Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“Well, we can’t look the other way. They have something we need. And if you call in IAD, then forget it. That will freeze everything up down there and that will be that.”

“What do they have that we need?”

“It stands to reason that if Carbone was pulling a bug out of that office, then-”

“There’s tapes. Jesus, I forgot about that.”

They dropped into silence for a few moments. Bosch pulled the chair out across from her desk and finally sat down.

“Let me take a run at Carbone, see if I can figure out what they were doing and get the tapes,” he said. “We’ve got the leverage.”

“This may have something to do with the chief and Fitzgerald, you know.”

“Maybe.”

She was referring to the intradepartmental skirmish between Deputy Chief Leon Fitzgerald, commander of OCID for more than a decade, and the man who was supposed to be his boss, the chief of police. In the time Fitzgerald had run the OCID, he had taken on an aura akin to J. Edgar Hoover’s at the FBI, a keeper of secrets who would use them to protect his position, his division and his budget. It was believed by many that Fitzgerald had his minions investigate and keep tabs on more honest citizens, cops and elected officials of the city than the mobsters his division was charged with rooting out. And it was no secret within the department that there was an ongoing power struggle between Fitzgerald and the police chief. The chief wanted to rein in OCID and its deputy chief but Fitzgerald didn’t want to be reined in. In fact, he wanted his domain to broaden. He wanted to be police chief. The struggle was largely at a namecalling standstill. The chief could not fire Fitzgerald outright because of civil service protections; and he could not get backing to simply gut and overhaul OCID from the police commission, mayor or city council members because it was believed that Fitzgerald had thick files on all of them, including the chief. These elected and appointed officials did not know what was in those files but they had to assume that the worst things they had ever done were duly recorded. And therefore they would not back the chief’s move against Fitzgerald unless they and the chief were in a guaranteed no-lose position.

Most of this was department legend or rumor, but Bosch knew even legend and rumor usually have some basis in reality. He was reluctant to step behind this curtain and possibly into this fight, as Billets clearly was, but offered to do so because he saw no alternative. He had to know what OCID had been doing and what it was that Carbone was trying to protect by breaking into the Archway office.

“Okay,” Billets said after some long thought. “But be careful.”

“Where’s the video from Archway?”

She pointed to the safe on the floor behind her desk. It was used to secure evidence.

“It will be safe,” she said.

“It better be. It will probably be the only thing that keeps them off me.”

She nodded. She knew the score.

The OCID offices were on the third floor of Central Division in downtown. The division was located away from police headquarters at Parker Center because the work of the OCID involved many undercover operations and it would not be wise to have so many undercovers going in and out of a place as public as the so-called Glass House, Parker Center. But it was that separation that helped foster the deepening gulf between Leon Fitzgerald and the police chief.

On the drive over from Hollywood, Bosch thought about a plan and knew just how he was going to play it by the time he got to the guard shack and flipped his ID to the rookie assigned parking lot duty. He read the name off the tag above the cop’s breast pocket and drove into the lot and over toward the back doors of the station, then put the car in park and got out his phone. He called the OCID’s main number and a secretary answered.

“Yeah, this is Trindle down on the parking lot,” Bosch said. “Is Carbone there?”

“Yes, he is. If you hold a-”

“Just tell him to come down. Somebody busted into his car.”

Bosch hung up and waited. In three minutes one of the doors at the rear of the station house opened and a man hurried out. Bosch recognized him from the Archway surveillance tape. Billets had been right on. Bosch put the car in drive and followed along behind the man. Eventually, he pulled up alongside him and lowered the window.

“Carbone.”

“Yeah, what?”

He kept walking, barely giving Bosch a glance.

“Slow down. Your car’s all right.”

Carbone stopped and now looked closely at Bosch.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I made the call. I just wanted to get you out here.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Bosch. We talked the other night.”

“Oh, yeah. The Aliso caper.”

Then it dawned on him that Bosch could have just taken the elevator up to the third floor if he wanted to see him.

“What is this, Bosch? What’s going on?”

“Why don’t you get in? I want to take a little ride.”

“I don’t know, man. I don’t like the way you’re doing this.”

“Get in, Carbone. I think you better.”

Bosch said it in a tone and with an accompanying stare that invited no choice but compliance. Carbone, who was about forty with a stocky build, hesitated a moment, then walked around the front of the car. He was wearing a nice dark blue suit like most mob cops liked to wear and he filled the car with the smell of a brisk cologne. Right away Bosch didn’t like him.

They drove out of the parking lot and Bosch went north toward Broadway. There was a lot of traffic and pedestrians and they moved slowly. Bosch said nothing, waiting for Carbone.

“Okay, so what’s so important you have to kidnap me away from the station?” he finally asked.

Bosch drove another block without answering. He wanted Carbone to sweat a little.

“You’ve got problems, Carbone,” he finally said. “I just thought I should tell you. See, I want to be your friend, Carbone.”

Carbone looked at Bosch with caution.

“I know I got problems,” he said. “I’m paying two different women child support, my house still has cracks in the walls from the earthquake and the union ain’t going to get us a raise again this year. So fuckin’ what?”

“Those aren’t problems, man. Those are inconveniences. I’m talking about real problems. About the break-in you did the other night over at Archway.”

Carbone was silent for a long moment and Bosch wasn’t sure but he thought the man was holding his breath.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Take me back.”

“No, Carbone, see, that’s the wrong answer. I’m here to help you, not hurt you. I’m your friend. And that goes for your boss, Fitzgerald, too.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, then I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. I called you Sunday night and asked you about my stiff named Aliso. You call me back and tell me not only is OCID taking a pass, but you never heard of the guy. But as soon as you hang up the phone, you get over to Archway, break into the guy’s office and pop the bug you people planted in his phone. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Bosch looked over at him for the first time and he saw the face of a man whose mind is racing to find a way out. Bosch knew he had him now.

“Bullshit, that’s what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you dumb fuck? Next time you decide to do a little breaking and entering, look up. Check for cameras. Rodney King Rule Number One, don’t get caught on tape.”

He waited a moment to let that sink in and then put the final nails in the coffin.

“You knocked the mug off the desk and broke it. You then dumped it outside hoping nobody would notice anything. And one last thing about the rules. If you’re going to do a B amp;E in short sleeves, then you ought to get yourself a Band-Aid or somethin’ and cover up that tattoo on your arm, know what I mean? That’s a slam-bang identifier when you got it on tape. And, Carbone, you’re on tape, lots of tape.”