Michael Connelly: The Black Echo

The five of them then left, leaving Bosch alone with his anger. He sat up and was ready to take a swing with his good arm at a vase of daisies on the bedside table, when the door opened and Irving came back in. Alone. No tape recorder.

“Detective Bosch, this is unofficial. I told the others I forgot to give you this.”

He pulled a greeting card out of his coat pocket and propped it upright on the windowsill. On the front was a busty policewoman with her uniform blouse unbuttoned to the navel. She was rapping her nightstick in her hand impatiently. A bubble from her mouth said Get Well Soon or… Bosch would have to read the inside to get the punch line.

“I didn’t forget. I just wanted to say something private.” He stood mute at the foot of the bed until Bosch nodded. “You are good at what you do, Detective Bosch. Anybody knows that. But that doesn’t mean you are a good police officer. You refuse to be part of the Family. And that’s not good. And, meantime, you see, I have this department to protect. To me, that’s the most important job in the world. And one of the best ways to do that is to control public opinion. Keep everybody happy. So if it means putting out a couple of nice press releases and putting on a couple of big funerals with the mayor and the TV cameras and all the brass there, that’s what we are going to do. The protection of the department is more important than the fact that two dumb cops made a mistake.

“Same goes for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They will grind you up before they publicly flog themselves with Rourke. So what I am telling you is that rule one is you have to go along to get along.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“No, I do not know it. Deep down neither do you. Let me ask you something. Why is it, you think, that Lewis and Clarke were pulled back on the investigation of the Dollmaker shooting? Who do you think reined them in?”

When Bosch didn’t say anything Irving nodded. “You see, we had to make a decision. Would it be better to see one of our detectives dragged through the papers and brought up on criminal charges, or for him to be quietly demoted and transferred?” He let that hang there a few seconds before continuing. “Another thing. Lewis and Clarke came to me last week with the story about what you did to them. Cuffing them to that tree. Very brutal, that was. But they were as happy as a couple of high school cheerleaders after an evening with the football team. They had you by the balls and were ready to put the paper in right then. They-”

“They had me, but I had them.”

“No. That’s what I’m telling you. They came to me with this story about the bug in the phone, what you told them. But the thing is, they didn’t drop the bug in your phone, like you thought. I checked it out. That is what I am telling you. They had you.”

“Then who-” Bosch stopped right there. He knew the answer.

“I told them to hold back a few days. To watch, see what happened. Something was going on. Those two men were always hard to bridle when it came to you. They overstepped when they decided to stop that fellow Avery and then told him to take them back to the vault. They paid the price.”

“What about the FBI, what do they say about the bug?”

“I don’t know and I’m not asking. If I did, they would say, ‘What bug?’ You know that.”

Bosch nodded and was immediately tired of the man. A thought was pushing into his head that he didn’t want to allow in. He looked away from Irving to the window. Irving told him once more to think of the department before he did anything, then walked out. When he was sure Irving had made his way down the hall, Bosch lashed out with his left arm and sent the vase of daisies tumbling into the corner of the room. The vase was plastic and didn’t break. The damage was just spilled water and flowers. Galvin Junior’s ferret face momentarily poked in and then out of the room. He said nothing, but it tipped Bosch that the IAD man was posted outside in the hall. Was that for his protection? Or for the department’s? Bosch didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore.

Bosch pushed away an untouched tray containing an institutional meal of turkey loaf with flour gravy, corn, yams, a hard roll that was supposed to be soft, and strawberry shortcake with flat whipped cream.

“You eat that, you might never get out of here.”

He looked up. It was Eleanor. She stood in the open door, smiling. He smiled back. He couldn’t help himself.

“I know.”

“How are you, Harry?”

“Okay. I’ll be okay. Might not be able to do chin-ups anymore, but I’ll survive with that. How are you, Eleanor?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and her smile just slayed him. “They put you through the Veg-O-Matic today?”

“Oh, yeah. Sliced and diced. The best and the brightest of my fine department-a couple of your pals, too-had me on the ropes all morning. There’s a chair on this side.”

She circled the bed but continued standing next to the chair. She looked around and a slight frown creased her brow, as if she knew this room and therefore knew something wasn’t right.

“They got me, too. Last night. They wouldn’t let me come see you till they were through with you. Orders. Didn’t want us going together on the story. But I guess our stories came out all right. At least they didn’t pull me back in after they talked to you today. Told me that was it.”

“They find the diamonds?”

“Not that I’ve heard, but they aren’t telling me much anymore. They’ve got two crews working it today, but I’m out of it. I’m on a desk till it cools off and the shooting team finishes up. They’re still probably at Rourke’s place looking.”

“What about Tran and Binh, they cooperate?”

“No. They aren’t saying one word. I know that from a friend who was on the interrogation. They don’t know anything about any diamonds. Probably got their own people together in a posse. They’ll be out on the treasure hunt, too.”

“Where do you think the treasure is?”

“I don’t have any idea. This whole thing, Harry, it’s kind of thrown me. I don’t know what I think about things anymore.”

That included how she thought about him, he knew. He didn’t say anything and after a while the silence became uneasy.

“What happened, Eleanor? Irving told me Lewis and Clarke intercepted Avery. But that’s all I know. I don’t understand.”

“They watched us watch the vault all night. They must’ve gotten it into their heads that we were lookouts. If you start with the assumption that you were a bad cop, like they did, then you might come to the same conclusion. So when they see you turn Avery away and send the two uniforms home, they figure they know your game. They grab Avery at Darling’s and he tells them about your visit the day before, and all the alarms this week, and then he lets it slip that you didn’t want him to open the vault.”

“And they said, ‘You mean you can open the vault?’ and the next thing is they are sneaking down the alley.”

“Yeah. They had an idea about being heroes. Catching the bad cops and the robbers all at once. Nice plan until the payoff.”

“Poor dumb jerks.”

“Poor dumb jerks.”

The silence came back then and Eleanor didn’t wait for it to settle.

“Well, I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

He nodded.

“And… and to tell you-”

Here it is, he thought, the kiss good-bye.

“-I’ve decided to quit. I’m going to leave the bureau.”

“What about… What will you do?”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to leave here, Harry. I have some money so I’ll travel awhile and then see what I want to do.”