The boy opened the car door and got out. He looked back in at Bosch.
“Then why’re you doing it?”
“I don’t know. I guess ’cause you told him to go to hell. I should’ve said that and I didn’t. I gotta go.”
The boy looked at him a moment before speaking.
“You know, man, Dance’s gone. I don’t know why you’re all worried about him.”
“Look, kid, I didn’t do-”
“I know.”
Harry just looked at him.
“He left, man. Left town. He said our source split and so he went down to see if he could get the thing going again. You know, he wants to step up and be the source, now.”
“Down?”
“He said Mexico, but that’s all I know. He’s gone. That’s why I was doing sherms.”
The boy closed the door and disappeared into the courtyard of the motel. Bosch sat there thinking and Rickard’s question came back to him. Where would the boy be in a year? Then he thought of himself staying in rundown motels so many years ago. Bosch had made it through. Had survived. There was always the chance. He restarted the car and pulled out.
16
Talking to the kid sealed it. Bosch knew he was going to Mexico. All the spokes on the wheel pointed to the hub. The hub was Mexicali. But, then, he’d known that all along.
He drove to the station on Wilcox, trying to determine a strategy. He knew he would have to contact Aguila, the State Judicial Police officer who had sent the letter identifying Juan Doe #67 to the consulate. He would also have to contact the DEA, which had provided the intelligence report to Moore. He would have to get the trip cleared by Pounds, but he knew that might end it right there. He would have to work around that.
In the bureau, the homicide table was empty. It was after four on a Friday, and a holiday week as well. With no new cases, the detectives would clear out as soon as possible to go home to families and lives outside the cop-shop. Harry could see Pounds in his glass booth; his head was down and he was writing on a piece of paper, using his ruler to keep his sentences on a straight line.
Bosch sat down and checked through a pile of pink message slips at his spot. Nothing needing an immediate return. There were two from Bremmer at theTimes but he had left the name Jon Marcus-a code they had once worked out so it would not become known that the reporter was calling for Bosch. There were a couple from DAs who were prosecuting cases Harry had worked and needed information or the location of evidence. There was a message that Teresa had called but he looked at the time on the note and saw that he had seen her since then. He guessed that she had called to tell him she wasn’t talking to him.
There was no message from Porter and no message from Sylvia Moore. He took out the copy of the inquiry from Mexicali that the missing-persons detective, Capetillo, had given him and dialed the number Carlos Aguila had provided. The number was a general exchange for the SJP office. His Spanish was unconfident despite his recent refresher, and it took Bosch five minutes of explanations before he was connected to the investigations unit and asked once again for Aguila. He didn’t get him. Instead, he got a captain who spoke English and explained that Aguila was not in the office but would return later and would also be working Saturday. Bosch knew that the cops in Mexico worked six-day weeks.
“Can I be of help?” the captain asked.
Bosch explained that he was investigating a homicide and was answering the inquiry Aguila had sent to the consulate in Los Angeles. The description was similar to the body he had. The captain explained that he was familiar with the case, that he had taken the report before handing the case to Aguila. Bosch asked whether there were fingerprints available to confirm the identification but the captain said there were none. Chalk one up for Capetillo, Bosch thought.
“Perhaps you have a photograph from your morgue of this man that you could send to us,” the captain said. “We could make identification from the family of Mr. Gutierrez-Llosa.”
“Yes. I have photos. The letter said Gutierrez-Llosa was a laborer?”
“Yes. He found day work at the circle where employers come to find workers. Beneath the statue of Benito Juarez.”
“Do you know if he worked at a place, a business called EnviroBreed? It does business with the state of California.”
There was a long silence before the Mexican replied.
“I am sorry. I do not know of his work history. I have taken notes and will discuss this with Investigator Aguila upon his return. If you send the photographs we will act promptly on securing positive identification. I will personally expedite this matter and contact you.”
Now Bosch let silence fill the phone connection.
“Captain, I didn’t get your name.”
“Gustavo Grena, director of investigations, Mexicali.”
“Captain Grena, please tell Aguila that he will have the photos tomorrow.”
“That soon?”
“Yes. Tell him I’m bringing them down myself.”
“Investigator Bosch, this is not necessary. I believe-”
“Don’t worry, Captain Grena,” Bosch cut him off. “Tell him I will be there by early afternoon, no later.”
“As you wish.”
Bosch thanked him and hung up. He looked up and saw Pounds staring at him through the glass in his office. The lieutenant raised his thumb and his eyebrows in an inquiring, pleading way. Bosch looked away.
A laborer, Bosch thought. Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa was a day laborer who got jobs at the circle, whatever that was. How did a day laborer fit? Perhaps he was a mule who brought black ice across the border. And perhaps he had not been a part of the smuggling operation at all. Perhaps he had done nothing to warrant his death other than to be somewhere he should not have been, seen something he should not have seen.
What Bosch had were just parts of the whole. What he needed was the glue that would correctly hold them together. When he had first received his gold shield he had a partner on the robbery table in Van Nuys who told him that facts weren’t the most important part of an investigation, the glue was. He said the glue was made of instinct, imagination, sometimes guesswork and most times just plain luck.
Two nights earlier Bosch had looked at the facts that lay inside a run-down motel room and from them extrapolated a cop’s suicide. He now knew he’d been wrong. He considered the facts again, along with everything else he had collected, and this time he saw a cop’s murder as one of several connected murders. If Mexicali was the hub of the wheel with so many spokes, then Moore was the bolt that held the wheel on.
He took out his notebook and looked up the name of the DEA agent who was listed on the intelligence report Moore had put in the Zorrillo file. He then got the DEA’s local number out of his Rolodex and dialed it. The man who answered asked who was calling when Bosch asked for Corvo.
“Tell him it’s the ghost of Calexico Moore.”
One minute later a voice said, “Who’s this?”
“Corvo?”
“Look, you want to talk, give me an ID. Otherwise I hang up.”
Bosch identified himself.
“What’s with the ruse, man?”
“Never mind. I want to meet.”
“You haven’t given me a reason yet.”
“You want a reason? Okay. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to Mexicali. I’m going after Zorrillo. I could use some help from somebody who knows his shit. I thought you might want to talk first. Being that you were Cal Moore’s source.”
“Who says I even knew the guy?”
“You took my call, didn’t you? You also were passing DEA intelligence to him. He told me.”
“Bosch, I spent seven years under. You trying to bluff me? Uh-uh. Try some of the eightball dealers on Hollywood Boulevard. They might buy your line.”