Bosch snapped off the flashlight and lay unmoving under the Cherokee for a few minutes as he thought about whether to remove the tracker — and thereby reveal to his followers that he had found it — or leave it in place and fold it into his investigative strategy moving forward.
He decided to leave the tracker in place for now. He climbed out from beneath his car, turned off the light, and stepped out to the end of the carport. He looked around once more and saw no one.
Bosch went back into the house and locked the door behind him. He changed back into his regular clothes and then made a call to Lucia Soto. She answered right away.
“Harry.”
“Hey, how’s it going?”
“All right. I was going to call you. The secret’s out and everybody knows you’re doing defense work.”
“Yeah, I’ve been getting the calls.”
“Well, it wasn’t me, if that’s why you’re calling. I didn’t tell a soul.”
“No, I know it wasn’t you.”
“So then what’s up?”
“Uh, my daughter’s not around and she usually helps me with the phone stuff. You mentioned Uber last night. How do I go about getting that?”
“That’s easy. First put your phone on speaker so you can hear me while I walk you through it.”
“How do I do that?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah. You’re on speaker.”
Soto talked him through the setup. The operation took less than ten minutes.
“Okay, you’re ready to rock,” Soto said.
“Cool,” Bosch said. “So I can just order a car now?”
“That’s right.”
“Great.”
“It’s late. Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Just for a ride. I want to check out a place.”
“What place?”
Bosch worked the screen and successfully ordered a car.
“Just some guy’s place. Says the car will be here in six minutes. The driver’s name is Marko and he’s driving a black Tesla.”
“Well done.”
“It’s asking my destination.”
“You can put it in or leave it blank. They’ll still come. That way they don’t program an address and you can tell them what way to go.”
Bosch left it blank because he wasn’t sure of his destination yet.
“Thanks, Lucia.”
“I’m gonna go now.”
“Oh, wait. One question. Is this like a cab? Can you make the driver wait, like if you have to go into a store or a house or something?”
“Yeah, you just tell them what you want and it goes on your credit card. I think there’s like a charge for every fifteen minutes of waiting time.”
“Okay, cool. Thanks, and good night.”
“Good night.”
Bosch waited out in front of his house so that he could get a read on whether his Uber driver was followed up the hill. Marko was now supposed to arrive in three minutes, according to the app.
While he waited, Bosch went on his phone’s search engine and plugged in “Schubert MD, Beverly Hills.” He got a hit for a plastic surgeon named George Schubert with offices at something called the Center for Cosmetic Creation on Third Street near the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The address was actually in West Hollywood. Nothing else came up, and there was no listing for a residential address.
Bosch clicked over and made a call back to Lucia Soto, hoping she hadn’t gone to sleep or out to Eastside Luv again.
“Now what, Harry? You want to know about the phone dating app?”
“No. You mean there is one?”
“There’s an app for everything. What’s up? I have to get to bed. Last night I stayed at it way too long.”
“You dance on the bar at Eastside Luv?”
“Matter of fact I did. But I kept my clothes on. What’s up?”
Bosch could see headlights coming around the bend. His ride was arriving.
“You got your laptop home with you?”
“What do you need?”
“I was wondering if you could use your tracker software to run a name for me. A doctor in Beverly Hills.”
When they had been partners, Soto was the one who was computer adept and had subscribed to a number of Internet services and software that helped track addresses through financial, property, and utility records. These methods were often quicker and more reliable than established law enforcement data banks. What Bosch was asking her to do broke no rules because she was using her own laptop and software.
“No problem.”
Bosch gave her Schubert’s name and she said she would call him back as soon as she had something. He thanked her and disconnected. A car had now cleared the bend and was approaching with its high beams on. Bosch felt lit up and vulnerable in the darkness.
The near-silent Tesla came to a stop in front of him. Bosch checked the clock on his phone. Marko was right on time. Being new to Uber, Bosch didn’t know if he was supposed to get in the front or the back but opted for opening the front door.
“Marko?”
“Yes, sir.”
A deep eastern European accent.
“Where do I sit?”
“Right in front is very good.”
Bosch got in.
“Which way?” Marko asked. “You did not put in destination.”
“I thought that was an option,” Bosch said. “I want you to go up the hill. When we get to the top at Mulholland we’ll turn around and come back down.”
“That’s it?”
“No, then we’re going to go down into Beverly Hills, I think.”
“Do you have address? I plug it in.”
“Not yet. But I’ll get it before we get there.”
“Whatever you say.”
The car took off up the hill. There was no engine sound. It reminded Bosch of amusement park bumper cars.
“It’s quiet,” he said. “You could sneak up on people.”
“Yes, I drive Tesla,” Marko said. “The people out here like the electric car. The Hollywood people. I get the repeat business, you see. Besides this, I am Serb. From Smiljan.”
Bosch nodded like he understood the connection between Hollywood and Smiljan.
“Tesla,” Marko explained. “A great man who came from my hometown.”
“The car? It’s his company?”
“No, he worked with Edison to make electricity. Long time ago. The car, it is name for him.”
“Right. I forgot.”
Bosch noted that based on his singular experience, Uber drivers seemed to talk way more than taxi drivers. The ride was as much a social outing as it was getting from point A to point B. When they got up to the stop sign at Mulholland, Bosch told Marko to turn the car around and go back down Woodrow Wilson past his house.
Bosch saw nothing suspicious on the ride back through his neighborhood. No out-of-place cars, no pedestrians who didn’t belong, no glowing cigarettes in the dark recesses between houses. He felt confident that the GPS tracker on his car was the key to the surveillance. He could work with that — drive the Cherokee when he needed to go to insignificant locations, just to show movement, then use Uber or rent a car for when he needed to go places he didn’t want the followers to know about. Just to be sure, Bosch turned and looked back through the rear window to see if a car was trailing in their wake.