Bosch folded the photocopies and put them in the inside pocket of his sport coat. He waited and heard the voices go by the opening to the command suite. As soon as he judged it was clear, he stood up and headed out of the suite into the back hallway, maintaining his pose of familiarity and belonging.
There was no one in the hallway. He had a clear shot to the exit. He moved quickly but not like a man trying to escape. He turned the last corner and pushed through the heavy steel door and out into the night. The drive-up/drop-off alley was clear but out in the lot were two patrol officers closing shop — that is, finishing their shift and taking the shotgun and personal equipment out of their car. They were too busy with the process of going off shift to pay any attention to Bosch as he crossed the lot to his rental car.
The parking lot gate automatically opened for cars approaching from the inside. Bosch didn’t breathe easy until the Chrysler rolled through the gate and out onto Wilcox. He turned north toward Sunset Boulevard. When he caught the light at Sunset, he pulled out his phone and called Haller once again.
“Twice in one night, Bosch?” he protested. “Are you kidding me? It’s after midnight.”
“Put on your bathrobe,” Bosch said. “I’m coming by.”
He disconnected the call before Haller could protest further.
34
Haller was indeed wearing a white terry-cloth robe when he opened his front door. Bosch could see the words Ritz Carlton in gold over the breast pocket. Haller’s hair was unkempt and he was wearing black-framed glasses. Bosch realized for the first time that he must wear contact lenses during normal waking hours.
“What is so important that it can’t wait for the morning?” Haller asked. “I’ve got an eight-o’clock motions hearing tomorrow and I would like to get some sleep so I am fully functioning.”
“Motions on Foster?” Bosch asked.
“No, another case. Unrelated. But it doesn’t matter, I still need to—”
“Just take a look at these.”
Bosch pulled the photocopies out of his pocket, unfolded the sheets, and handed one to Haller. He refolded the other and put it back in his pocket.
“Are those the guys?” he asked.
“What guys?” Haller asked.
“The cops who pulled you over on the deuce.”
Bosch said it in a tone that implied that he was frustrated by Haller’s inability to follow Bosch’s own logic.
“Why do you care who pulled me over that night?” Haller said. “It’s not your con—”
“Just look at the pictures,” Bosch commanded. “Are those the guys?”
Haller held the photocopy at arm’s length. Bosch guessed that his glasses carried an old prescription.
“Well, one guy stayed in the car and I didn’t really see him,” Haller said. “The other... this one on the right... this guy could’ve been... yes, it’s him. This is the one that came up to the car.”
Haller flipped the page over so Bosch could see his choice. It was Ellis, the one Bosch thought had looked familiar.
“So, what’s going on, Harry?” Haller asked. “Why are we standing here in the middle of the night with this?”
“Those guys pulled you over,” Bosch said. “They also arrested James Allen several times, and I think they were using him as an informant.”
Haller nodded but showed no excitement.
“Okay,” he said. “They’re Hollywood vice cops. It’s not surprising that they would have popped Allen a few times or that they used him as an informant. And as far as my thing goes, they picked off the radio broadcast because they were in the area. That area being Hollywood, where they work.”
It sounded like a different tune from Haller. Outside the jail after he was bailed out, he was spinning tales of conspiracy and lying-in-wait to the media. Now he was giving reasons for why the conspiracy Bosch was beginning to see was perfectly explainable.
“I’ve got a witness who heard two car doors close in the alley the night Allen’s body was dumped there,” Bosch said. “And you heard Dick Sutton a few hours ago. They think it might have been two guys who went in there and killed the Nguyen brothers. The deuces are wild on this, Mick. I think we’re looking for two people.”
They were still standing in the entryway of Haller’s house. Mickey looked down at the photocopies, one in each hand.
“You drink bourbon?” he asked.
“On occasion,” Bosch said.
“Let’s sit down and work this through some Woodford Reserve.”
He stepped back and let Bosch enter the living room.
“Have a seat,” Haller said. “I’ll get a couple of glasses. You take it with ice?”
“A couple cubes is all,” Bosch said.
He took a seat on a couch that gave him a view through the picture window to the lights of the city. Haller’s house sat on the shoulder of Laurel Canyon and offered unobstructed views of the city to the west and out toward Catalina.
Haller was back soon with two glasses with amber liquid and easy on the ice. He put them down on the coffee table along with the photocopy but didn’t sit down.
“I gotta go put in my contacts,” he said. “These things give me a headache.”
He disappeared down a hallway toward the back of the house. Bosch took a sip of the Woodford and felt it burn on the way down. It was good stuff, a better bottle of bourbon than he ever kept on hand at his house for unscheduled visitors.
He took another sip and then studied the photos of the two vice cops. He wondered if they had put the GPS locator on his Cherokee. Thinking about the Cherokee in regard to the two men brought a focus, and Bosch suddenly realized where he had seen Don Ellis. It was in the parking lot behind Musso’s. Bosch had passed him when he had left the bar the night Haller would get pulled over on the DUI. It meant Haller was right. The DUI was a setup. Ellis and Long had been lying in wait for him.
When Haller came back, the glasses and the bathrobe were gone. He was in blue jeans and a maroon Chapman T-shirt. He took the chair across the table from Bosch with no view of the city. He took a healthy pull from his glass of fine bourbon and followed it with his best impression of Jack Nicholson drinking whiskey and flapping an arm like a chicken wing in Easy Rider. He then settled back in his chair and looked at Bosch.
“So,” he said. “What do we do?”
“A couple things first,” Bosch said. “Tomorrow morning, after your driver drops you at court? Have your driver or somebody you trust get your car checked for a GPS tag. There’s one on my car and I think these two guys put it there.”
He pointed toward the photocopy on the coffee table.
“It was already on my to-do list,” Haller said.
“Well, get it done,” Bosch said. “And if something’s found under there, don’t remove it. Don’t let them know we’re onto them. We can possibly use this to our advantage. I rented a car tonight. I’ll use that for when I don’t want them to know where I’m going.”
“Okay,” Haller said. “First thing.”
“I also want to talk to your investigator.”
“Cisco? Why?”
Bosch reached down, grabbed his glass, and took a large gulp. It burned all his breathing passages and brought tears to his eyes.
“Easy, boy,” Haller said. “This is sipping bourbon.”