bosch managed to say. “I’m, uh, fine. Thanks. I musta dozed off there. Been a long day.”
“Yes, they all are. Be careful now.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay driving?”
“Fine. Thank you.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He waited until the cop walked away before starting the car. Bosch looked at his watch and figured he had slept for no more than thirty minutes. But the nap, and the sudden waking, had refreshed him. He lit a cigarette and pulled the car out onto Los Angeles Street and took it to the Hollywood Freeway entrance.
As he drove north on the freeway he rolled the window down so the cool air would keep him alert. It was a clear night. Ahead of him, the lights of the Hollywood Hills ascended into the sky where spotlights from two different locations behind the mountains cut through the darkness. He thought it was a beautiful scene, yet it made him feel melancholy.
Los Angeles had changed in the last few years, but then there was nothing new about that. It was always changing and that was why he loved it. But riot and recession had left a particularly harsh mark on the landscape, the landscape of memory. Bosch believed he would never forget the pall of smoke that hung over the city like some kind of supersmog that could not be lifted by the evening winds. The TV pictures of burning buildings and looters unchecked by the police. It had been the department’s darkest hour and it still had not recovered.
And neither had the city. Many of the ills that led to such volcanic rage were still left untended. The city offered so much beauty and yet it offered so much danger and hate. It was a city of shaken confidence, living solely on its stores of hope. In Bosch’s mind he saw the polarization of the haves and have-nots as a scene in which a ferry was leaving the dock. An overloaded ferry leaving an overloaded dock, with some people with a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock. The boat was pulling further away and it would only be so long before those in the middle would fall in. Meanwhile, the ferry was still too crowded and it would capsize at the first wave. Those left on the dock would certainly cheer this. They prayed for the wave.
He thought of Edgar and what he had done. He was one of those about to fall in. Nothing could be done about it. He and his wife, whom Edgar could not bring himself to tell about their precarious position. Bosch wondered if he had done the right thing. Edgar had spoken of the time that would come when Bosch would need every friend he could get. Would it have been wiser to bank this one, to let Edgar go, no harm no foul? He didn’t know, but there was still time. He would have to decide.
