Michael Connelly - EchoPark

Anthony Garland groaned and kicked at the ground with his expensive loafers.

“Goddamn it! I knew this whole thing would-”

His father put a hand up for quiet.

“Bosch and the FBI don’t matter,” the old man said. “It’s all about what O’Shea will do, and O’Shea is taken care of. He’s bought and paid for. Only he doesn’t know it yet. Once I apprise him of his situation, he will do what I tell him to do. If he wants to be district attorney.”

Pratt shook his head.

“Bosch isn’t going to let go of this. He hasn’t for thirteen years. He’s not going to now.”

“Then, you take care of it. That’s your end of the deal. I took care of O’Shea. You take care of Bosch. Let’s go, son.”

The old man started to get up, using the cane to push up on. His son stepped over to help him.

“Wait a minute,” Pratt said. “You aren’t going anywhere. I said I want more money and I’m serious. I’ll take care of Bosch, but then I need to check out and disappear. I need more money to do that.”

Anthony Garland angrily pointed down at Pratt on the bench.

“You goddamn piece of shit,” he said. “You were the one who came to us. This whole goddamn thing is your plan from start to finish. You go out there and get two people killed, and then you have the balls to come back to us for more money?”

Pratt shrugged and spread his hands.

“I’m looking at a choice here, same as you. I could sit tight with the way things are and see how close they come to me. Or I could disappear right now. The thing you should know is that they always make deals with the little fish to get to the bigger fish. I’m a little fish, Anthony. The big fish? That would be you.”

He turned to look at the old man.

“And the biggest fish? That would be you.”

T. Rex Garland nodded. He was a pragmatic businessman. He seemed to now understand the gravity of the situation.

“How much?” he asked. “How much to disappear?”

Pratt didn’t hesitate.

“I want another million dollars and it will be well worth it to you to give it to me. They can’t get to either of you without me. If I’m gone, the case is gone. So it’s a million and the price is nonnegotiable. Anything less and it is not worth it for me to run. I’ll make a deal and take my chances.”

“What about Bosch?” the old man asked. “You already said he won’t give up. Now that he knows Raynard Waits didn’t-”

“I’ll take care of him before I split,” Pratt said, cutting him off. “I’ll throw that in for free.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper with numbers printed on it. He slid it across the bench to the old man.

“There’s the bank account and wiring code. Same as before.”

Pratt stood up.

“Tell you what, talk amongst yourselves. I’m going over to the boathouse to take a leak. When I come back I’ll need an answer.”

Pratt walked past Anthony, coming close, each man holding the other’s eyes in a hard stare of hatred.

HARRY BOSCH STUDIED THE MONITORS in the surveillance van. The FBI had worked through the night setting cameras in eight locations at the park. One whole side of the interior of the van was covered with an array of digital screens that showed a multitude of visual angles on the bench where T. Rex Garland sat and his son stood waiting for Abel Pratt to return. The cameras were located on four of the park’s path lights, in two of its flower beds, in the mock lighthouse atop the boathouse and in the fake pigeon perched on top of the Lady of the Lake ’s head.

Added to this, the bureau techs had set up microwave sound receivers triangulated on the bench. The sound sweep was aided by directional mikes located in the fake pigeon, a flower bed and the folded newspaper Pratt had placed in the nearby trash can. A bureau sound tech named Jerry Hooten sat in the van, wearing a huge set of earphones and manipulating the audio feeds in order to produce the cleanest sound. Bosch and the others had been able to watch Pratt and the Garlands and hear their conversation word for word.

The others were Rachel Walling and Rick O’Shea. The prosecutor was sitting front and center, the video screens spread before him. This was his show. Walling and Bosch sat on either side of him.

O’Shea pulled off his earphones.

“What do we think?” he asked. “He’s going to call. What do I tell him?”

Three of the screens showed Pratt about to enter the park’s restroom. According to the plan, he would wait until the room was clear and then call the surveillance van’s number on his cell phone.

Rachel pulled her earphones down around her neck and so did Bosch.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s your call but we don’t have much of an admission from the son in regard to Gesto.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” O’Shea responded.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “When Pratt talked about him leading him through the woods to the body, Anthony didn’t deny it.”

“But he didn’t admit it either,” Rachel said.

“But if a guy was sitting there talking to you about finding a body you buried and you didn’t know what he was talking about, I think you’d say something.”

“Well, that can be an argument for the jury,” O’Shea said. “I’m just saying that he hasn’t yet made anything I would call a statement of admission. We need more.”

Bosch nodded, conceding the point. It had been decided on Saturday morning that Pratt’s word was not going to be good enough. His testimony that Anthony Garland had led him to Marie Gesto’s body and that he had taken a payoff from T. Rex Garland would not be sufficient to build a solid prosecution on. Pratt was a crooked cop and building a case on his testimony was too risky in an age when juries were highly suspicious of police integrity and behavior. They needed to get admissions from both of the Garlands for the case to move onto solid ground.

“Look, all I’m saying is, I think it’s good but we’re not quite there yet,” O’Shea said. “We need to get a direct-”

“What about the old man?” Bosch asked. “I think Pratt got him to shit all over himself.”

“I agree,” Rachel said. “He’s toast. If you send him back, tell him to work on Anthony.”

As if on cue there was a low-level buzzing sound that indicated an incoming call. O’Shea, unfamiliar with the equipment, raised a finger over the console and looked for the right button to push.

“Here,” Hooten said.

He punched a button that opened the cell line.

“This is the van,” O’Shea said. “You’re on speaker.”

“How’d I do?” Pratt said.

“It’s a start,” O’Shea said. “What took you so long to call?”

“I actually did have to take a leak.”

While O’Shea talked to Pratt about going back to the bench and trying once more for an admission from Anthony Garland, Bosch slipped his earphones back on to hear the conversation taking place at the bench.

From the visuals on the screens it looked like Anthony Garland was arguing with his father. The old man was pointing a finger at him.

Bosch picked it up in the middle.

“It’s our only out,” Anthony Garland said.

“I said no!” the old man commanded. “You cannot do this. You will not do this.”

On the screen Anthony stepped away from his father and then stepped right back. It looked like he was on an invisible leash. He bent down close to his father and this time he pointed the finger. What he said was spoken so low that the FBI microphones picked up only a mumble. Bosch pressed his hands over the earphones but couldn’t get it.

“Jerry,” he said. “Can you work on this?”