The service was a few minutes away and people were still arriving. In the crowd he picked up the gleaming head of Assistant 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 embarrass-Damn 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 embarrassment 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 Corazón 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-assed 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 assistant chief’s massive 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 embarrassing.”
“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 documents were altered or forged. In other words more sealed boxes passed 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.”