Now Bosch had him. Old man, stooped shoulders, no family, and too much free time on his hands. Bosch, newly retired and with too much time on his own hands, had agreed to attend the meeting back in March. Francis Albert probably wanted him to come back and address the troops again.
“Of course I remember you,” Bosch said. “But I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back later?”
“Sure, that’s fine. But I just thought you’d want to know that somebody was watching your house this morning. He claimed he was a cop but I have my doubts.”
Suddenly Bosch wasn’t in such a hurry to end the call.
“What do you mean ‘watching my house’?” he asked.
“Well, you know the Robinson’s property across the street from me?” Francis Albert responded. “Where they knocked the house down but left the pad there to build on?”
“Right, I know it.”
“I go out this morning to pick up the paper, and first thing I see is some schmuck’s parked in front of my garage. And then I see the guy. He went under the tape and is out on the pad with a pair of binoculars. And he’s looking right at your house, Detective Bosch.”
“Call me Harry. I’m not a detective anymore. Are you sure he was looking at my house?”
“Definitely looked that way to me. And you call me Frank.”
“How long did he stay there, Frank?”
“Till I hassled him and he took off. That’s why I don’t think he was a legit cop — even though he showed me a badge.”
“You hassled him?”
“Yeah, I went out and asked him what he was doing. He got all nervous and left. That’s when he showed me this cockamamie badge he had around his neck.”
Bosch reached into his jacket and pulled out the remaining photocopy of the photos of Ellis and Long. He unfolded it and stared at the two vice cops.
“What did he look like?” he asked.
There was a long pause before Albert answered.
“I don’t know, he was normal,” he finally said.
“Normal?” Bosch asked. “Was he white, black, brown?”
“White.”
“How old?”
“Uh, forties. I think. Maybe thirties.”
Bosch looked at the two photos.
“Did he have a mustache?”
“Yeah, he had a mustache. You know him?”
Long had a mustache. Ellis didn’t.
“I don’t know. Are you going to be around later? I have a couple photos I’d like to show you.”
“Sure, I’m here all the time.”
“Thanks, Frank.”
“Just watching out for the neighborhood. That’s what we do.”
Bosch disconnected and looked at the photos of the two vice cops. He didn’t think he needed to go by Frank’s to confirm what he knew in his gut. It had been Long with the binoculars. It seemed odd to Bosch that he was snooping around so soon. It was only nine-thirty. Why had he already gotten suspicious about the Cherokee not moving?
Bosch decided that there must be something else that had sent Long up the hill. He folded the photocopy and put it back into his jacket pocket. While he was doing it, he saw a man he believed was Wojciechowski walking out through the front door of the rehab center.
The man had a noticeable limp and was walking with the aid of a cane — black with flames painted on it. He wore blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather vest with the Harley-Davidson insignia on the back. The traditional wings of the logo were broken. Bosch knew this was to indicate the rider had gone down, gotten hurt, and had survived.
“Cisco?” Bosch called.
The man stopped and turned back to see who had called out. Bosch caught up to him.
“You’re Cisco, right?”
“Maybe. Who are you?”
“Harry Bosch. Mickey Haller’s—”
“Investigator. Yeah, you took my job.”
“I was going to say brother. I didn’t take your job. I don’t want your job, and it will be there for you as soon as you’re ready to go back. I’m just working this one case for him and that’s it.”
Cisco put both hands on the cane. Bosch could tell that standing and walking weren’t his favorite pastimes at the moment. There were several benches lining the walkway, places for people to wait for those in rehab.
“Can we sit down for a minute?” Bosch asked.
He pointed to one of the benches. Cisco headed that way and seemed relieved to take his weight off his knee. He was a big man with massive arms and a powerful V-shaped torso, an inverted pyramid unsteady on its points of support.
“So this isn’t a coincidence?” he asked. “Mick told me you were in the Army, too.”
“I was in the Army and I’ve been in this place before, but this isn’t a coincidence,” Bosch said. “I came looking for you. I need to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“Well, let’s start with your accident. Mickey told—”
“It was no accident.”
“Well, that’s what I want to know. Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t get it. Why?”
“You heard that Mickey got popped for a DUI, right?”
“Yeah. Your old pals the LAPD.”
“It was a setup. I think it was to hinder his efforts on the Foster case. I think the same thing might’ve happened with you. So what happened?”
Bosch could see a coldness set in Cisco’s eyes.
“It was fucking April Fools’ Day. I was on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, heading down toward Hollywood. The guy in the lane next to me pushes over and I had no choice; let him knock me down and go under his wheels or take my chances in the oncoming lanes. I almost made it.”
“What makes you think it was intentional?”
“I don’t think it. I know it. Two things. Number one, the guy didn’t stop. I mean, he didn’t even slow down. And number two, he knew what he was doing. Hell, I reached out and kicked the side of his car and he still kept coming. Steel-toe boot, man. He heard it. He knew I was there.”
“You saw the driver?”
Bosch started taking the photocopy back out of his coat pocket.
“No, I didn’t see him,” Cisco said. “The windows on the car were tinted too dark. Way beyond legal.”
Bosch left the photocopy in his pocket.
He knew that a favored tactic of the UC units in the LAPD was to smoke the windows of their cars beyond legal limits.
“What kind of car was it?”
“A Camaro. Burnt orange with black rims and yellow calipers. I got a good look at the wheels, you could say. Real up close and personal.”
“But I take it you didn’t get the plate.”
“Too busy trying to stay alive by that point. What’s in your pocket anyway? What were you going to show me?”
Bosch pulled out the photocopy.
“These are the two guys who pulled over Haller. I thought maybe you’d recognize one of them — if you had seen the driver.”
Cisco unfolded the page and looked at the two faces. They were just head shots, but in both, the top collars of police uniforms were evident.
“So you’re saying two cops might be behind all of this?” he said.
Bosch nodded.
“It’s beginning to look that way.”
“Jesus Christ. Rogue cops. What’ll they think of next?”
“I’m going to need you to keep all of this to yourself. Haller’s okay, but nobody else. It might fuck things up if it leaks.”
“You didn’t have to say that.”
“Right, sorry. So your accident, it occurred—”
“I told you, it was no accident.”
“Right, sorry, wrong word. So this attack occurred right after Haller got the Foster case. Had you started working the case yet?”
“Not in a big way. We had the case and we were gearing up for it, but the discovery hadn’t come in yet and so we were sort of waiting on the D.A. to cough up the murder book.”