The Drop

announcing the plans to go for the Hollywood franchise.”

Bosch was looking at the letter as they spoke. It was dated two Mondays earlier.

“Was there any response to this?” he asked.

“Not yet. It would have been in the file if there was.”

“Thank you, Dana.”

Bosch hung up and went back to looking through the Regent file. He found a paper-clipped batch of printouts that must have been the backup Irving used for the allegations contained in the letter. There was a copy of a story that had been in the Times which reported that the third Black & White driver in four months had been arrested for driving drunk while operating a taxi. The story also reported that a B&W driver was determined to have been at fault in an accident involving serious injuries to the couple in the cab’s backseat earlier in the year. The stack also contained copies of the arrest reports on the DUI stops and a batch of moving violations that had been written against B&W drivers. Everything from running red lights to double-parking, the moving violations were probably just routine and collateral to the DUI arrests.

The records made it easy for Bosch to see why Irving thought B&W was vulnerable. Snatching the Hollywood franchise was probably going to be the easiest piece of business he had ever done.

Bosch quickly scanned the arrest reports but was snagged by a curiosity. He noticed that in each of the reports, the same badge number had been entered in the block identifying the arresting officer. Three arrests spread over four months. It seemed beyond coincidence that the same cop would have made all three arrests. He knew that it was conceivable that the badge number simply belonged to the jail officer who had administered the Breathalyzer tests at Hollywood Division after the cab drivers were taken into custody by other officers. But even that would have been unusual and out of procedure.

He picked up the phone and called the department’s personnel office. He gave his own name and badge number and said he needed to get an ID off a badge. He was transferred to a mid-level bureaucrat who looked it up on the computer and gave Bosch the name, rank and assignment.

“Robert Mason, P-three, Hollywood.”

As in Bobby Mason. George Irving’s longtime friend—until recently.

Bosch thanked her and hung up. He wrote down the information he had just assembled and then studied it. He could not dismiss as happenstance the fact that Mason had made three DUI arrests of B&W drivers at a time he was apparently still friends with a man representing a rival to B&W’s Hollywood franchise.

He circled Mason’s name in his notes. The patrol officer was definitely someone Bosch wanted to talk to. But not yet. Bosch needed to know far more than he knew now before he could make the approach.

He moved on and next studied the arrest summaries, which contained the probable cause for detaining the drivers. In each case the driver had been observed driving erratically. In one of the cases, the summary noted that a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey had been found under the driver’s seat of the taxi.

Bosch noted that the report did not mention the size of the bottle and for a moment he mused over the choice of the words half empty over half full and the different interpretations the descriptions might bring. But then Chu rolled his chair over and leaned against his desk.

“Harry, it sounds like you have something going.”

“Yeah, maybe. You want to take a ride?”

18

Black & White Taxi was located on Gower south of Sunset. It was an industrial neighborhood full of businesses that catered to the movie industry. Costume warehouses, camera houses, prop houses. B&W was in one of two side-by-side sound-stages that looked old and worn-out. The cab company operated out of one, and the other was a storage and rental facility for movie cars. Bosch had been in the car storage facility before on a case. He had taken his time walking through. It was like a museum with every car that had ever caught his eye as a teenager.

The two hangar doors of B&W were wide open. Bosch and Chu walked in. In the moment of blindness when their eyes adjusted from the transition of sunlight to shadows, they were almost hit by a taxi heading out to the street. They jumped back and let the black-and-white-checked Impala go between them.

“Asshole,” Chu said.

There were cars sitting dormant and cars up on jacks being worked on by mechanics in greasy coveralls. At the far end of the large space, two picnic tables sat next to a couple of snack and beverage machines. A handful of drivers were hanging out there, waiting for their chariots to pass muster with the mechanics.

To their right was a small office with windows that were so dirty they were opaque. But behind them Harry could see shapes and movement. He led Chu that way.

Bosch knocked once on the door and went in without waiting for a response. They stepped into an office with three desks pushed up against three of the walls and overflowing with paperwork. Two of them were occupied by men who had not turned to see who had entered. Both of them were wearing headsets. The man on the right was dispatching a car to a pickup at the Roosevelt Hotel. Bosch waited for him to finish.

“Excuse me,” he said.

Both men turned to look at the intruders. Bosch was ready with his badge out.

“I need to ask a couple questions.”

“Well, we’re running a business here and don’t—”

A phone rang and the man on the left punched a button on his desk to activate his headset.

“Black and White. . . . Yes, ma’am, that will be five to ten minutes. Would you like us to call upon arrival?”

He wrote something down on a yellow Post-it, then tore it off the pad and handed it to the dispatcher so he could send a car to the address.

“Car’s on the way, ma’am,” he said, then punched the desk button to disconnect the call.

He swiveled in his seat to face Bosch and Chu.

“You see?” he said. “We don’t have any time for your bullshit.”

“What bullshit is that?”

“I don’t know, whatever you’re spinning today. We know what you’re doing.”

Another call came in, and the info was taken and moved to the dispatcher. Bosch stepped into the space between the two desks. If the call taker wanted to pass a Post-it to the dispatcher now, he’d have to go through Bosch.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bosch said.

“Good, then neither do I,” the call taker said. “We can just never mind this whole thing. Have a good day.”

“Except I still need to ask a couple questions.”

The phone buzzed again but this time when the man reached for the desk button, Bosch was quicker. He pushed it once to connect the call, then again to disconnect it.

“What the fuck you doing, man? This is our business here.”

“It’s my business being here, too. They’ll just call somebody else. Maybe Regent Cab will get their business.”

Bosch checked him for a reaction and saw his tight-lipped response.

“Now, who is driver twenty-six?”

“We don’t give drivers numbers. We give cars numbers.”

His tone was meant to convey that he thought this was the dumbest pair of cops going.

“Then tell me who was driving car twenty-six about nine thirty Sunday night.”

The call taker leaned back so he could look around Bosch at the dispatcher and they exchanged a silent message.

“You got a warrant for that?” the dispatcher asked. “We’re not just going to give you a guy’s name so you can go out and trump up another bullshit arrest on us.”

“I don’t need a warrant,” Bosch said.

“The hell you don’t!” cried the dispatcher.

“What I need is your cooperation, and if I don’t get it, those deuces you’re worried about are going to be the