“Hello?”
Bosch said nothing. He just listened. It sounded as though Cronyn was in a car, driving.
“Hello?”
For Bosch, there was something absolutely energizing about the moment and listening silently to Cronyn’s puzzled tone. Thanks to Cisco’s one-look view of the video, Bosch had now made the jump to the next level. He was closer to the frame.
Cronyn disconnected on his end and the line went silent.
20
Bosch drove down out of the hills and was sitting dead still behind a long line of red lights on the Barham overpass when he took a call back from Cisco.
“Hey, he’s on the move, and this time, I can tell, he’s looking for a tail.”
Bosch immediately surmised that Cronyn had made contact with Spencer by other means and learned that it had not been Spencer who had left the emergency message. Now the question was whether they had decided to meet somewhere or whether Spencer was simply trying to determine if he was being surveilled.
“Can you stay with him? I’m not going to get there in time. Traffic.”
“I can try but what is more important to you — to see where he’s going or to make sure I don’t get made? Tailing on a Harley has its drawbacks when the target’s on high alert. Namely, it’s loud.”
That was confirmed by the background sound. Bosch could hear the wind whistling into Cisco’s earpiece, as well as the baritone sounds of his bike’s illegal muffler.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, if I knew I was going to be doing this, I would have been prepped and I could’ve tagged his car, you know? Hung back on him. But I went straight from Greenblatt’s to downtown to make sure I didn’t miss him. Didn’t have the equipment.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m not blaming you. I’m thinking you should let him go. I think I just spooked them with a call I made. It confirms this guy’s part of this thing, so he might just be trying to see if he has a tail. Let him keep wondering.”
“He’s done a couple pullovers and rectangle moves.”
Bosch knew a rectangle move was when you took four rights around a block and came back to where you were. It usually revealed all followers.
“Then maybe you’ve already been made.”
“Nah, I didn’t fall for his bullshit. He’s an amateur. Right now I got him four blocks ahead on Marengo. You sure you want me to let him go?”
Bosch thought for a moment and second-guessed his first instincts. He was torn. He might be passing up an opportunity to see Spencer and Cronyn together. One photograph of such a meeting would blow the whole case open. If he texted that to Soto, she would rethink everything and there probably would be no hearing on vacating Borders’s sentence. But would Cronyn really be stupid enough to call for a meeting after getting the scam call from Bosch?
Harry didn’t think so. Spencer was up to something else.
“I changed my mind; stay on him,” he finally said. “Very loose. If you lose him, you lose him. Just don’t get made.”
“Got it. Did you hear from Mick yet?”
“No. About what?”
“He’s got more on this guy’s mortgage. Some good stuff and maybe an angle to play. At least that’s what he said.”
“I’ll call him. Let me know about Spencer. And thanks for jumping in on this, Cisco.”
“What I do.”
“Call me if you figure out what he’s up to.”
They disconnected and Bosch called Haller next.
“I was just on with Cisco. He said you have some good stuff.”
“You bet. My girl Lorna has kicked some major ass on this. She was able to pull up the foreclosure record and I think crack this thing open.”
“Tell me.”
“I have to make a quick search on the computer first and then I’ll have everything. You want to catch dinner in a bit and talk then?”
“Yeah. Where?”
“I feel like pot roast. You ever been to Jar?”
“Yeah, I like eating at the counter there.”
“Of course, you’re a counter sort of guy. You’re like the guy sitting by himself in that Hopper painting.”
“I’ll see you at Jar. When?”
“Half an hour.”
Bosch disconnected. He wondered if there was some kind of psychic connection between himself and his half brother. He had often considered himself to be like that man at the counter in Hopper’s Nighthawks.
He realized that he had not moved on the overpass in nearly ten minutes. Something was wrong up ahead on Barham. The cars were lined up all around the bend where it went down into Burbank and the Warner’s lot. He reached over, opened his glove compartment, and looked at the mobile police light. Because he was only a reserve officer at SFPD, he was not given a city ride. In lieu of that, he had been given the blue strobe light he could throw on the roof of his personal car, but it came with the proviso that it not be used unless Bosch was inside the bounds of San Fernando.
“Fuck it,” he said.
He grabbed the light and put it out through the window and up onto the roof, a magnet on the bottom holding it in place. He plugged the juice line into the cigarette lighter and started seeing the flashing blue light reflecting off the rear window of the car in front of him. The car blocking his way inched forward enough for Bosch to make a U-turn and head back to Cahuenga Boulevard. Cars stopped at the intersection and he breezed through. He started heading south.
After he slipped by the Hollywood Bowl and onto Franklin, the traffic slackened off enough for Bosch to pull the plug out of the cigarette lighter. He got to Jar, down on Beverly, well ahead of Haller, and he took one of the stools at the counter. He was nursing his first martini when Haller came through the door fifteen minutes later. He asked for a table in the corner of the dining room for privacy. Bosch followed with his martini.
Haller matched Bosch’s drink order and got down to business as soon as they were alone.
“I like the way you put my investigator to work without consulting me,” he said.
“Hey, I’m the client here,” Bosch retorted. “You’re working for me and that means he works for me too.”
“I’m not sure I agree with that logic, but it is what it is. You’re going to love what we’ve got.”
“Cisco filled me in on some of it.”
“Not the really good stuff.”
“So tell me.”
Haller waited for his martini to be put down in front of him. The waiter was also about to hand out menus, when he was cut off with a wave of Haller’s hand.
“Two orders of pot roast and a side of duck fried rice,” Haller said.
“Perfect,” said the waiter.
He went away.
“I like the way you order for me without consulting me first,” Bosch said.
“Must be something in our father’s blood,” Haller said.
“I actually already ate a sandwich.”
“So eat again — this is the good stuff. Anyway, I don’t know if you remember this but during the mortgage crisis, I shifted a lot of my business over to foreclosure defense. I made out, too. Remember, I hired Jennifer Aronson as an associate and we made some good money for a few years there.”
“I remember something about that, yeah.”
“Well, that’s my way of telling you I know the ins and outs of that illustrious time in our nation’s financial history. I wasn’t the only one making bank and I know how others made out as well.”
“Okay, so what’s it have to do with our man Spencer?”
“His foreclosure suit is public record. You just need to know how to find it, and lucky for us, Lorna does. So I’ve spent the past hour with it and, like I said, you’re going to like it. Check that. Love it.”