Michael Connelly (41 page)

Behind him Bosch heard a voice he recognized as belonging to Banker’s Suit, the one called Avery. “Ah, Mr. Long, are we finished?”

Bosch glanced around to see Tran emerging from the alcove. Now he was the one who carried the briefcase. And one of the bodyguards
carried the safe-deposit box. The other big man looked right at Bosch. Bosch turned back to Grant and said, “Can we go in?”

He followed Grant into the mantrap. The door closed behind them. They were in a glass-and-white-steel room about twice the
size of a telephone booth. There was a second door at the end. Behind it stood another uniformed guard.

“This is just a detail we borrowed from the L.A. County Jail,” Grant said. “This door in front of us cannot open unless the
one behind us is closed and locked. Maury, our armed guard, makes a final visual check and opens the last door. You see, we
have the human and electronic touch here, Mr. Pounds.” He nodded to Maury, who unlocked and opened the last door of the trap.
Bosch and Grant walked out into the vault room. Bosch didn’t bother to mention that he had just successfully circumvented
the elaborate security obstacles by playing on Grant’s greed and pitching a story with a Bel Air address.

“And now into the vault,” Grant said, holding his hand out like a congenial host.

The vault was larger than Bosch had envisioned. It was not wide but it extended far back into the J. C. Stock Building. There
were safe-deposit boxes along both side walls and in a steel structure running down the center of the vault. The two began
walking down the aisle to the left as Grant explained that the center boxes were for larger storage needs. Bosch could see
that the doors were much larger than those on the side walls. Some were big enough to walk through. Grant saw Bosch staring
at these and smiled.

“Furs,” he said. “Minks. We do very good business storing expensive furs, gowns, what have you. The ladies of Beverly Hills
keep them here in the off season. Tremendous insurance savings, not to mention the peace of mind.”

Bosch tuned out the sales pitch and watched as Tran walked into the vault, trailed by Avery. Tran still had the briefcase,
and Bosch noticed a thin band of polished steel on his wrist. He was handcuffed to the briefcase. Bosch’s adrenaline kicked
in at a higher notch. Avery stepped up to an open box door marked 237 and slid the deposit box in. He closed the door and
used a key in one of the two locks on the door. Tran stepped up and put his own key in the other lock and turned it. He then
nodded to Avery and both men walked out, Tran never having looked at Bosch.

Once Tran was gone, Bosch announced that he had seen enough of the vault and headed out also. He walked to the double-plated
glass and looked out on Wilshire Boulevard and watched Tran, flanked by the two massive guards, making his way to the parking
garage where the Mercedes was parked. No one followed them. Bosch looked around but didn’t see Eleanor.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Pounds?” Grant said from behind him.

“Yes,” Bosch said. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out his badge wallet. He held it up over his shoulder so Grant
could see it from behind. “You better get me the manager of this place. And don’t call me Mr. Pounds anymore.”

• • •

Lewis stood at a pay phone in front of a twenty-four-hour diner called Darling’s. He was around the corner and about a block
from Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. It had been more than a minute since Officer Mary Grosso had answered the call and said she
would get Deputy Chief Irving on the line. Lewis was thinking that if the man wanted hourly updates — by landline, no less
— then the least he could do was take the damn call promptly. He switched the phone to his other ear and dug in his coat pocket
for something to pick his teeth with. His wrist was sore where it chafed against the pocket. But thinking about being handcuffed
by Bosch only made him angry, so he tried to concentrate on the investigation. He had no idea what was going on, what Bosch
and the FBI woman were up to. But Irving was convinced there was a caper on, and so was Clarke. If so, Lewis promised himself
at the pay phone, he would be the one who would squeeze the cuffs on Bosch’s wrists.

An old tramp with scary eyes and white hair shuffled up to the pay phone next to the one Lewis was at and checked the change
slot. It was empty. He reached a finger toward the slot of the phone Lewis was using, but the IAD detective batted it away.

“Anything there, it’s mine, pop,” Lewis said.

Undeterred, the tramp said, “You got a quarter so I can get something to eat?”

“Fuck off,” Lewis said.

“What?” a voice said.

“What?” Lewis said, and then realized the voice had come from the phone. It was Irving. “Oh, not you, sir. I didn’t realize
you were — uh, I was talking, uh, I’m having a problem here with someone. I —”

“You speak like that with a citizen?”

Lewis reached a hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. He handed it to the white-haired man and shooed him
away.

“Detective Lewis, are you there?”

“Yes, Chief. Sorry. I’ve taken care of the situation now. I wanted to report. There has been an important development.”

He hoped this last would draw Irving’s attention away from the earlier indiscretion.

Irving said, “Tell me what you have. Do you still have Bosch in sight?”

Lewis exhaled sharply, relieved.

“Yes,” he said, “Detective Clarke is continuing surveillance while I make this report.”

“All right, then give it to me. It is Friday evening, Detective, I would like to get home at a reasonable hour.”

Lewis spent the next fifteen minutes updating Irving on Bosch’s tail of the gold Mercedes from Orange County to the Beverly
Hills Safe & Lock. He said the tail was terminated at the safe and lock, which appeared to have been the intended destination.

“What are they doing now, Bosch and the bureau woman?”

“They are still in there. It looks like they are interviewing the manager. Something’s going on. It was like they didn’t know
where they were going but once they got to this place, they knew this was it.”

“Was what?”

“That’s it. I don’t know. Whatever it is they are up to. I think the guy they followed made a deposit. There is a vault, a
large vault in the front window of the place.”

“Yes, I know where you are talking about.”

Irving did not speak for a long period, and Lewis, his report completed, knew better than to interrupt. He started daydreaming
about cuffing Bosch’s hands behind his back and walking him past a battery of television cameras. He heard Irving clear his
throat.

“I don’t know their plan,” the deputy chief said. “But I want you to stay with them. If they don’t go home tonight, neither
do you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If they allowed the Mercedes Benz to go on, then it must be the vault they wanted to find. They will place the vault under
surveillance. And you, in turn, will continue to keep them under surveillance.”

“Yes, Chief,” Lewis said, though he was still lost.

Irving spent the next ten minutes giving his detective instructions and his theory of what was happening with Beverly Hills
Safe & Lock. Lewis pulled out a pad and pen and took some quick notes. At the end of the one-sided dialogue, Irving entrusted
Lewis with his home telephone number and said, “Don’t move in without my prior approval. You can call me at the number at
any time, day or night. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Lewis said urgently.

Irving hung up without saying another word.

• • •

Bosch waited in the reception area without telling Grant or the other salesmen what was going on until Wish arrived. They
stood behind their fancy desks with their mouths open. When Eleanor came to the door it was locked. She knocked and held up
her badge. The guard let her in and she walked into the reception area.

As the salesman named Avery opened his mouth to say something, Bosch said, “This is FBI Agent Eleanor Wish. She is with me.
We are going to step into one of your client offices for a private conversation. Just take a minute. If there is a head man
here, we’d like to speak to him as soon as we come out.”

Grant, still flustered, just pointed to the second door in the alcove. Bosch went in the third door and Wish followed. He
closed the door on all three of the salesmen’s eyes and locked it.

“So, what have we got? I don’t know what to tell them,” he whispered as he looked around the desk and two chairs in the room
for a scrap of paper or anything else Tran might have mistakenly left behind. There was nothing. He opened the drawers of
the mahogany desk. There were pens and pencils and envelopes and a stack of bond paper. Nothing else. There was a fax machine
on a table against the wall opposite the door but it was not turned on.

“We watch and wait,” she said, speaking very quickly. “Rourke says he is putting together a tunnel crew. They’ll go in and
have a look around. They’re going to get with DWP first to see exactly what’s down there. They should be able to figure what
the best spot for a tunnel would be and then they’ll go from there. Harry, you really think this is it?”

He nodded. He wanted to smile but didn’t. Her excitement was contagious.

“Did he get a tail on Tran in time?” he asked. “By the way, here they know him as Mr. Long.”

There was a knocking on the door and someone’s voice saying, “Excuse me. Excuse me.” Bosch and Wish ignored it.

“Tran, Bok, now Long,” Wish said. “I don’t know about the tail. Rourke said he was going to try. I gave him the plate and
told him where the Mercedes was parked. Guess we’ll find out later. He said he’d also send over a crew to work the surveillance
with us. We are going to have a surveillance meeting in the garage across the street at eight o’clock. What did they say here?”

“I haven’t told them what’s going on yet.”

There was another knock, this one louder.

“Well, then, let’s go see the head man.”

The owner and chief operating officer of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock turned out to be Avery’s father, Martin B. Avery III. He
was of the same stock as many of his customers and wanted everybody to know it. He had a private office at the rear of the
alcove. Behind his desk was a collection of framed photographs attesting to the fact that he was not just another chiseler
feeding off the rich. He was one of them. There was Avery III with a couple of presidents, a movie mogul or two, and English
royalty. One photo was of Avery and the Prince of Wales in full polo regalia, though Avery appeared too thick around the middle
and loose in the jowls to be much of a horseman.

Bosch and Wish summarized the situation for him and he was immediately skeptical. He said his vault was impregnable. They
told him to save the sales pitch and asked to see design and operation plans for the vault. Avery III flipped his $60 blotter
over, and there was the vault schematic taped to the back. It was clear that Avery III and his blow-cut salesmen were over-selling
the vault. Starting from its outermost skin and going inward, it was one-inch steel plating followed by a foot of rebarred
concrete followed by another inch of steel. The vault was thicker on the bottom and top, where there was another two-foot
layer of concrete. As with all vaults, the most impressive thing was the thick steel door, but that was for show. Just like
the hand X ray and the mantrap. Only a show. Bosch knew that if the tunnel bandits were really down below, they would have
little trouble coming up for air.

Avery III said that there had been a vault alarm on each of the past two nights, including two alarms on Thursday night. Each
time he was called at home by the Beverly Hills police. He in turn called his son, Avery IV, and dispatched him to meet the
officers. The officers and the heir then entered the business and reset the alarm after finding nothing amiss.

“We had no idea that there might be someone in the sewers below us,” Avery III said. He said it like the word sewers was wholly
beneath his usage. “Hard to believe, hard to believe.”

Bosch asked more detailed questions about the vault’s operation and security devices. Not realizing its significance, Avery
III mentioned matter-offactly that unlike conventional bank vaults his vault had a time-lock override. He had a code he could
enter into the computer lock which would purge the time-lock coordinates. He was able to open the vault door anytime.

“We must accede to our client’s needs,” he explained. “If a Beverly Hills lady should call on a Sunday because she needs her
tiara for the charity ball, I want to be able to get that tiara for her. You see, it is the service we sell.”

“Do all your clients know about that weekend service?” Wish asked.

“Of course not,” Avery III said. “Only a select few. You see, we charge a hefty fee. We must bring in a security guard to
do it.”

“How long does it take to do the override and swing the door open?” Bosch asked.

“Not long. I tap in the override code on the keypad next to the vault door and it is done in a matter of seconds. You then
set the vault unlock code in, then turn the wheel and the door opens under its own weight. Thirty seconds, perhaps a minute,
perhaps less.”

Not fast enough, Bosch thought. Tran’s box was located near the front of the vault. That’s where the bandits would be working.
They would see and probably hear the vault door being opened. No element of surprise.

An hour later, Bosch and Wish were back in his car. They had moved to the second level of the parking garage across Wilshire
and east a half block from Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. From there they had an open view of the vault room. After they had left
Avery III and taken the surveillance position, they had watched as Avery IV and Grant swung the huge stainless steel vault
door closed. They turned the wheel and typed on the computer keypad, locking it. Then the lights inside the business went
out, all except those in the glass vault room. Those always stayed on to display the very symbol of the security they offered.