Michael Connelly - Lost Light

“And you are defending them now, is that it? The men who would like to see this country burn to the ground.”

“I’m not de-”

I stopped when the waitress came to the booth. She said her name was Kathy and asked if we were ready to order. Peoples ordered coffee and I ordered coffee and an ice cream sundae with no whipped cream. After Kathy left, Peoples looked at me funny.

“I’m retired. I can have a sundae.”

“Some retirement.”

“They make good sundaes here and they’re open late. That’s a good combination.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Did you ever see the movie Heat? This is the place where Pacino the cop meets De Niro the burglar. It’s where they both tell each other they won’t hesitate to put the other down if it comes to that.”

Peoples nodded and we held each other’s eyes for a long moment. Message delivered. I decided to get down to the business at hand.

“So what did you think of my clock camera?”

The façade dropped and Peoples suddenly looked wounded. He looked as though he had been thrown to the lions. He knew what the future held for him if that recording got out. Milton worked for him; therefore he’d take the fall, too. The Rodney King tape cut a swath through the LAPD that went all the way to the top. Peoples was smart enough to know he would get trampled if he didn’t contain this problem.

“I was disgusted by what I saw. First off, I apologize to you and my plan is to go out to see that man, Lawton Cross, and apologize as well.”

“That’s nice of you.”

“Don’t think for a moment that that is how we operate. That it is the status quo. That I condone it. Agent Milton is gone. He’s out. I knew that the moment I saw the recording. I’m not promising you he will be prosecuted, but he won’t be carrying a badge for very long. Not an FBI badge. I’ll see to that.”

I nodded.

“Right, you’ll see to that.”

I said it with high-octane sarcasm and I could see it put some color in his cheeks. The color of anger.

“You called the meeting, Bosch. What do you want?”

There it was. The question I was waiting for.

“You know what I want. I want you people off my back. I want my files and my notes back. I want Lawton Cross’s file back. I want a copy of the LAPD murder book-which I know you must have-and I want access to Aziz and what you have on him.”

“What we have on him is classified. It’s a national security matter. We can’t -”

“Declassify it. I want to know how strong the connection is to my movie heist. I want to know what you have on his whereabouts on two nights. All that federal intelligence has got to be good for something and I want it. And then I want to talk to him.”

“Who? Aziz? That’s not going to happen.”

I leaned across the table.

“Yes, it is. Because the alternative to that is that everybody who has a TV or America Online is going to see what your boy Milton did to a helpless man in a wheelchair. Make that a highly decorated retired cop who had the use of his limbs and fucking life taken from him while in the line of duty. You think the Rodney King tape did some damage to the LAPD? You wait and see what happens with this one. I guarantee you that Milton and you and your whole little ninth-floor BAM squad will be cut loose by the bureau and the attorney general and everybody else faster than you can say civil rights indictment. You understand, Special Agent Peoples?”

I gave him a moment to respond but he didn’t. His eyes were fixed and staring out through the window to Wilshire.

“And if you think for one minute I won’t pull the trigger on this, then you haven’t done your homework on me.”

This time I waited him out and eventually his eyes came back through the window and to me. The waitress came and put down our coffees and told me my sundae was on the way. Neither Peoples nor I said thank you.

“Believe me,” Peoples said, “I know you will pull the trigger. You are that kind of guy, Bosch. I know your kind. You will put yourself and your own interests ahead of the greater good.”

“Don’t give me that ‘greater good’ bullshit. This isn’t about that. You give me what I want and you get rid of Milton, then you get to cruise along like nothing ever happened. The recording is never seen. How’s that for greater good?”

Peoples leaned forward to sip his coffee. As he had done in the cube on the ninth floor he burned his mouth and grimaced. He pushed the cup and saucer away on the table and then slid to the edge of the booth before looking back at me.

“I’ll be in touch.”

“Twenty-four hours. I hear from you by this time tomorrow night or all bets are off. I go public with it.”

He stood up and remained next to the booth looking at me and still holding a napkin. He nodded his agreement.

“Let me ask you something,” he said. “If you’re here, who used your credit card tonight to buy dinner at Commander’s Palace in Vegas?”

I smiled. They had been tracking me.

“A friend. Is that a nice place, Commander’s Palace?”

He nodded.

“One of the best. I’ve been there. The shrimp in the gumbo is as soft as marshmallow.”

“That’s great, I guess.”

“Expensive too. Your friend put over a hundred bucks on your AmEx. Dinner for two it looked like.”

He tossed his napkin onto the table.

“I’ll be in touch.”

A moment after he was gone the waitress brought my sundae. I asked her for the check and she said she’d bring it right away.

I poked a spoon into the fudge and ice cream but I didn’t taste it. I sat there thinking about what Peoples had just said. I wasn’t sure if there was an implied threat in his telling me he knew somebody was using my credit card. Maybe he even knew who. But the thing I thought about the most was what he had said about it being dinner for two at Commander’s Palace. That “we” thing again. Just as with Eleanor, I couldn’t let it go.

Since the Las Vegas ruse was no longer in play I drove out to Burbank Airport, turned in my rental and took the tram out to the long-term lot to collect my car. I had borrowed Lawton Cross’s dolly and it was in the back of the Mercedes. Before driving off I got it out and slid underneath the car. I detached the satellite tracker and the heat sensor and slid under the pickup truck parked in the next space. I attached the equipment to the pickup’s underside and then got into the Mercedes. As I backed out I saw that the pickup had an Arizona plate. I figured if Peoples didn’t dispatch somebody soon to collect the bureau’s equipment, then they’d have to chase it to the next state. That left me smiling to myself when I pulled up to the parking booth to pay.

“You must have had a nice flight,” said the woman who took my ticket.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that. I made it back alive.”

I went home and called Janis Langwiser on her cell phone as soon as I got in the door. She had changed my plan a little bit. She didn’t want me leaving a message on her office line every night. She insisted I call her directly on her cell.

“How did it go?”

“Well, it went. Now I just have to wait. I gave him until tomorrow night. I guess we’ll know by then.”

“And how did he take it?”

“About what we expected. Not well. But I think by the end he saw the light. I think he’ll call tomorrow.”

“I hope so.”

“Everything set on your end?”

“I think so. The memory card’s in the office safe and I’ll wait to hear from you. If I don’t, then I’ll know what to do.”

“Good, Janis. Thanks.”

“Good night, Harry.”

I hung up and thought about things. Everything seemed to be in place. It was Peoples who would have to make the next move. I lifted the phone again and called Eleanor. She answered immediately, no sleep in her voice.