“He got shot during a fight over a dog up in the Valley.”
Haller looked from the gravestone to Bosch.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, that’s what happened. And nobody was ever charged — ruled justifiable.”
“No, I mean, how the hell do you know that?”
“It’s in the murder journals they keep at the PAB. I used to read them — when I was waiting for cases.”
“You’re saying you just read the murder journals and remembered the details of a killing from nineteen fifty-nine?”
“I don’t remember all of them but some I do. You gotta remember it when it’s Alfalfa.”
“Man, Bosch, I’m not sure this retirement thing is going to work out for you.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
They turned and headed back to their cars.
20
Ellis and Long watched the cemetery from a parking spot on the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard. Long was texting someone on his cell phone but Ellis kept the watch. He had the binoculars in his lap and every now and then he brought them up for a close look at Bosch and Haller.
Ellis was fascinated by Bosch and what he was doing. They had researched the man and learned he had been a near legend in the department. Now look at him. Working cases for a douche-bag defense attorney. There was no loyalty anymore. Nobody with a moral compass.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Long asked without looking up from his cell’s screen.
“Talking about whatever they found in the office,” Ellis said.
“Which is?”
“My guess is video. There’s a camera up there on the Paramount water tower.”
That got Long’s attention and he looked up from his phone.
“Fuck. You think—”
“I don’t know. There’s no way to know unless we go in there and ask the same questions they did. But we can’t do that. So we’re watching.”
“Fuck, I’m totally not into this.”
“No kidding.”
“They’re leaving.”
“I got eyes.”
“We staying with the painter?”
Long had taken to referring to Bosch as the painter because of his name. This annoyed Ellis.
“We’re staying with Bosch,” he said.
“I bet I know where he’s going,” Long said.
“Where?”
“The alley. It’s the logical next step.”
“Maybe. This guy’s different.”
“When are we going to talk about taking him out?”
“We’re not. We took out the first guy. We take out two investigators on the same case and it doesn’t look like coincidence. We need to figure out something else.”
Long was wrong. Bosch pulled out of the cemetery and turned east on Santa Monica. Ellis had their undercover car pointing the opposite way and had to maneuver to turn around and follow.
They tailed Bosch east on Santa Monica until he turned onto Normandie and headed south. Traffic was terrible as usual and they didn’t speak for twenty minutes — until Bosch turned right on Wilshire and almost immediately into the parking garage of a nondescript office building in Koreatown.
“What the fuck?” Long said.
“He’s going up to Behavioral,” Ellis said.
“Yeah, but he’s retired.”
“Probably some kind of retirement aftercare. He killed a lot of people. Over the years.”
“The reigning champ till he hung it up.”
“Officially, at least.”
They both smiled at the same time. Ellis drove past Bosch’s car and then pulled to a stop at a red curb about half a block farther down the street. He started positioning the mirrors so he could keep an eye on Bosch’s car.
“You want me to go in?” Long asked.
“No, sit tight,” Ellis said. “This will be fast.”
“How do you know?”
“He didn’t put money in the meter. He’s a citizen now and has to pony up. So he must be going in to pick up a prescription or something.”
“Viagra.”
Ellis felt his work phone vibrating. He checked the screen. It was Lieutenant Gonzalez.
“It’s Gonzo,” he said, signaling Long to be quiet.
He shut the car down and then answered.
“Hey L-T.”
“Where you at, Ellis?”
“Watching the suspect location. As instructed.”
“Anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Are they even home? Don’t they work days up in the Valley?”
“Haven’t determined that, L-T. The complaint uses the phrase ‘night and day.’ I was thinking if we don’t see some sign of life soon, we’ll think of something and door-knock ’em.”
“Look, I don’t want you guys fucking around. If it’s not there, we need to move on to the next one. I’m thinking one more day on it and then you throw a scare at ’em, move ’em to West Hollywood, and let the Sheriff’s deal with it.”
“Yes, sir. Sounds like a plan.”
“And check in from time to time, Ellis. I shouldn’t have to hunt you guys down.”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely.”
“And tell your partner to wipe the shit-eating grin off his face.”
Gonzalez disconnected. Ellis lowered the phone and looked at Long and saw that he was indeed smiling.
“Gonzo’s got you pegged, partner. You better be careful about that.”
“Absolutely.”
Long laughed as Ellis shook his head. Ellis then saw Bosch come out through the glass doors of the elevator alcove.
“He’s back,” he said.
He watched in the rearview mirror as Bosch got back in his car.
“He was carrying a file,” he said. “Not a prescription.”
“What color?” Long asked.
“Plain.”
“What’s plain?”
“Manila.”
“Not a psych file then. They put those in blue.”
As Ellis watched, Bosch’s car pulled away from the curb, made a U-turn on Hill, and headed back toward the freeway. Ellis started the engine.
After following Bosch to Woodrow Wilson Drive, they peeled off in order to avoid detection. They didn’t need to stay on him all the time because they had LoJacked his Cherokee the evening before. Long had slid underneath on a dolly and hooked on a GPS tracker. He had set the app on his phone to alert him if the vehicle moved.
They guessed that Bosch would be in his home for a few hours and this would give them the opportunity to go down to the Crescent Arms, where they were supposed to be on a surveillance post.
Ellis and Long referred to the objects of their supposed surveillance as the Bobbsey Twins. This was because of the way their heads bobbed in unison during a performance of side-by-side fellatio in one of the videos they had put on the Internet. They were two porno girls who had moved into a two-bedroom apartment at the Crescent Arms two months earlier. Previously they had put a variety of short videos up on free porn sites across the Internet. These served to establish their credentials and draw viewers to their website, which included pay windows that allowed fans to make direct contact. There was a personal vetting process at that point designed to weed out inquiries from law enforcement, and, eventually, invitations were made and the most intrepid fans could finally pay for a face-to-face meeting with either performer or both and all the sexual abandon that would come with it. Some customers had flown in from as far as Japan to cavort with the girls. Most of them never knew that they were secretly videoed from the moment they entered the apartment to the moment they left.
The problem with the setup was that business was always good and invariably too many men would be coming in and out of the apartment at all hours of day and night. Within days, this traffic was noticed by other tenants in the apartment complex. Within weeks, there were complaints to management, and by the one-month mark, the problem reached the attention of the LAPD. It was a constant cycle. The porno girls, stage-named Ashley Juggs and Annie Minx, had moved house on average every eight weeks in the last year. Finding new places to set up the operation had become a never-ending task for Ellis and Long. Making sure that they were the ones who handled the complaints when they were forwarded to the Vice Unit was also taxing. But the operation was too profitable to discontinue.