leave it be for the night and read it cover to cover when he got back to the office the next day. He would also get the file on William Burkhart’s hate crime arrest.
The house was quiet when he got inside. He grabbed the phone and a beer out of the box and headed out onto the deck to check on the city. On the way he turned on the CD player. There was already a disc in the machine and he soon heard the voice of Boz Scaggs on the outside speakers. He was singing “For All We Know.”
The song competed with the muted sound of the freeway down below. Bosch looked out and saw there were no searchlights cutting across the sky from Universal Studios. It was too late for that. Still, the view was captivating in the way it could only be at night. The city shimmered out there like a million dreams, not all of them good.
Bosch thought about calling Kiz Rider back and telling her about the William Burkhart connection but decided to let it wait until the morning. He looked out at the city and felt satisfied with the day’s moves and accomplishments, but he was also out of sorts. High jingo did that to you.
The man with the knife had not been too far off in calling him a missionary man. He almost had it right. Bosch knew he had a mission in life and now, after three years, he was back on the beat. But he could not bring himself to believe it was all good. He felt that there was something out there beyond the shimmering lights and dreams, something he could not see. It was waiting for him.
He clicked on the phone and listened to an uninterrupted dial tone. It meant he had no messages. He called the retrieval number anyway and replayed a message he had saved from the week before. It was his daughter’s tiny voice, left the night she and her mother went traveling far away from him.
“Hello, Daddy,” she said. “Good night, Daddy.”
That was all she had said but that was enough. Bosch saved the message for the next time he needed it and then killed the line.
20
AT 7:50 A.M. THE NEXT DAY Bosch was back on the Nickel. He was watching the food line at the Metro Shelter and he had his eye on Robert Verloren back in the kitchen behind the steam tables. Bosch had gotten lucky. In the early morning, it was almost as if there had been a shift change among the homeless. The people who patrolled the street in darkness were sleeping off the night’s failures. They were replaced by the first shift of homeless, the people who were smart enough to hide from the street at night. Bosch’s intention had been to start at the big centers again and go from there. But as he had made his way into the homeless zone after parking again in Japantown, he started showing the photo of Verloren to the most lucid of the street people he encountered and almost immediately started getting responses. The day people recognized Verloren. Some said they had seen the man in the photo around but that he was much older now. Eventually Bosch came across one man who matter-of- factly said, “Yeah, that’s Chef,” and he pointed Bosch toward the Metro Shelter.
The Metro was one of the smaller satellite shelters that were clustered around the Salvation Army and the Los Angeles Mission and designed to handle the overflow of street people, particularly in the winter months when warmer weather in L.A. drew a migration from colder points north. These smaller centers didn’t have the means to provide three squares a day and by agreement specialized in one service. At the Metro Shelter the service was a breakfast that started at 7 a.m. daily. By the time Bosch got there the line of wobbling, disheveled men and women was extending out the door of the chow center and the long rows of picnic-style tables inside were maxed out. The word on the street was that the Metro had the best breakfast on the Nickel.
Bosch had badged his way through the door and very quickly spotted Verloren in the kitchen beyond the serving tables. It didn’t appear that Verloren was doing one particular job. Instead, he seemed to be checking on the preparation of several things. It appeared that he was in charge. He was neatly dressed in a white, double-breasted kitchen shirt over dark pants, a spotless white apron that went down past his knees and a tall white chef’s hat.
The breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs with red and green peppers, hash browns, grits and disc sausages. It looked and smelled good to Bosch, who had left home without eating anything because he wanted to get moving. To the right of the serving line was a coffee station with two large serve-yourself urns. There were racks containing cups made of thick porcelain that had chipped and yellowed over time. Bosch took a cup and filled it with scalding black coffee and he sipped it and waited. When Verloren strode to the serving table, using the skirt of his apron to hold a hot and heavy replacement pan of eggs, Bosch made his move.
“Hey, Chef,” he called above the clatter of serving spoons and voices.
Verloren looked over and Bosch saw him immediately determine that Bosch was not a “client.” As with the night before, Bosch was dressed informally, but he thought Verloren might have even been able to guess he was a cop. He stepped away from the serving table and approached. But he didn’t come all the way. There seemed to be an invisible line on the floor that was the demarcation between kitchen and eating space. Verloren didn’t cross it. He stood there using his apron to hold the near-empty serving pan he had taken from the steam table.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes, do you have a minute? I would like to talk to you.”
“No, I don’t have a minute. I’m in the middle of breakfast.”
“It’s about your daughter.”
Bosch saw the slight waver in Verloren’s eyes. They dropped for a second and then came back up.
“You’re the police?”
Bosch nodded.
“Can I just get through this rush? We’re putting out the last trays now.”
“No problem.”
“You want to eat? You look like you’re hungry.”
“Uh…”
Bosch looked around the room at the crowded tables. He didn’t know where he would sit. He knew that these sorts of chow halls had the same unspoken protocols as prisons. Add in the high degree of mental illness in the homeless population and you could be crossing some sort of line just by the seat you chose.
“Come back with me,” Verloren said. “We have a table in the back.”
Bosch turned back to Verloren but the breakfast chef was already heading back to the kitchen. Bosch followed and was led through the cooking and prep areas to a rear room where there was an empty stainless steel table with a full ashtray on it.
“Have a seat.”
Verloren removed the ashtray and held it behind his back. It was not like he was hiding it. It was like he was a waiter or a maitre d’ and he wanted his table perfect for the customer. Bosch thanked him and sat down.
“I’ll be right back.”
It seemed that in less than a minute Verloren brought a plate back loaded with all the things Bosch had seen on the serving table. When he put down the silverware Bosch saw the shake in his hand.
“Thank you, but I was just thinking, will there be enough? You know, for the people coming through?”
“We’re not turning anybody away today. Not as long as they’re on time. How’s your coffee?”
“It’s fine, thanks. You know, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to sit out there with them. I just didn’t know where to sit.”
“I understand. You don’t have to explain. Let me get those trays out and then we can talk. Is there an arrest?”
Bosch looked at him. There was a hopeful, maybe even pleading look in Verloren’s eyes.
“Not yet,” Bosch said. “But we’re getting close to something.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can. Eat. I call that Malibu scrambled.”
Bosch looked down at his plate. Verloren went back to the kitchen.
