Michael Connelly - The Drop

“I’m good,” Bosch said.

“Same here,” Chu said.

Rider appraised Chu. She had no idea about Chu’s traitorous activities.

“That was good work, gentlemen,” she said. “And Detective Chu, I admire your willingness to stand up in there for your partner and your case. Well done.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Now, do you mind stepping out into the waiting area? I have some things to discuss with Detective Bosch relating to his DROP date.”

“No problem. Harry, I’ll be out here.”

Chu left and Rider closed the door. She and Bosch were left looking at each other for a long moment. She then slowly broke into a smile and shook her head.

“You must’ve been lovin’ that in there,” she said. “Seeing Irving have to shut down or be put down like the dog he is.”

Bosch shook his head.

“Not really. I don’t care about him anymore. I still don’t get it, though. Why did he really want me on the case?”

“I think it was exactly what he said. He knew you would be relentless and he needed to know if somebody went through his son to get to him. The only thing is, he didn’t think you’d get to the place you got to.”

Bosch nodded.

“Maybe.”

“Now, the chief didn’t show it in front of Irving, but you just gave him the golden ticket. And the good news is, he is going to be happy to reward you. I was thinking I’d start by getting your DROP moved up to the whole five years. How would that be, Harry?”

She smiled, anticipating that Bosch would be delighted by the additional twenty-one months on the job.

“Let me think about that,” he said.

“You sure? You might want to strike while the iron’s hot.”

“Tell you what. See if you can get Chu moved out of OU, but keep him in RHD. Get him a good gig over there.”

She narrowed her eyes and he continued before she could speak.

“And do it no questions asked.”

“You sure you don’t want to talk to me about this?”

“No, Kiz, I don’t.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. Irving’s probably down the elevator by now. You should get back down to OU to work on your report. By two o’clock, remember?”

“See you at two.”

Bosch stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him. Chu was waiting there, smiling with pride over the stand he had made and completely unaware that his career path had just been set without a word of input or preference from him.

Saturday started early for Bosch and his daughter. While still in darkness they drove down out of the hills, took the 101 freeway into downtown and then pivoted south on the 110 toward Long Beach. They caught the first ferry over to Catalina, Bosch never letting go of the locked gun case as they rode into a cold gray dawn. Once on the island, they ate breakfast at the Pancake Cottage in Avalon, the only place Harry had ever thought compared favorably to Du-par’s back in L.A.

Bosch wanted his daughter to eat a full breakfast because the plan was to eat lunch late in the day, after the pistol competition. He knew that the little tickle of hunger she’d get in the early afternoon would help her stay focused and keep her aim tight.

A year earlier when she had announced to him that her plan was to become a police officer, she had begun learning about guns and their safe use and storage. There was no philosophical debate about it. Bosch was a cop and there were guns in the house. It was simply a given and he considered it good parenting to teach his daughter how to use and safeguard the weapons. He supplemented his mentoring by enrolling her in courses at a firing range up in Newhall.

But Maddie had taken it far past a rudimentary knowledge of practice and safety. She took to shooting at paper targets with a passion and developed a steady hand and cold eye. Within six months her marksmanship put her father’s to shame. They ended each training lesson with a one-on-one match and she soon became unbeatable. She owned the ten ring at ten yards and could keep her aim steady through a sixteen-round clip.

Soon beating her old man with his own guns was not enough. And that brought them to Catalina. Maddie’s first competition was a junior match at the gun club on the back side of the island. It was a single-elimination pistol match that would pit her against all teenage entrants. Each face-off involved shooting six rounds at paper targets from ten, fifteen and twenty-five yards.

They had chosen Catalina for her first foray into competitive shooting because it was a small tournament and they knew they could make a fun day of it no matter how she performed. Maddie had never been to Catalina, and Harry had not been out to the barrier island in years.

As it turned out, she was the only girl in the competition. It was Maddie and seven boys, randomly bracketed into one-on-one matches. She won her first match going away, overcoming a weak grouping on the ten-yard target to hit seven of eight rings in the fifteen- and twenty-five-yard distances. Bosch was so proud and happy for her that he wanted to rush to the line and hug her. But he held back, knowing it would only underline that she was the only girl. Instead, he was the lone spectator applauding from the picnic tables behind the shooting line. He then put on his sunglasses so no stranger would see the look in his eyes.

His daughter was eliminated in the next round by a single-ring shot but took the disappointment well. The fact that she had competed and won her first match had made the journey worth it. She and Bosch stuck around to watch the final round and then the start of the adult competition. Maddie tried to goad Harry into entering the adult round but he demurred. His eyes were not what they once were and he knew he didn’t stand a chance.

They ate a late lunch at the Busy Bee and window-shopped along Crescent before catching the four-o’clock ferry back to the mainland. They sat inside because the sea air was cold, and along the way, Bosch put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. He knew that other girls her age weren’t learning about guns and shooting. They weren’t watching their fathers at night poring over murder books and autopsies and crime scene photos. They weren’t left alone in the house while their fathers went out with their guns to chase bad guys. Most parents were raising citizens of the future. Doctors, teachers, mothers, keepers of family businesses. Bosch was raising a warrior.

A momentary thought of Hannah Stone and her son shot through him and he squeezed his daughter’s shoulder again. He had been thinking about something and it was now time to discuss it.

“You know,” he said, “you don’t have to do any of this if you don’t want to. Don’t do it for me, Mads. The gun stuff. The being a cop thing, too. You do what you want to do. You make your own choices.”

“I know, Dad. I do make my own choices and it’s what I want. We talked about this a long time ago.”

It was Bosch’s hope that she would be able to leave her past behind and forge something new. He had been unable to do it himself and it haunted him that she might be the same way.

“Okay, baby. There’s a lot of time between now and then anyway.”

A few minutes went by while he thought of things. He could see the disguised oil derricks in the harbor just coming into view. A call came in on his cell and he saw it was from David Chu. He let it go to message. He wasn’t going to spoil this moment with work or, more likely, Chu groveling for a second chance. He put the phone away and kissed the top of his daughter’s head.

“I guess I’ll always have to worry about you,” he said. “It’s not like you could want to be a teacher or something safe like that.”

“I hate school, Dad. Why would I want to be a teacher?”