“We had a class together last year,” Maddie said. “He’s cute.”
“I think he thinks you’re cute.”
“And I think you’re changing the subject.”
“Can’t I just come down and hang with my daughter a little bit, drink coffee, eat a sandwich, and learn new words like foe-moe?”
“It’s an acronym, not a word: F-O-M-O. What’s really going on, Dad?”
“Okay, okay. I wanted to tell you something. It’s not a big deal but you always get mad when you think I intentionally don’t tell you things. I think it’s called FOLO — Fear Of Being Left Out.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Plus FOLO is already taken: that’s Fear Of Losing Out. So what’s the news? Are you getting married or something?”
“No, I’m not getting married.”
“Then what?”
“You remember how I used to have to get chest X-rays because of that case I had where radioactive material was found?”
“Yes, and then you stopped when they said you had a clean bill of health.”
The concern was growing in her eyes. Bosch loved her for that.
“Well, now I have a very mild form of leukemia that is highly treatable and is being treated, and I’m only telling you this because I know you would scream at me if you found out later.”
Maddie didn’t respond. She looked down at her coffee and her eyes shifted back and forth as if she was reading instructions on what to say and how to act.
“It’s not a big thing, Mads. In fact, it’s just a pill. One pill I take in the morning.”
“Do you have to do chemo and all of that?”
“No, I’m serious. It’s just a pill. That is the chemo. They say I just take this and I’ll be okay. I wanted to tell you because your uncle Mickey is going to bat for me on this and he’s going to try to get some money for it. It happened when I was on the job and I don’t want to lose everything I have set up for you because of it. So he said it could make some news, and that’s what I wanted to avoid — you reading about it online somewhere and then being upset with me for not telling you. But, really, everything is fine.”
She reached across the table and put her hand on top of his.
“Dad.”
He turned his hand over so he could hold her fingers.
“You have to eat your snack,” he said. “Whatever that is.”
“I don’t feel like eating now,” she said.
He didn’t either. He hated scaring her.
“You believe me, right?” he asked. “This is like a formality. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“They should pay. They should pay you a lot of money.”
Bosch laughed.
“I think you should go to law school,” he said.
She didn’t see the humor in that. She kept her eyes down.
“Hey, if you don’t feel like eating that, let’s take it to go and then go over to that ice-cream place you like, where they cold brew it, or whatever it’s called.”
“Dad, I’m not a little girl. You can’t make everything right with ice cream.”
“So, lesson learned. I should have just shut up and hoped you never found out.”
“No, it’s not that. I’m allowed to feel this way. I love you.”
“And I love you, and that’s what I’m trying to say: I’m going to be around for a long while. I’m going to send you to law school and then I’m going to sit in the back of courtrooms and watch you send bad people away.”
He waited for a reaction. A smile or a smirk, but he got nothing. “Please,” he said. “Let’s not worry about this anymore. Okay?”
“Okay,” Maddie said. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
She waved the cute guy over and asked him for to-go boxes.
An hour later Bosch had dropped his daughter back at her car and was heading north on the 5 freeway toward L.A. It had been a double-whammy of a day: John Jack Thompson injecting pain and uncertainty into his life, then Bosch doing the same to his daughter and feeling like some sort of criminal for it.
The bottom line was that he was still having a hard time with Thompson. Bosch was almost seventy years old and he had seen some of the worst things people can do to each other, yet something done decades ago and long before his knowledge of it had sent him reeling. He wondered if it was a side effect of the pills he was taking each morning. The doctor had warned there could be mood swings.
On top of all that, he realized he was experiencing FOMO: he wanted to be there when Ballard took down Elvin Kidd for killing John Jack Thompson’s son. Not because he wanted to see the arrest itself — Bosch had never taken particular joy in putting the cuffs on killers. But he wanted to be there for the son. The victim. John Hilton’s own father apparently didn’t care who had killed him, but Bosch did and he wanted to be there. Everybody counted or nobody counted. It might have been a hollow idea to Thompson. But it wasn’t to Bosch.
Ballard
41
Ballard had her earbuds in and was listening to a playlist she had put together for building an edge and keeping it. She was squeezed between two large Special Ops officers in the back of a black SUV. It was seven a.m. and they were on the 10 freeway heading out to Rialto to take down Elvin Kidd.
Two SUVs, nine officers, plus one already in an observation post outside Kidd’s home in Rialto. The plan was to make the arrest when Kidd emerged from his house to go to work. Going into the residence of an ex-gang member was never a good plan; they would wait for Kidd to step out. The last report from the man in the OP had been that the suspect’s truck and attached equipment trailer were backed into the driveway. No movement or light had been reported inside the house.
The arrest plan had been approved by the Special Ops lieutenant, who was in the lead SUV. Ballard’s role was as observer and then arresting officer. She would step in after Kidd was in custody and read the man his rights.
In the second SUV the men had carried on a conversation as though Ballard was not among them. The dialogue crisscrossed in front of her without so much as a What do you think? or a Where do you come from? thrown Ballard’s way. It was just nervous chatter and Ballard knew everybody had different ways of getting ready for battle. She put her earbuds in and listened to Muse and Black Pumas, Death Cab, and others. Disparate songs that all built and held an edge for her.
Ballard saw the driver talking into a rover and pulled out her buds.
“What’s up, Griffin?” she asked.
“Lights on in the house,” Griffin said.
“How far out are we?”
“ETA twenty minutes.”
“We need to step it up. This guy might be ready to boogie. Can we go to code three on the freeway?”
Griffin relayed the request by radio to Lieutenant Gonzalez in the lead SUV and soon they were moving toward Rialto under lights and sirens at ninety miles per hour.
She put the earbuds back in and listened to the propulsive words and beat of “Dig Down” by Muse.
Twelve minutes later, they were three blocks from Kidd’s home at a meeting point with a couple of Rialto patrol officers called in by courtesy and procedure. Gonzalez and the other SUV team were in position a block from the other side of the suspect’s house. They were waiting for the call from the OP on Kidd emerging before making a move. Ballard had pulled her buds out for good in the middle of “Dark Side” by Bishop Briggs. She was ready to go. She hooked an earpiece attached to her rover on her ear and tuned the radio to the simplex channel the team was using.