was eighteen.”
“I think we hold back on the parents until we talk to everybody else. They might be most important but they should be last. I want to know as much as possible before we hit them with this after seventeen years.”
“Fine. Maybe we should start at probation. He only cleared a year ago. He probably was assigned to Van Nuys.”
“Right. We could go there and then walk over to talk to Art Garcia.”
“You found him? He’s still around?”
“Didn’t have to look. He’s commander of Valley Bureau now.”
Bosch nodded. He was not surprised. Garcia had done well. The rank of commander put him just below deputy chief. It meant he was second in command over the Valley’s five police divisions, including Devonshire, where years earlier he had worked the Verloren case.
Rider continued.
“In addition to our regular projects in the chief’s office, each of the special assistants was assigned as sort of a liaison to one of the four bureaus. My assignment was the Valley. So Commander Garcia and I spoke from time to time. Most often I dealt with his staff, or Deputy Chief Vartan, that sort of thing.”
“I know what you’re saying-I have a highly connected partner. You were probably telling Vartan and Garcia how to run the Valley.”
She shook her head in false annoyance.
“Don’t give me shit about all of that. Working on six gave me a good view of the department and how it works.”
“Or doesn’t. Speaking of which, there’s something I should tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I ran into Irving when I went down to get coffee. Right after you left.”
Rider immediately looked concerned.
“What happened? What did he say?”
“Not a lot. He just called me a retread and mentioned that I was going to crash and burn and that when I did I would take the chief down with me for hiring me back. Then, of course, when the dust settles Mr. Clean would be there to step up.”
“Jesus, Harry. One day on the job and you already have Irving biting you on the ass?”
Bosch spread his hands wide, almost hitting the shoulder of a man sitting at the next table.
“I went to get coffee. He was there. He approached me, Kiz. I was just minding my own business. I swear.”
She bent her face down to look at her plate. She continued eating without talking to him. She dropped her last pork chop half eaten on the plate.
“I can’t eat any more, Harry. Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m ready.”
Bosch left more than enough money on the table and Rider said she would get the next one. Outside they got into Bosch’s car, a black Mercedes SUV, and drove back through Chinatown to the entrance of the northbound 101. They made it all the way to the freeway before Rider spoke again about Irving.
“Harry, don’t take him lightly,” she said. “Be very careful.”
“I am always careful, Kiz, and I have never taken that man lightly.”
“All I’m saying is, he’s been passed over twice for the top spot. He may be getting desperate.”
“Yeah, you know what I don’t get? Why didn’t your guy get rid of him when he came in here? I mean, just clean house. Pushing Irving across the street doesn’t put an end to the threat. Anybody knows that.”
“He couldn’t push him. Irving ’s got forty-plus years on the job. He has a lot of connections that go outside the department and into City Hall. And he knows where a lot of the bodies are buried. The chief couldn’t make a move against him unless he was sure there wouldn’t be any blowback from it.”
More silence followed. The early afternoon traffic out to the Valley was light. They had KFWB, the all news and traffic channel, on the radio and there were no reports of problems ahead. Bosch checked the gas and saw he had half a tank. That was plenty.
They had decided earlier to alternate use of their personal cars. A department car had been requisitioned and approved for them to share, but they both knew that getting the R amp;A was the easy part. It would most likely be months if not longer before they would actually get the wheels. The department had neither the spare car nor the money for a new one. Getting the R amp;A had simply been a paperwork approval needed before they could charge the department for gas and mileage on their personal cars. Bosch knew that over time he would probably put so many miles on his SUV that the expense payout would likely cost the department more than the approved car.
“Look,” he finally said, “I know what you’re thinking even if you’re not saying it. It’s not just me you’re worried about. You stuck your neck out for me and you convinced the chief to take me back in. Believe me, Kiz, I know it’s not just me riding on this-on this retread. You don’t have to worry and you can tell the chief he doesn’t have to worry. I get it. There won’t be a blowout. There won’t be any blowback from me.”
“Good, Harry. I’m glad to hear that.”
He tried to think of something that he could say to convince her further. He knew words were just words.
“You know, I don’t know if I ever told you this, but after I quit I really sort of liked it at first. You know, being out of the squad and just sort of doing what I wanted. Then I started to miss it and then I started working cases again. On my own. Anyway, one thing that happened was I started walking with sort of a limp.”
“A limp?”
“Just a little thing. Like one of my heels was lower than the other. Like I was uneven.”
“Well, did you check your shoes?”
“I didn’t need to check my shoes. It wasn’t my shoes. It was my gun.”
He looked over at her. She was staring straight ahead, her eyebrows set in that deep V she used so much with him. He looked back at the road ahead.
“I carried a gun for so long that when I no longer had it on me it threw off my balance. I was uneven.”
“Harry, that’s a strange story.”
They were going through the Cahuenga Pass. Bosch looked out his window and up the hillside, searching for his house nestled in among the others in the folds of the mountain. He thought he saw a glimpse of the back deck sticking out over the brown brush.
“You want to call Garcia and see if we can drop in and see him after we go by probation?” he asked.
“Yeah, I will-as soon as you get to the point of that story.”
He thought for a long moment before answering.
“The point is, I need the gun. I need the badge. Otherwise I’m out of balance. I need all of this. Okay?”
He looked over at Rider. She looked back at him but didn’t answer.
“I know what I got with this chance. So fuck Irving and his calling me a retread. I won’t fuck up.”
8
TWENTY MINUTES LATER they stepped into one of Bosch’s least favorite places in the city: the probation and parole office of the state’s Department of Corrections in Van Nuys. It was a single-story brick building crowded with people waiting to see probation and parole agents, to give urine samples, to make their court-ordered check-ins, to turn themselves in for incarceration or to plead for one more chance of freedom. It was a place where desperation, humiliation and rage were palpable in the air. It was a place where Bosch tried not to make eye contact with anyone.
Bosch and Rider had something none of the others had: badges. It helped them cut through the lines and get an immediate audience with the agent Roland Mackey had been assigned to after his arrest two years earlier for lewd and lascivious behavior. Thelma Kibble was recessed in a standard government-issue cubicle in a room crowded with many identical cubicles. Her desk and the one government-issue shelf that came with the cubicle were crowded with the files of the convicts she was charged with shepherding through probation or parole. She was of medium size and build. Her eyes were brightly set off against her dark brown skin. Bosch and Rider introduced
