They also allowed for a quick abort if the chief saw that Luzon was armed or if Luzon cut back to the detective bureau to retrieve his gun before leaving the station and crossing the street.
“Now, does he carry a backup?” Valdez asked.
“If he does, it’s not registered,” Bosch said.
“We checked the registry,” Lourdes said.
Department regulations allowed an officer to carry a boot gun or some other backup weapon as long as it was on an approved list of firearms and the officer notified command staff and entered the details in the weapons registry.
“Did you ever know him to carry a throw-down?” Bosch asked.
“No, never,” Valdez said.
“So do we do this?” Bella asked.
“We do it,” Valdez said. “But Bella, I want you over there with Harry. As backup.”
“Got it,” she said.
An hour later they went forward with the plan. Lourdes confirmed that Luzon was at his desk and was not wearing his weapon before she sent Valdez the go-ahead text. The chief then told his secretary to summon Luzon, and when the detective left the bureau, Lourdes confirmed that he had left his weapon behind. She then headed out the side door and crossed the street to the old jail.
Bosch was sitting at his makeshift desk in the old drunk tank when Luzon walked in carrying a memo from the chief with the schedule for the upcoming training days. He put it down on the old door that Bosch used as a desktop.
“That’s from the chief,” he said. “Asked me to drop it by.”
“Thanks,” Bosch said.
Luzon turned to go back.
“Did you hear about Sylmar last night?” Bosch asked.
Luzon reversed himself and was facing Bosch again.
“Sylmar?” he asked. “What about it?”
“They got the guy who hit our witness,” Bosch said.
Luzon just looked at him, revealing nothing.
“He took a shot in the gut himself,” Bosch said. “So he’s not doing too good. They’re hoping to stabilize him and have him ready to talk in a day or two.”
“Good,” Luzon said. “I’m going back to the bureau.”
He once more moved toward the cell’s exit.
“That doesn’t worry you, Oscar?” Bosch asked.
Luzon once again turned back and looked at Bosch.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Luzon asked.
“It was your buddy the witch doctor, Carlos Mejia,” Bosch said. “And I lied. He’s already talking and he gave you up. Said you told him about Martin Perez.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Lourdes stepped out of the next cell down and into the hallway that ran in front of the old cells. She took a position behind Luzon. He felt her presence and turned to see her.
“What the fuck is this?” he said.
Bosch stood up.
“You know what it is?” he said. “This is your chance to get out in front of this. Tell us what happened, what you did, and maybe there’s a way out for you.”
“I didn’t do anything. I told you, this is bullshit.”
“You’re playing it wrong, man. You’re giving him the leverage. They’ll lock in his story and come for you.”
Luzon seemed to freeze. His eyes went blank as he tried to figure out his next move. Bosch said nothing. Lourdes said nothing. They waited.
“All right, look,” he finally said. “I made a mistake. You two weren’t saying shit about what the search warrant at the garage was about. I thought maybe I could come up with something that would help. All I did was ask him what that place had to do with the SanFers. That’s it. He figured everything out from there.”
“That story is what’s bullshit,” Bosch said. “How’d he find Perez in Alhambra?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me. You’re the one who got Perez killed. Don’t look at me now.”
“No, man, it was you. You told Mejia. And the thing is, he’s going to give you up in a heartbeat as soon as they offer him a deal.”
Luzon stared at Bosch as he realized that Mejia wasn’t talking — yet — and that he had fallen for the oldest cop bluff in the book. He turned to Lourdes as if for help. Bosch was an outsider in the department, but Lourdes was not. He looked to her but the cold set of her eyes showed he would get no sympathy from her.
“I want a lawyer,” he said.
“You can call one as soon as you’re booked,” Bosch said.
He came around the desk as Lourdes pulled her handcuffs off her belt. He put his hand on Luzon’s shoulder and directed him toward the hallway where Lourdes was waiting. He walked him through.
“Hands behind your back,” he said. “You know the drill.”
Bosch gripped Luzon by the elbow and turned him to face away from Lourdes. At that moment, Luzon brought his hands up and shoved Bosch into the cell’s bars. He then rushed into the cell and with both hands slid the door shut with a heavy metal clang. He quickly pulled the chain and padlock through the bars into the cell and locked the door.
“Oscar, what are you doing?” Lourdes said. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Bosch had lost his balance against the bars. He righted himself and reached into his pocket for his key ring. It had the padlock key on it.
But the key ring wasn’t there and he looked through the bars and could see it on his desk. He looked at Luzon, who was pacing in the cell, a man looking for options where there weren’t any.
“Oscar, come on, settle down,” Lourdes said. “Come out of there.”
“The key’s on the desk, Oscar,” Bosch said. “Unlock the door.”
Luzon acted like he didn’t hear them. He paced back and forth a few times and then abruptly sat down on the end of the bench that ran almost the length of the cell. He bent over, put his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands.
Bosch leaned over to Lourdes and cupped his hands around her ear.
“Go out into the yard and get a bolt cutter,” he whispered.
Lourdes immediately headed down the corridor in front of the cells to the door that led to the Public Works yard. That left Bosch looking through the bars at Luzon.
“Oscar, come on,” he said. “Open the door. We can work this out.”
Luzon was silent, face in his hands.
“Oscar?” Bosch said. “Talk to me. You want me to get the chief in here? I know you two go way back. You want to talk to him?”
Nothing, and then without a word Luzon dropped his hands and stood up. He reached up to his neck and started to pull off his tie. He then climbed up onto the bench and reached up to the cell’s ceiling, where there was a metal grate over an air vent. He pushed the skinny end of his tie up into the grate and worked it back out of the next opening.
“Oscar, come on, don’t do this,” Bosch said. “Oscar!”
Luzon knotted the two ends of the tie together and then twisted the loop into a figure eight. He stood on his toes to get his head through the makeshift noose and then without hesitation stepped off the end of the bench.
24
Bosch and Lourdes waited in the hallway. Only the chief of police and family members were allowed back into the critical care unit. For the most part they sat quietly and drank coffee from paper cups out of a machine. After two hours Chief Valdez emerged with the news.