The Drop (32 page)

“Tell you what. See if you can get Chu moved out of OU, but keep him in RHD. Get him a good gig over there.”

She narrowed her eyes and he continued before she could speak.

“And do it no questions asked.”

“You sure you don’t want to talk to me about this?”

“No, Kiz, I don’t.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Irving’s probably down the elevator by now. You should get back down to OU to work on your report. By two o’clock, remember?”

“See you at two.”

Bosch stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him. Chu was waiting there, smiling with pride over the stand he had made and completely unaware that his career path had just been set without a word of input or preference from him.

32

S
aturday started early for Bosch and his daughter. While still in darkness they drove down out of the hills, took the 101 freeway into downtown and then pivoted south on the 110 toward Long Beach. They caught the first ferry over to Catalina, Bosch never letting go of the locked gun case as they rode into a cold gray dawn. Once on the island, they ate breakfast at the Pancake Cottage in Avalon, the only place Harry had ever thought compared favorably to Du-par’s back in L.A.

Bosch wanted his daughter to eat a full breakfast because the plan was to eat lunch late in the day, after the pistol competition. He knew that the little tickle of hunger she’d get in the early afternoon would help her stay focused and keep her aim tight.

A year earlier when she had announced to him that her plan was to become a police officer, she had begun learning about guns and their safe use and storage. There was no philosophical debate about it. Bosch was a cop and there were guns in the house. It was simply a given and he considered it good parenting to teach his daughter how to use and safeguard the weapons. He supplemented his mentoring by enrolling her in courses at a firing range up in Newhall.

But Maddie had taken it far past a rudimentary knowledge of practice and safety. She took to shooting at paper targets with a passion and developed a steady hand and cold eye. Within six months her marksmanship put her father’s to shame. They ended each training lesson with a one-on-one match and she soon became unbeatable. She owned the ten ring at ten yards and could keep her aim steady through a sixteen-round clip.

Soon beating her old man with his own guns was not enough. And that brought them to Catalina. Maddie’s first competition was a junior match at the gun club on the back side of the island. It was a single-elimination pistol match that would pit her against all teenage entrants. Each face-off involved shooting six rounds at paper targets from ten, fifteen and twenty-five yards.

They had chosen Catalina for her first foray into competitive shooting because it was a small tournament and they knew they could make a fun day of it no matter how she performed. Maddie had never been to Catalina, and Harry had not been out to the barrier island in years.

As it turned out, she was the only girl in the competition. It was Maddie and seven boys, randomly bracketed into one-on-one matches. She won her first match going away, overcoming a weak grouping on the ten-yard target to hit seven of eight rings in the fifteen- and twenty-five-yard distances. Bosch was so proud and happy for her that he wanted to rush to the line and hug her. But he held back, knowing it would only underline that she was the only girl. Instead, he was the lone spectator applauding from the picnic tables behind the shooting line. He then put on his sunglasses so no stranger would see the look in his eyes.

His daughter was eliminated in the next round by a single-ring shot but took the disappointment well. The fact that she had competed and won her first match had made the journey worth it. She and Bosch stuck around to watch the final round and then the start of the adult competition. Maddie tried to goad Harry into entering the adult round but he demurred. His eyes were not what they once were and he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

They ate a late lunch at the Busy Bee and window-shopped along Crescent before catching the four-o’clock ferry back to the mainland. They sat inside because the sea air was cold, and along the way, Bosch put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. He knew that other girls her age weren’t learning about guns and shooting. They weren’t watching their fathers at night poring over murder books and autopsies and crime scene photos. They weren’t left alone in the house while their fathers went out with their guns to chase bad guys. Most parents were raising citizens of the future. Doctors, teachers, mothers, keepers of family businesses. Bosch was raising a warrior.

A momentary thought of Hannah Stone and her son shot through him and he squeezed his daughter’s shoulder again. He had been thinking about something and it was now time to discuss it.

“You know,” he said, “you don’t have to do any of this if you don’t want to. Don’t do it for me, Mads. The gun stuff. The being a cop thing, too. You do what you want to do. You make your own choices.”

“I know, Dad. I do make my own choices and it’s what I want. We talked about this a long time ago.”

It was Bosch’s hope that she would be able to leave her past behind and forge something new. He had been unable to do it himself and it haunted him that she might be the same way.

“Okay, baby. There’s a lot of time between now and then anyway.”

A few minutes went by while he thought of things. He could see the disguised oil derricks in the harbor just coming into view. A call came in on his cell and he saw it was from David Chu. He let it go to message. He wasn’t going to spoil this moment with work or, more likely, Chu groveling for a second chance. He put the phone away and kissed the top of his daughter’s head.

“I guess I’ll always have to worry about you,” he said. “It’s not like you could want to be a teacher or something safe like that.”

“I hate school, Dad. Why would I want to be a teacher?”

“I don’t know. To change the system, make it better so the next kids don’t hate it.”

“One teacher? Forget it.”

“It just takes one. It always starts with one. Anyway, like I said, you do what you want. You’ve got time. I guess I’ll worry about you no matter what you do.”

“Not if you teach me all you know. Then you won’t have to worry because I’ll be like you out there.”

Bosch laughed.

“If you’re like me out there, then I’ll have to walk around all day with rosary beads in one hand, a rabbit’s foot in the other and maybe a four-leaf clover tattooed on my arm.”

She drove an elbow into his side.

Bosch let another few minutes go by. He pulled his phone and checked to see if Chu had left a message. There was nothing and Bosch figured his partner had been calling to once again plead his case. It was not the kind of thing you would put into a voicemail.

He put the phone away and turned the father-daughter conversation more serious.

“Look, Mads, I’ve been wanting to tell you something else, too.”

“I know, you’re marrying the lady with the lipstick?”

“No, serious now, and there was no lipstick.”

“I know. What is it?”

“Well, I’m thinking about turning in my badge. Retiring. It might be time.”

She didn’t respond for a long time. He had expected an immediate and urgent demand that he trash such thoughts but to her credit she seemed to be running it through her processes and not kicking out a first and possibly wrong response.

“But why?” she finally asked.

“Well, I am thinking that I’m tailing off, you know? Like anything—athletics, shooting, playing music, even creative thinking—there’s a drop-off of skills at a certain point. And, I don’t know, but maybe I’m getting there and I should get out. I’ve seen people lose their edge and it increases the danger. I don’t want to miss the chance to see you grow up and shine at whatever you decide you want to do.”

She nodded as if in agreement but then the keen perception and disagreement came out.

“You’re thinking all of this because of one case?”

“Not just the one case but that’s a good example. I totally went the wrong way with it. I have to think that wouldn’t have happened five years ago. Even two years ago. I might be losing the edge you need to do this.”

“But sometimes you have to go the wrong way to find the right way.”

She turned in her seat to look directly at him.

“Like you told me, you make your own choices. But if I were you, I wouldn’t do anything real quick.”

“I’m not. There’s a guy out there that I have to find first. I was thinking that would be a good one to go out on.”

“But what would you do if you quit?”

“I’m not sure but I know one thing. I think I would be able to be a better father. You know, be around more.”

“That doesn’t necessarily make you a better father. Remember that.”

Bosch nodded. He sometimes had a hard time believing he was talking to a fifteen-year-old. This was one of those times.

33

O
n Sunday morning, Bosch dropped his daughter off at the mall in Century City. The day had been reserved a week earlier for her and her friends Ashlyn and Konner to meet at the mall at eleven and then spend the day shopping, eating and gossiping. The girls scheduled mall days once a month and targeted a different shopping center each time. This time Bosch felt the most comfortable leaving them on their own. No mall was safe from predators but he knew that security would be at its maximum on a Sunday and the Century City mall had a good record of vigilance. They had undercover officers posing as shoppers all through the place and much of the weekend security force was composed of moonlighting cops.

On most mall Sundays, Bosch would head downtown after the daughter drop and work in the deserted OU squad room. He liked the stillness of the place on the weekends and it usually brought a strong focus to his case work. But this time he wanted to stay away from the PAB. He had picked up the
Times
early that morning when he went down the hill to buy milk and coffee at the convenience store. Standing in line, he had noticed that there was another front-page story related to George Irving’s death. He bought the paper and read the story in the car. Reported by Emily Gomez-Gonzmart, it focused on George Irving’s work for Regent Taxi and raised questions about the seeming coincidence of his representation of the company and the rise of legal issues that befell Black & White, its competitor for the Hollywood area franchise. The story made the leap to Irvin Irving. Arrest records led them to Officer Robert Mason, who told the same tale of being directly asked by the councilman to crack down on B&W.

Bosch guessed that the story was going to cause a stir at the PAB as well as City Hall. He would steer clear of the place until he had to go in to work the next morning.

As he drove away from the mall, Bosch pulled his phone to make sure it was on. He was surprised he had not heard from Chu, if only to deny that he was the source who had steered GoGo toward the story. He was also surprised not to have received a call from Kiz Rider. The fact that it was closing in on noon and she had not called him about the story told him one thing. That she was the story’s source and was lying low herself.

Either on her own or more likely in concert with the chief’s tacit direction, the play had been to out Irvin Irving rather than coerce his cooperation through silence. It was hard not to agree with the choice. Dangling him out there in the media, tainting him with the brush of corruption, could serve to eliminate him as a threat to the department. A lot could happen in the final month of an election campaign. Maybe the chief had decided to take his best shot now and see if the story might gather steam and affect the outcome of the election. Maybe he wanted to take the chance that Irving’s opponent would be a friend to the department rather than a compromised and coerced enemy.

It didn’t really matter to Bosch either way. It was all high jingo. But what did matter to him was that Kiz Rider, his friend and former partner, was now fully ensconced on the tenth floor as a political operative. He knew he had to keep that in mind as he had further dealings with her and that realization hit him like a deep loss.

He knew his best move at this point was to keep his own head down. He was sure now that he was marking his last days in the department. The thirty-nine months he had been so happy to receive a week ago now seemed almost like a sentence to be served. He’d take the afternoon off and steer clear of the PAB and everything else about the job.

While he had the phone out he took a flier and called Hannah Stone’s cell. She answered right away.

“Hannah, are you at home or work?”

“Home. No therapy on Sundays. What’s up? Did you find Chilton Hardy?”

There was an excited tone of anticipation in her voice.

“Uh, no, not yet. But he’ll be the priority starting tomorrow. Actually, I was calling because I sort of have the afternoon free. Until I pick my daughter up around five at the mall. I thought if you were off and had the day free, we could have lunch or something. I want to talk about things. You know, see if we can’t find a way to try this.”

The truth was, Bosch couldn’t quite dismiss her. He had always been drawn to women hiding tragedy behind their eyes. He had been thinking about Hannah and believed that if they just set certain boundaries in regard to her son, then they might be able to carve out a chance for themselves.

“That would be great, Harry. I want to talk, too. Do you want to come here?”

Bosch checked the dash clock.

“I’m in Century City. I think I can be there by about twelve to pick you up. Maybe you can think of a place to go on Ventura Boulevard. Hell, I’m even willing to try sushi.”

She laughed and Bosch liked the sound of it.

“No, I meant come here,” she said. “For lunch and to talk. We can just stay here and be private and I can just make something. Nothing fancy.”

“Uh . . .”

“And then we’ll just see what happens.”