daughter’s funeral. He showed these to the people operating the help centers and the kitchen workers who put free food on hundreds of plates every day. He got little response until a kitchen worker remembered Verloren as a “client” who came through the chow line pretty regularly a few years before.
“It’s been a while,” the man said. “Haven’t seen him.”
After spending an hour in each center Bosch started working his way down the street, stepping into the smaller missions and flop hotels and showing the photos. He got a few recognitions of Verloren but nothing fresh, nothing to lead him to the man who had completely dropped off the human radar screen so many years before. He worked it until ten-thirty and decided he would return the next day to finish canvassing the street. As he walked back toward Japantown he was depressed by what he had just immersed himself in and by the dwindling hopes of finding Robert Verloren. He walked with his head down, hands in his pockets, and therefore didn’t see the two men until they had already seen him. They stepped out of the alcoves of two side-by-side toy stores as Bosch passed. One blocked his path. The other stepped out behind him. Bosch stopped.
“Hey, missionary man,” said the one in front of him.
In the dim glow from a streetlight half a block away Bosch saw the glint of a blade down at the man’s side. He turned slightly to check the man behind him. He was smaller. Bosch wasn’t sure but it looked like he was simply holding a chunk of concrete in his hand. A piece of broken curb. Both men were dressed in layers, a common sight in this part of the city. One was black and one was white.
“The kitchens are all closed up and we’re still hungry,” said the one with the knife. “You got a few bucks for us? You know, like we could borrow.”
Bosch shook his head.
“No, not really.”
“Not really? You sure ’bout that, boy? You look like you got a nice fat wallet on you now. Don’t be holding back on us.”
A black rage grew in Bosch. In a moment of sharp focus he knew what he could and would do. He would draw his weapon and put bullets into both of these men. In that same instant he knew he would walk away from it after a cursory departmental investigation. The glint of the blade was Bosch’s ticket and he knew it. The men on either side of him didn’t know what they had just walked into. It was like being in the tunnels so many years before. Everything closed down to a tight space. Nothing but kill or be killed. There was something absolutely pure about it, no gray areas and no room for anything else.
Then suddenly the moment changed. Bosch saw the one with the knife staring intently at him, reading something in his eyes, one predator taking the measure of another. The knife man seemed to grow smaller by an almost imperceptible measure. He backed off without physically backing off.
Bosch knew there were people considered to be mind readers. The truth was they were face readers. Their skill was interpreting the myriad muscle constructions of the eyes, the mouth, the eyebrows. From this they decoded intent. Bosch had a level of skill in this. His ex-wife made a living playing poker because she had an even higher skill. The man with the knife had a measure of this skill as well. It had surely saved his life this time.
“Nah, never mind,” said the man.
He took a step back toward the store’s alcove.
“Have a good night, missionary man,” he said as he retreated into the darkness.
Bosch fully turned and looked at the other man. Without a word, he too stepped back into his crack to hide and wait for the next victim.
Bosch looked up and down the street. It seemed deserted now. He turned and headed on toward his ride. As he walked he took out his cell phone and called the Central Division patrol office. He told the watch sergeant about the two men he encountered and asked him to send a patrol car.
“That kind of stuff happens on every block down there in that hellhole,” the sergeant said. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want you to send a car and roust them. They’ll think twice about doing anything to anybody.”
“Well, why didn’t you do anything about it yourself?”
“Because I’m working a case, Sergeant, and I can’t get off it to do your job or your paperwork.”
“Look, buddy, don’t be telling me how to do my job. You suits are all the same. You think -”
“Look, Sergeant, I’m going to check the crime reports in the morning. If I read that somebody got hurt down here and the suspects were a black and white team, then you’re going to have more suits around you than at the Men’s Warehouse. I guarantee it.”
Bosch closed his phone, cutting off a last protest from the watch sergeant. He picked up his pace, got to his car and started back over to the 101 Freeway. He then headed back up to the Valley.
18
FINDING COVER with a visual line on Tampa Towing was difficult. Both strip shopping plazas located on the other corners were closed and their parking lots empty. Bosch would be obvious if he parked in either one. The competing service station on the third corner was still open and thus, unusable for surveillance. After considering the situation Bosch parked on Roscoe a block away and walked back to the intersection. Borrowing an idea from the would-be robbers of less than an hour before, he found a darkened alcove in one of the strip plazas from which he could watch the service station. He knew the problem with his choice of surveillance was getting back to his car fast enough to avoid losing Mackey when he went off shift.
The ad he had checked earlier in the phone book said Tampa Towing offered twenty-four-hour service. But it was coming up on midnight and Bosch was betting that Mackey, who had come on duty at 4 p.m., would be getting off soon. He would either be replaced by a midnight man or would be on call through the night.
It was at times like this that Bosch thought about smoking again. It always seemed to make the time go faster and it took the edge off the anxiety that always built through a surveillance. But it had been more than four years now and he didn’t want to break stride. Learning two years earlier that he was a father had helped him get past the occasional weaknesses. He thought that if not for his daughter he’d probably be smoking again. At best he had controlled the addiction. By no means had he broken it.
He took out his cell phone and angled the light from its screen away from view of the service station while he punched in Kiz Rider’s home number. She didn’t answer. He tried her cell and got no answer again. He assumed she had shut down the phones so she could concentrate on writing the warrant. She had worked it that way in the past. He knew she would leave her pager on for emergencies but he didn’t think the news he had gathered during the evening’s phone calls rose to the level of emergency. He decided to wait until he saw her in the morning to tell her what he had learned.
He put his phone in his pocket and raised the binoculars to his eyes. Through the glass windows of the service station office he could see Mackey sitting behind a weathered gray desk. There was another man in a similar blue on blue uniform in the office. It must have been a slow night. Both of the men had their feet propped up on the desk and were looking up at something high on the wall over the front window. Bosch could not see what they were focused on but the changing light in the room told him it was a television.
Bosch’s phone chirped and he pulled it from his pocket and answered without lowering the binoculars. He didn’t check the display because he assumed it was Kiz Rider calling after noticing that she had missed his call.
“Hey.”
“Detective Bosch?”
It wasn’t Rider. Bosch lowered the field glasses.
“Yes, this is Bosch. How can I help you?”
“This is Tara Wood. I got your message.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks for calling back.”
“It sounds like this is your cell. I’m sorry to call so late. I just got in. I thought I was just going to leave a message on your office line.”
“No problem. I’m still working.”
Bosch went through the same interview process he had employed with the others. As he mentioned the name Roland Mackey to her he checked on Mackey through the glasses. He was still at the desk, watching the tube. Like
