Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

Once Tran was gone, Bosch announced that he had seen enough of the vault and headed out also. He walked to the double-plated glass and looked out on Wilshire Boulevard and watched Tran, flanked by the two massive guards, making his way to the parking garage where the Mercedes was parked. No one followed them. Bosch looked around but didn’t see Eleanor.

“Is something wrong, Mr. Pounds?” Grant said from behind him.

“Yes,” Bosch said. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out his badge wallet. He held it up over his shoulder so Grant could see it from behind. “You better get me the manager of this place. And don’t call me Mr. Pounds anymore.”

Lewis stood at a pay phone in front of a twenty-four-hour diner called Darling’s. He was around the corner and about a block from Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. It had been more than a minute since Officer Mary Grosso had answered the call and said she would get Deputy Chief Irving on the line. Lewis was thinking that if the man wanted hourly updates-by landline, no less-then the least he could do was take the damn call promptly. He switched the phone to his other ear and dug in his coat pocket for something to pick his teeth with. His wrist was sore where it chafed against the pocket. But thinking about being handcuffed by Bosch only made him angry, so he tried to concentrate on the investigation. He had no idea what was going on, what Bosch and the FBI woman were up to. But Irving was convinced there was a caper on, and so was Clarke. If so, Lewis promised himself at the pay phone, he would be the one who would squeeze the cuffs on Bosch’s wrists.

An old tramp with scary eyes and white hair shuffled up to the pay phone next to the one Lewis was at and checked the change slot. It was empty. He reached a finger toward the slot of the phone Lewis was using, but the IAD detective batted it away.

“Anything there, it’s mine, pop,” Lewis said.

Undeterred, the tramp said, “You got a quarter so I can get something to eat?”

“Fuck off,” Lewis said.

“What?” a voice said.

“What?” Lewis said, and then realized the voice had come from the phone. It was Irving. “Oh, not you, sir. I didn’t realize you were-uh, I was talking, uh, I’m having a problem here with someone. I-”

“You speak like that with a citizen?”

Lewis reached a hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. He handed it to the white-haired man and shooed him away.

“Detective Lewis, are you there?”

“Yes, Chief. Sorry. I’ve taken care of the situation now. I wanted to report. There has been an important development.”

He hoped this last would draw Irving’s attention away from the earlier indiscretion.

Irving said, “Tell me what you have. Do you still have Bosch in sight?”

Lewis exhaled sharply, relieved.

“Yes,” he said, “Detective Clarke is continuing surveillance while I make this report.”

“All right, then give it to me. It is Friday evening, Detective, I would like to get home at a reasonable hour.”

Lewis spent the next fifteen minutes updating Irving on Bosch’s tail of the gold Mercedes from Orange County to the Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. He said the tail was terminated at the safe and lock, which appeared to have been the intended destination.

“What are they doing now, Bosch and the bureau woman?”

“They are still in there. It looks like they are interviewing the manager. Something’s going on. It was like they didn’t know where they were going but once they got to this place, they knew this was it.”

“Was what?”

“That’s it. I don’t know. Whatever it is they are up to. I think the guy they followed made a deposit. There is a vault, a large vault in the front window of the place.”

“Yes, I know where you are talking about.”

Irving did not speak for a long period, and Lewis, his report completed, knew better than to interrupt. He started daydreaming about cuffing Bosch’s hands behind his back and walking him past a battery of television cameras. He heard Irving clear his throat.

“I don’t know their plan,” the deputy chief said. “But I want you to stay with them. If they don’t go home tonight, neither do you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If they allowed the Mercedes Benz to go on, then it must be the vault they wanted to find. They will place the vault under surveillance. And you, in turn, will continue to keep them under surveillance.”

“Yes, Chief,” Lewis said, though he was still lost.

Irving spent the next ten minutes giving his detective instructions and his theory of what was happening with Beverly Hills Safe & Lock. Lewis pulled out a pad and pen and took some quick notes. At the end of the one-sided dialogue, Irving entrusted Lewis with his home telephone number and said, “Don’t move in without my prior approval. You can call me at the number at any time, day or night. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Lewis said urgently.

Irving hung up without saying another word.

Bosch waited in the reception area without telling Grant or the other salesmen what was going on until Wish arrived. They stood behind their fancy desks with their mouths open. When Eleanor came to the door it was locked. She knocked and held up her badge. The guard let her in and she walked into the reception area.

As the salesman named Avery opened his mouth to say something, Bosch said, “This is FBI Agent Eleanor Wish. She is with me. We are going to step into one of your client offices for a private conversation. Just take a minute. If there is a head man here, we’d like to speak to him as soon as we come out.”

Grant, still flustered, just pointed to the second door in the alcove. Bosch went in the third door and Wish followed. He closed the door on all three of the salesmen’s eyes and locked it.

“So, what have we got? I don’t know what to tell them,” he whispered as he looked around the desk and two chairs in the room for a scrap of paper or anything else Tran might have mistakenly left behind. There was nothing. He opened the drawers of the mahogany desk. There were pens and pencils and envelopes and a stack of bond paper. Nothing else. There was a fax machine on a table against the wall opposite the door but it was not turned on.

“We watch and wait,” she said, speaking very quickly. “Rourke says he is putting together a tunnel crew. They’ll go in and have a look around. They’re going to get with DWP first to see exactly what’s down there. They should be able to figure what the best spot for a tunnel would be and then they’ll go from there. Harry, you really think this is it?”

He nodded. He wanted to smile but didn’t. Her excitement was contagious.

“Did he get a tail on Tran in time?” he asked. “By the way, here they know him as Mr. Long.”

There was a knocking on the door and someone’s voice saying, “Excuse me. Excuse me.” Bosch and Wish ignored it.

“Tran, Bok, now Long,” Wish said. “I don’t know about the tail. Rourke said he was going to try. I gave him the plate and told him where the Mercedes was parked. Guess we’ll find out later. He said he’d also send over a crew to work the surveillance with us. We are going to have a surveillance meeting in the garage across the street at eight o’clock. What did they say here?”

“I haven’t told them what’s going on yet.”

There was another knock, this one louder.

“Well, then, let’s go see the head man.”

The owner and chief operating officer of Beverly Hills Safe & Lock turned out to be Avery’s father, Martin B. Avery III. He was of the same stock as many of his customers and wanted everybody to know it. He had a private office at the rear of the alcove. Behind his desk was a collection of framed photographs attesting to the fact that he was not just another chiseler feeding off the rich. He was one of them. There was Avery III with a couple of presidents, a movie mogul or two, and English royalty. One photo was of Avery and the Prince of Wales in full polo regalia, though Avery appeared too thick around the middle and loose in the jowls to be much of a horseman.