The Brass Verdict (27 page)

“I’m at the office. Vincent’s office. I was leaving and I saw him in the garage. I ran back inside and he ran in after me. He tried to get into the office. I think he’s gone but I’m not sure. I fired a couple of shots and then—”

“You have a gun?”

“Goddamn right I do.”

“I suggest you put it away before somebody gets hurt.”

“If that guy’s still out there, he’ll be the one getting hurt. Who the hell is he?”

There was a pause before he answered.

“I don’t know yet. Look, I’m still downtown and was just heading home myself. I’m in the car. Sit tight and I’ll be there in five minutes. Stay in the office and keep the door locked.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not moving.”

“And don’t shoot me when I get there.”

“I won’t.”

I reached over and hung up the office phone. I didn’t need 911 if Bosch was coming. I picked the gun back up.

“Hey, Haller?”

“What?”

“What did he want?”

“What?”

“The guy. What did he come there for?”

“That’s a good goddamn question. But I don’t have the answer.”

“Look, stop fucking around and tell me!”

“I’m telling you! I don’t know what he’s after. Now quit talking and get over here!”

I involuntarily squeezed my hands into fists as I yelled and put an accidental shot into the floor. I jumped as though I had been shot at by someone else.

“Haller!” Bosch yelled. “What the hell was that?”

I pulled in a deep breath and took my time composing myself before answering.

“Haller? What’s going on?”

“Get over here and you’ll find out.”

“Did you hit him? Did you put him down?”

Without answering I closed the phone.

Thirty-two

B
osch made it in six minutes but it felt like an hour. A dark image appeared on the other side of the glass and he knocked sharply.

“Haller, it’s me, Bosch.”

Carrying the gun at my side, I unlocked the door and let him in. He, too, had his gun out and at his side.

“Anything since we were on the phone?” he asked.

“Haven’t seen or heard him. I guess I scared his ass away.”

Bosch holstered his gun and threw me a look, as if to say my tough-guy pose was convincing no one except maybe myself.

“What was that last shot?”

“An accident.”

I pointed toward the hole in the floor.

“Give me that gun before you get yourself killed.”

I handed it over and he put it into the waistband of his pants.

“You don’t own a gun — not legally. I checked.”

“It’s my investigator’s. He leaves it here at night.”

Bosch scanned the ceiling, until he saw the two holes I had put there. He then looked at me and shook his head.

He went over to the blinds and checked the street. Broadway was dead out there this time of night. A couple nearby buildings had been converted into residential lofts but Broadway still had a way to go before recapturing the nightlife it had had eighty years before.

“Okay, let’s sit down,” he said.

He turned from the window to see me standing behind him.

“In your office.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to talk about this.”

I moved into the office and took a seat behind the desk. Bosch sat down across from me.

“First of all, here’s your stuff. I found it out there on the bridge.”

From the pocket of his jacket he pulled my wallet and loose bills. He put it all on the desk and then reached back in for the coins.

“Okay, now what?” I asked as I put my property back in my pocket.

“Now we talk,” Bosch said. “First off, do you want to file a report on this?”

“Why bother? You know about it. It’s your case. Why don’t you know who this guy is?”

“We’re working on it.”

“That’s not good enough, Bosch! He came after me! Why can’t you ID him?”

Bosch shook his head.

“Because we think he’s a hitter brought in from out of town. Maybe out of the country.”

“That’s fucking fantastic! Why did he come back here?”

“Obviously, because of you. Because of what you know.”

“Me? I don’t know anything.”

“You’ve been in here for three days. You must know something that makes you a danger to him.”

“I’m telling you, I’ve got nothing.”

“Then, you have to ask yourself, why did that guy come back? What did he leave behind or forget the first time?”

I just stared at him. I actually wanted to help. I was tired of being under the gun — in more ways than one — and if I could’ve given Bosch just one answer, I would have.

I shook my head.

“I can’t think of a single—”

“Come on, Haller!” Bosch barked at me. “Your life is threatened here! Don’t you get it? What’ve you got?”

“I told you!”

“Who did Vincent bribe?”

“I don’t know and I couldn’t tell you if I did.”

“What did the FBI want with him?”

“I don’t know that, either!”

He started pointing at me.

“You fucking hypocrite. You’re hiding behind the protections of the law, while the killer is out there waiting. Your ethics and rules won’t stop a bullet, Haller. Tell me what you’ve got!”

“I told you! I don’t have anything and don’t point your fucking finger at me. This isn’t my job. It’s your job. And maybe if you would get it done, people around here would feel—”

“Excuse me?”

The voice came from behind Bosch. In one fluid move he turned and pivoted out of his chair, drawing his gun and aiming it at the door.

A man holding a trash bag stood there, his eyes going wide in fright.

Bosch immediately lowered his weapon, and the office cleaner looked like he might faint.

“Sorry,” Bosch said.

“I come back later,” the man said in a thick accent from Eastern Europe.

He turned and disappeared quickly through the door.

“Goddamn it!” Bosch cursed, clearly unhappy about pointing his gun at an innocent man.

“I doubt we’ll ever get our trash cans emptied again,” I said.

Bosch went over to the door and closed and bolted it. He came back to the desk and looked at me with angry eyes. He sat back down, took a deep breath and proceeded in a much calmer voice.

“I’m glad you can keep your sense of humor, Counselor. But enough with the fucking jokes.”

“All right, no jokes.”

Bosch looked like he was struggling internally with what to say or do next. His eyes swept the room and then held on me.

“All right, look, you’re right. It is my job to catch this guy. But you had him right here. Right goddamn here! And so it stands to reason that he was here with a purpose. He came to either kill you, which seems unlikely, since he apparently doesn’t even know you, or he came to get something from you. The question is, what is it? What is in this office or in one of your files that could lead to the identity of the killer?”

I tried to match him with an even-tempered voice of my own.

“All I can tell you is that I have had my case manager in here since Tuesday. I’ve had my investigator in here, and Jerry Vincent’s own receptionist was in here up until lunchtime today, when she quit. And none of us, Detective,
none of us,
has been able to find the smoking gun you’re so sure is here. You tell me that Vincent paid somebody a bribe. But I can find no indication in any file or from any client that that is true. I spent the last three hours in here looking at the Elliot file and I saw no indication — not one — that he paid anybody off or bribed somebody. In fact, I found out that he didn’t
need
to bribe anybody. Vincent had a magic bullet and he had a shot at winning the case fair and square. So when I tell you I have nothing, I mean it. I’m not playing you. I’m not holding back. I have nothing to give you. Nothing.”

“What about the FBI?”

“Same answer. Nothing.”

Bosch didn’t respond. I saw true disappointment cloud his face. I continued.

“If this mustache man is the killer, then, of course there is a reason that brought him back here. But I don’t know it. Am I concerned about it? No, not concerned. I’m fucking scared shitless about it. I’m fucking scared shitless that this guy thinks I have something, because if I have it, I don’t even know I have it, and that is not a good place to be.”

Bosch abruptly stood up. He pulled Cisco’s gun out of his waistband and put it down on the desk.

“Keep it loaded. And if I were you, I would stop working at night.”

He turned and headed toward the door.

“That’s it?” I called after him.

He spun in his tracks and came back to the desk.

“What else do you want from me?”

“All you want is information from me. Most of the time information I can’t give. But you in turn give nothing back, and that’s half the reason I’m in danger.”

Bosch looked like he might be about to jump over the desk at me. But then I saw him calm himself once more. All except for the palpitation high on his cheek near his left temple. That didn’t go away. That was his tell, and it was a tell that once again gave me a sense of familiarity.

“Fuck it,” he finally said. “What do you want to know, Counselor? Go ahead. Ask me a question — any question — and I’ll answer it.”

“I want to know about the bribe. Where did the money go?”

Bosch shook his head and laughed in a false way.

“I give you a free shot and I say to myself that I’ll answer your question, no matter what it is, and you go and ask me the question I don’t have an answer to. You think if I knew where the money went and who got the bribe that I’d be here right now with you? Uh-uh, Haller, I’d be booking a killer.”

“So you’re sure one thing had to do with the other? That the bribe — if there was a bribe — is connected to the killing.”

“I’m going with the percentages.”

“But the bribe — if there was a bribe — went down five months ago. Why was Jerry killed now? Why’s the FBI calling him now?”

“Good questions. Let me know if you come up with any answers. Meantime, anything else I can do for you, Counselor? I was heading home when you called.”

“Yeah, there is.”

He looked at me and waited.

“I was on my way out, too.”

“What, you want me to hold your hand on the way to the garage? Fine, let’s go.”

I closed the office once again and we proceeded down the hall to the bridge to the garage. Bosch had stopped talking and the silence was nerve-racking. I finally broke it.

“I was going to go have a steak. You want to come? Maybe we’ll solve the world’s problems over some red meat.”

“Where, Musso’s?”

“I was thinking Dan Tana’s.”

Bosch nodded.

“If you can get us in.”

“Don’t worry. I know a guy.”

Thirty-three

B
osch followed me but when I slowed on Santa Monica Bou-levard to pull into the valet stop in front of the restaurant, he kept going. I saw him drive by and turn right on Doheny.

I went in by myself and Craig sat me in one of the cherished corner booths. It was a busy night but things were tapering off. I saw the actor James Woods finishing dinner in a booth with a movie producer named Mace Neufeld. They were regulars and Mace gave me a nod. He had once tried to option one of my cases for a film but it didn’t work out. I saw Corbin Bernsen in another booth, the actor who had given the best approximation of an attorney I had ever seen on television. And then in another booth, the man himself, Dan Tana, was having a late dinner with his wife. I dropped my eyes to the checkered tablecloth. Enough who’s who. I had to prepare for Bosch. During the drive, I had thought long and hard about what had just happened back at the office and now I only wanted to think about how best to confront Bosch about it. It was like preparing for the cross-examination of a hostile witness.

Ten minutes after I was seated, Bosch finally appeared in the doorway and Craig led him to me.

“Get lost?” I asked as he squeezed into the booth.

“I couldn’t find a parking space.”

“I guess they don’t pay you enough for valet.”

“No, valet’s a beautiful thing. But I can’t give my city car to a valet. Against the rules.”

I nodded, guessing that it was probably because he packed a shotgun in the trunk.

I decided to wait until after we ordered to make a play with Bosch. I asked if he wanted to look at the menu and he said he was ready to order. When the waiter came, we both ordered the Steak Helen with spaghetti and red sauce on the side. Bosch ordered a beer and I asked for a bottle of flat water.

“So,” I said, “where’s your partner been lately?”

“He’s working on other aspects of the investigation.”

“Well, I guess it’s good to hear there are other aspects to it.”

Bosch studied me for a long moment before replying.

“Is that supposed to be a crack?”

“Just an observation. Doesn’t seem from my end to be much happening.”

“Maybe that’s because your source dried up and blew away.”

“My source? I don’t have any source.”

“Not anymore. I figured out who was feeding your guy and that ended today. I just hope you weren’t paying him for the information because IAD will take him down for that.”

“I know you won’t believe me, but I have no idea who or what you are talking about. I get information from my investigator. I don’t ask him how he gets it.”

Bosch nodded.

“That’s the best way to do it, right? Insulate yourself and then you don’t get any blowback in your face. In the meantime, if a police captain loses his job and pension, those are the breaks.”

I hadn’t realized Cisco’s source was so highly placed.

The waiter brought our drinks and a basket of bread. I drank some of the water as I contemplated what to say next. I put the glass down and looked at Bosch. He raised his eyebrows like he was expecting something.

“How’d you know when I was leaving the office tonight?”

Bosch looked puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“I figure it was the lights. You were out there on Broadway, and when I killed the lights, you sent your guy into the garage.”