Michael Connelly - Lost Light

“I don’t know what you know about us, Harry.”

“I know you were pretty hard to find. You’re not listed in the phone book. I had to call a friend of mine at the DA’s office and he got me the number.”

She nodded.

“That’s right. We’re not listed. We don’t need to be. We have very few clients and we handle every legal detail that crops up in their lives.”

“And you handle the criminal details.”

She hesitated. She was trying to judge where I was coming from.

“That’s right. I’m the firm’s criminal expert. That’s why I was meaning to call you. When I heard you retired I thought this would be perfect. Not full-time, but sometimes-depending on the case-it gets hot and heavy. We could really use somebody with your skills, Harry.”

I took a moment to compose my answer. I didn’t want to offend her. I wanted to hire her. So I decided not to tell her that what she was suggesting was impossible. That I could never move to the other table, no matter what the money was. It wasn’t in me. Retired or not, I had a mission in life. Working for a defense attorney wasn’t part of it.

“Janis,” I said, “I’m not looking for a job. I sort of already have one. The reason I’m here is because I want to hire you.”

She giggled.

“You’re kidding,” she said. “Are you in trouble?”

“Probably. But that’s not why I want to hire you. I need a lawyer I can trust to hold something for me and take the appropriate actions with it if necessary.”

She leaned forward in her desk. She still was at least six feet away from me.

“Harry, this is getting mysterious. What is going on?”

“First off, what is your normal retainer? Let’s get the client thing out of the way first.”

“Harry, our minimum retainer is twenty-five thousand dollars. So forget about that. I owe you for all of those airtight cases you brought me. Consider yourself a client.”

I pushed the surprise off my face.

“Really? Twenty-five grand just to open a file?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, they got the right person for it.”

“Thank you, Harry. Now what is this thing you want me to do?”

I opened the briefcase Burnett Biggar had given me to carry the second round of equipment I borrowed from him along with the memory card and the three CDs containing copies of the clock surveillance. Andre had made the copies. I put the card and the CDs on her desk.

“This is a surveillance I took. I want you to hold the original-the memory card-in a safe place. I want you to hold an envelope with one of the CDs and a letter from me. I want your private office number. I’m going to call it every night by midnight and tell you I am okay. In the morning you come in and if the message is there, then everything is all right. If you come in and there is no message from me, then you deliver the envelope to a reporter at the Times named Josh Meyer.”

“Josh Meyer. That name is familiar. Is he on courts?”

“I think he used to cover local crime stuff. Now he’s on terrorism. I think he works out of D.C. now.”

“Terrorism, Harry?”

“It’s a long story.”

She checked her watch.

“I’ve got time. I’ve also got a computer.”

I first took fifteen minutes to tell her about my private investigation and everything that had happened since Lawton Cross had called me out of the blue and I had pulled down the box of old cases off the closet shelf. Then I let her put the CD in her computer and watch the surveillance video. She didn’t recognize Lawton Cross until I told her who he was. She reacted with appropriate outrage when she viewed the section with Agents Milton and Carney. I had her turn it off before Danny Cross came into the room and comforted her husband.

“First question, were they real agents?” she asked after the computer kicked the disk out.

“Yeah, they’re part of the anti-terrorism squad working out of Westwood.”

She shook her head in disgust.

“If this ever gets to the Times and then onto TV, then -”

“I don’t want it to get there. Right now, that is the worst-case scenario.”

“Why not, Harry? Those are rogue agents. At least that one Milton is. And the other is just as guilty for standing there and letting him do it.”

She gestured toward her computer, where the surveillance video had been replaced by a screensaver that showed a bucolic scene of a house on a cliff overlooking the ocean, the waves rolling endlessly to shore.

“Do you think this is what the attorney general and the Congress of the United States wanted when they enacted legislation that changed and streamlined the bureau’s rules and tools after September eleventh?”

“No, I don’t,” I answered. “But they should have known what could happen. What’s the saying, absolute power corrupts absolutely? Something like that. Anyway, it’s a given that this sort of thing would happen. They should have known. The difference here is that that isn’t some Middle Eastern bag man on there. That’s an American citizen. He’s a former cop and he’s a goddamn quadriplegic because he took a bullet in the line of duty.”

Langwiser nodded somberly.

“That is exactly why you should get this out. It has to be see-”

“Janis, are you working for me or should I gather all this up and just find somebody else?”

She threw her hands up in surrender.

“Yes, I’m working for you, Harry. I’m just saying that this should not be allowed to just go by.”

“I’m not talking about letting it go by. I just don’t want it out yet. I need to use it as leverage first. I need to get what I want out of it first.”

“Which is what?”

“I was going to get to that but you started in like Ralph Nader.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m all calmed down now. Tell me your plan, Harry.”

And so I did.

Kate Mantilini’s on Wilshire Boulevard had a row of high-backed booths that afforded their inhabitants more interior privacy than the lap dance cubicles in the back rooms of any of the strip clubs in town. That was why I chose the restaurant for the meeting. It was very private yet very public. I was there fifteen minutes before the appointed time, got a booth with a window fronting Wilshire and waited. Special Agent Peoples got there a little early, too. He had to walk along the row of booths and look into each one to find me. He then slipped silently and morosely into the space across from me.

“Agent Peoples, glad you could make it.”

“I didn’t feel like I had much choice.”

“I guess you didn’t.”

He flipped open one of the menus that were on the table.

“Never been here before. Food any good?”

“It’s not bad. Good chicken pot pie on Thursdays.”

“It’s not Thursday.”

“And you’re not here to eat.”

He looked up from the menu and gave me his best deadeye stare but he didn’t have the juice this time. We both knew I was holding the high card this time. I looked out the window and glanced up and down Wilshire.

“You have your people out there, Agent Peoples? Are they waiting for me?”

“I came alone as instructed by your attorney.”

“Well, just so you’re clear. If your people grab me again or make any move against my attorney, then the consequences are that the surveillance recording you were e-mailed will go to the media and out across the Internet. There are people who will know if I disappear. They’ll put it out, no hesitation.”

Peoples shook his head.

“You keep saying that. ‘Disappear.’ This isn’t South America, Bosch. And we’re not Nazis.”

I nodded in agreement.

“Sitting in this nice restaurant it sure doesn’t seem so. But when I was sitting in that cube on the ninth floor and nobody knew I was there, that was a different story. Mouse Aziz and those other guys you’ve got up there probably don’t know the difference between California and Chile right now either.”