Eventually, Bosch realized he had become a similar object of curiosity for the man across the street, who was now surreptitiously watching Bosch as Bosch was surreptitiously watching him.
They kept at this careful cross-surveillance until a siren split the air and a fire truck trundled down the road between them. Bosch tracked the truck in the side mirror and when he looked back across the street he saw that the Jeep was empty. The man had either used the distraction of the passing fire truck to slip out, or he was lying down inside.
Bosch assumed it was the former. He sat up straight and checked the street and the sidewalk across from him. No sign of anyone on foot. He turned to check the sidewalk on his own side and there at the passenger’s window was the guy in the baseball hat. He’d turned the hat backward, the way gang squad guys often did when they were on the move. Bosch could see a silver chain descending from the sides of his neck into his graphic tee, figured there was a badge hanging from it. Definitely a gun riding the back of the guy’s right hip, something boxy and bigger than a Glock. The man bent down to put himself at eye level with Bosch. He twirled his finger at Bosch, a request to roll the window down.
The guy with the Hertz NeverLost GPS jutting off his dashboard looked at Patrick for a long moment, but then lowered his window. He looked like he was mid-fifties and in good shape. Wiry. Something about him said cop. The wariness in his eyes for one; cop’s eyes — you could never believe they truly closed. Then there was the way he kept one hand down in his lap so he could go inside the sport coat for the Glock or the Smith if it turned out Patrick was a bad guy. His left hand.
“Nice move,” he said.
“Yeah?” Patrick said.
The guy nodded over his shoulder. “Sending the fire truck down the street. Good distraction. You with District Thirteen?”
A true Bostonian always sounded like he was just getting over a cold. This guy’s voice was clean air; not light exactly but smooth. An out-of-towner. Not a trace of Beantown in that voice. Probably a fed. Minted in Kansas or somewhere, trained down in Quantico and then sent up here. Patrick decided to play along as long as he could. He tried to open the door but it was locked. The guy unlocked it, moved his briefcase to the backseat, and Patrick got in.
“You’re a bit away from Center Plaza, aren’t you?” Patrick said.
“Maybe,” he said. “Except I don’t know where or what Center Plaza is.”
“So you’re not with the bureau. Who are you with?”
The man hesitated again, kept that left hand in his lap, then nodded like he’d decided to take a flier.
“LAPD,” he said. “I was going to check in with you guys later today.”
“And what brings the LAPD out to JP?”
“JP?”
“Jamaica Plain. Can I see some ID?”
He pulled a badge wallet out and flipped it open so Patrick could study the detective’s badge and the ID. His name was Hieronymus Bosch.
“Some name you’ve got. How do you say that?”
“Harry’s good.”
“Okay. What are you doing here, Harry?”
“How about you? That chain around your neck isn’t attached to a badge.”
“No?”
Bosch shook his head. “I’d have seen the outline of it through your shirt. Crucifix?”
Patrick stared at him for a moment and then nodded. “Wife likes me to wear it.” He held out his hand. “Patrick Kenzie. I’m not a cop. I’m an independent contractor.”
Bosch shook his hand. “You like baseball, Pat?”
“Patrick.”
“You like baseball, Patrick?”
“Big-time. Why?”
“You’re the first guy I’ve seen in this town not wearing a Sox hat.”
Patrick pulled off his hat and considered the front of it as he ran a hand through his hair. “Imagine that. I didn’t even look when I left the house.”
“Is that a rule around here? You’ve all got to represent Red Sox Nation or something?”
“It’s not a rule, per se, more like a guideline.”
Bosch looked at the hat again. “Who’s the crooked smiley-faced guy?”
“Toothface,” Patrick said. “He’s, like, the logo, I guess, of a record store I like.”
“You still buy records?”
“CDs. You?”
“Yeah. Jazz mostly. I hear it’s all going to go away. Records, CDs, the whole way we buy music. MP3s and iPods are the future.”
“Heard that, too.” Patrick looked over his shoulder at the street. “We looking at the same guy here, Harry?”
“Don’t know,” Bosch said. “I’m looking at a guy for a murder back in nineteen-ninety. I need to get some DNA.”
“What guy?”
“Tell you what, why don’t I go over to District Thirteen and check in with the captain and make this all legit? I’ll identify myself, you identify yourself. A cop and a private eye working together to ease the burden of the Boston PD. Because I don’t want my captain back in LA catching a call from—”
“Is it Paisley? Are you watching Edward Paisley?”
He looked at Patrick for a long moment. “Who is Edward Paisley?”
“Bullshit. Tell me about the case from nineteen-ninety.”
“Look, you’re a private dick with no ‘need to know’ that I can see and I’m a cop—”
“Who didn’t follow protocol and check in with the local PD.” He craned his head around the car. “Unless there’s a D-thirteen liaison on this street who’s really fucking good at keeping his head down. I got a girl missing right now and Edward Paisley’s name popped up in connection to her. Girl’s twelve, Bosch, and she’s been out there three days. So I’d love to hear what happened back in nineteen-ninety. You tell me, I’ll be your best friend and everything.”
“Why is no one looking for your missing girl?”
“Who’s to say they’re not?”
“Because you’re looking and you’re private.”
Patrick got a whiff of something sad coming off the LA cop. Not the kind of sad that came from bad news yesterday but from bad news most days. Still, his eyes weren’t dead; they pulsed instead with appetite — maybe even addiction — for the hunt. This wasn’t a house cat who’d checked out, who kept his head down, took his paycheck, and counted the days till his twenty. This was a cop who kicked in doors if he had to, whether he knew what was on the other side or not, and had stayed on after twenty.
Patrick said, “She’s the wrong color, wrong caste, and there’s enough plausible anecdotal shit swirling around her situation to make anyone question whether she was abducted or just walked off.”
“But you think Paisley could be involved.”
Patrick nodded.
“Why?”
“He’s got two priors for sexual abuse of minors.”
Bosch shook his head. “No. I checked.”
“You checked domestic. You didn’t know to check Costa Rica and Cuba. Both places where he was arrested, charged, had the shit beat out of him, and ultimately bought his way out. But the arrests are on record over there.”
“How’d you find them?”
“I didn’t. Principal of Dearborn Middle School was getting a bad feeling about Paisley when he drove a bus for them. One girl said this, one boy said that, another girl said such and such. Nothing you could build a case on but enough for the principal to call Paisley into her office a couple times to discuss it.” Patrick pulled a reporter’s notebook from his back pocket, flipped it open. “Principal told me Paisley would have passed both interviews with flying colors but he mentioned milk one time too many.”
“Milk?”
“Milk.” Patrick looked up from his notes and nodded. “He told the principal during their first meeting — he’d already been working there a year; the principal doesn’t have shit to do with hiring bus drivers, that’s HR downtown — that she should smile more because it made him think of milk. He told her in the second meeting that the sun in Cuba was whiter than milk, which is why he liked Cuba, the white lording over everything and all. It stuck with her.”