The Harry Bosch Novels Vol I Part 73

"I hope you enjoy the job, Teresa. You're in the belly of the beast now."

"I will, Harry. And thanks for calling me this morning."

"Does he know how you came up with all of this? Did you tell him I called?"

"No. But I'm not sure I had to."

She was right. Irving would know Bosch was in the middle of this somehow. He looked past Teresa to look at Sylvia again. She was sitting quietly. The chairs on either side of her empty. No one was going to come near her.

"I'm going over to the group," Teresa said. "I told d.i.c.k Ebart I would meet him here. He wants to set up a date to call for the commission's full vote."

Bosch nodded. Ebart was a county commissioner of twenty-five years in office and closing in on seventy years old. He was her informal sponsor for the job.

"Harry, I still want to keep things on just a professional basis. I appreciate what you did for me today. But I want to keep things at a distance, for a while at least."

He nodded and watched her walk toward the gathering, her footing unsteady in high heels on the cemetery turf. For a moment Bosch envisioned her in a carnal coupling with the aged commissioner whose photos in the newspaper were most notable because of his drooping, crepe-paper neck. He was repulsed by the image and by himself for imagining it. He blanked it out of his mind and watched Teresa mingling in the crowd, shaking hands and becoming the politician she would now have to be. He felt a sense of sadness for her.

The service was a few minutes away and people were still arriving. In the crowd he picked up the gleaming head of a.s.sistant Chief Irvin Irving. He was in full uniform, carrying his hat under his arm. He was standing with the chief of police and one of the mayor's front men. The mayor was apparently late as usual. Irving then saw Bosch, broke away and started walking toward him. He seemed to be taking in the vista of the mountains as he walked. He didn't look at Bosch until he was next to him under the oak tree.

"Detective."

"Chief."

"When did you get in?"

"Just now."

"Could use a shave."

"Yeah, I know."

"So what do we do? What do we do?"

The way he said it was almost wistful and Bosch didn't know whether Irving wanted an answer from him or not.

"You know, Detective, yesterday when you did not come to my office as ordered, I opened a one-point-eighty-one on you."

"I figured you would, Chief. Am I suspended?"

"No action taken at the moment. I'm a fair man. I wanted to speak with you first. You spoke with the acting chief medical examiner this morning?"

Bosch wasn't going to lie to him. He thought this time he held all of the high cards.

"Yes. I wanted her to compare some fingerprints."

"What happened down there in Mexico to make you want to do that?"

"Nothing I care to talk about, Chief. I'm sure it will all be on the news."

"I'm not talking about that ill-fated raid undertaken by the DEA. I am talking about Moore. Bosch, I need to know if I need to walk over there and stop this funeral."

Bosch watched a blue vein pop high on Irving's shaven skull. It pulsed and then died.

"I can't help you there, Chief. It's not my call. We've got company."

Irving turned around to look back toward the gathering. Lieutenant Harvey Pounds, also in dress uniform, was walking toward them, probably wanting to find out how many cases he could close from Bosch's investigation. But Irving held up a hand like a traffic cop and Pounds abruptly stopped, turned and walked away.

"The point I am trying to make with you, Detective Bosch, is that it appears we are about to bury and eulogize a Mexican drug lord while a corrupt police officer is running around loose. Do you have any idea what embarra.s.s - d.a.m.n it! I can't believe I just spoke those words out loud. I cannot believe I spoke those words to you."

"Don't trust me much, do you, Chief?"

"In matters like these, I do not trust anyone."

"Well, don't worry about it."

"I am not worried about who I can and cannot trust."

"I mean about burying a drug lord while a corrupt cop is running around loose. Don't worry about it."

Irving studied him, his eyes narrowing, as if he might be able to peer through Bosch's own eyes, into his thoughts.

"Are you kidding me? Don't worry about it? This is a potential embarra.s.sment to this city and this department of unimaginable proportions. This could -"

"Look, man, I am telling you to forget about it. Understand? I am trying to help you out here."

Irving studied him again for a long moment. He shifted his weight to the other foot. The vein on his scalp pulsed with new life. Bosch knew it would not sit well with him, to have someone like Harry Bosch keeping such a secret. Teresa Corazon he could deal with because they both played on the same field. But Bosch was different. Harry rather enjoyed the moment, though the long silence was getting old.

"I checked with the DEA on that fiasco down there. They said this man they believe to be Zorrillo escaped. They don't know where he is."

It was a half-a.s.sed effort to get Bosch to open up. It didn't work.

"They never will know."

Irving said nothing to this but Bosch knew better than to interrupt his silence. He was working up to something. Harry let him work, watching as the a.s.sistant chief's ma.s.sive jaw muscles bunched into hard pads.

"Bosch, I want to know right now if there is a problem on this. Even a potential problem. Because I have to know in the next three minutes whether to walk over there in front of the chief and the mayor and all of those cameras and put a stop to this."

"What's the DEA doing now?"

"What can they do? They are watching the airports, contacting local authorities. Putting his photo and description out. There is not a lot they can do. He is gone. At least, they say. I want to know if he is going to stay gone."

Bosch nodded and said, "They're never going to find the man they are looking for, Chief."

"Convince me, Bosch."

"Can't do that."

"And why not?"

"Trust goes two ways. So does the lack of trust."

Irving seemed to consider this and Bosch thought he saw an almost imperceptible nod.

Bosch said, "The man they are looking for, who they believe to be Zorrillo, is in the wind and he isn't coming back. That's all you need to know."

Bosch thought of the body on the bed at Castillo de los Ojos. The face was already gone. Another two weeks and the flesh would go. No fingerprints. No identification, other than the bogus credentials in the wallet. The tattoo would stay intact for a while. But there were plenty who had that tattoo, including the fugitive Zorrillo.

He had left the money there, too. An added precaution, enough there maybe to convince the first finder not to bother calling the authorities. Just take the money and run.

Using a handkerchief, he had wiped the shotgun of his prints and left it. He locked the house, wrapped the chain through the black bars of the gate and closed the hasp on the lock, careful to wipe each surface. Then he had headed home to L.A.

"The DEA, are they putting a nice spin on things yet?" he asked Irving.

"They're working on it," Irving said. "I am told the smuggling network has been closed down. They have ascertained that the drug called black ice was manufactured on the ranch, taken through tunnels to two nearby businesses, then moved across the border. The shipment would make a detour, probably in Calexico, where it would be removed and the delivery van would go on. Both businesses have been seized. One of them, a contractor with the state to provide sterile medflies, will probably prove embarra.s.sing."

"EnviroBreed."

"Yes. By tomorrow they will finish comparisons between the bills of lading shown by drivers at the border and the receipt of cargo records at the eradication center here in Los Angeles. I am told these doc.u.ments were altered or forged. In other words more sealed boxes pa.s.sed through the border than were received at the center."

"Inside help."

"Most likely. The on-site inspector for the USDA was either dumb or corrupt. I don't know which is worse."

Irving brushed some imaginary impurity off the shoulder of his uniform. It could not be hair or dandruff, since he had neither. He turned away from Bosch to face the coffin and the thick gathering of officers around it. The ceremony was about to begin. He squared his shoulders and without turning back, he said, "I don't know what to think, Bosch. I don't know whether you have me or not."

Bosch didn't answer. That would be one Irving would have to worry about.

"Just remember," Irving said. "You have just as much to lose as the department. More. The department can always come back, always recover. It might take a good long time but it always comes back. The same can't be said for the individual who gets tarred with the brush of scandal."

Bosch smiled in a sad way. Never leave a thing uncovered. That was Irving. His parting shot was a threat, a threat that if Bosch ever used his knowledge against the department, he, too, would go down. Irving would personally see to it.

"Are you afraid?" Bosch asked.

"Afraid of what, Detective?"

"Of everything. Of me. Yourself. That it won't hold together. That I might be wrong. Everything, man. Aren't you afraid of everything?"

"The only thing that I fear are people without a conscience. Who act without thinking their actions through. I don't think you are like that."

Bosch just shook his head.

"So let's get down to it, Detective. I have to rejoin the chief and I see the mayor has arrived. What is it you want, provided it is within my authority to provide?"

"I wouldn't take anything from you," Bosch said very quietly. "That's what you just don't seem to get."

Irving finally turned around to face him again.

"You are right, Bosch. I really don't understand you. Why risk everything for nothing? You see? It raises my concerns about you all over again. You don't play for the team. You play for yourself."

Bosch looked steadily at Irving and didn't smile, though he wanted to. Irving had paid him a fine compliment, though the a.s.sistant chief would never realize it.

"What happened down there had nothing to do with the department," he said. "If I did anything at all, I did it for somebody and something else."

Irving stared back blankly, his jaw flexing as he ground his teeth. There was a crooked smile below the gleaming skull. It was then that Bosch recognized the similarity to the tattoos on the arms of Moore and Zorrillo. The devil's mask. He watched as Irving's eyes lit on something and he nodded knowingly. He looked back at Sylvia and then returned his gaze to Bosch.

"A n.o.ble man, is that it? All of this to insure a widow's pension?"

Bosch didn't answer. He wondered if it was a guess or Irving knew something. He couldn't tell.

"How do you know she wasn't part of it?" Irving said.

"I know."

"But how can you be sure? How can you take the chance?"

"The same way you're sure. The letter."

"What about it?"

Bosch had done nothing but think about Moore on his way back. He had had four hours of driving on the open road to put it together. He thought he had it.

"Moore wrote the letter himself," he began. "He informed on himself, you could say. He had this plan. The letter was the start. He wrote it."

He stopped to light a cigarette. Irving didn't say a word. He just waited for the story.

"For reasons that I guess go back to when he was a boy, Moore f.u.c.ked up. He crossed and after he was already on the other side he realized there is no crossing back. But he couldn't go on, he had to get out. Somehow.

"His plan was to start the IAD investigation with that letter. He put just enough in the letter so Chastain would be convinced there was something to it, but not enough that Chastain would be able to find anything. The letter would just serve to cloud his name, put him under suspicion. He had been in the department long enough to know how it would go. He'd seen the way IAD and people like Chastain operate. The letter set the stage, made the water murky enough so that when he turned up dead at the motel the department, meaning you, wouldn't want to look too closely at it. You're an open book, Chief. He knew you'd move quickly and efficiently to protect the department first, find out what really happened second. So he sent the letter. He used you, Chief. He used me, too."

Irving turned toward the grave site. The ceremony was about to begin. He turned back to Bosch.

"Go ahead, Detective. Quickly, please."

"Layer after layer. Remember, you told me he had rented that room for a month. That was the first layer. If he hadn't been discovered for a month decomp would've taken care of things. There would have been no skin left to print. That would leave only the latents he left in the room and he'd've been home free."

"But he was found a few weeks early," Irving helpfully interjected. "Yeah. That brings us to the second layer. You. Moore had been a cop a long time. He knew what you would do. He knew you'd go to personnel and grab his package."

"That's a big gamble, Bosch."

"You ask me, it was a better-than-even bet. Christmas night, when I saw you there with the file, I knew what it was before you said. So I can see Moore taking the gamble and switching the print cards. Like I said, he was gambling it would never come to that anyway. You were the second layer."

"And you? You were the third?"

"Yeah, the way I figure it. He used me as a sort of last backup. In case the suicide didn't wash, he wanted somebody who'd look at it and see a reason for Moore to have been murdered. That was me. I did that. He left the file for me and I went for it, thought he'd been killed over it. It was all a deflection. He just didn't want anybody looking too closely at who was actually on the tile floor in the motel. He just wanted some time."

"But you went too far, Bosch. He never planned on that."

"I guess not."