“I don’t need a teacher, Bosch. And I still think we can turn him.”
“Yeah, go home and watch some more TV. Why the fuck would he say a single word to us? These guys are told from day one, you get popped, you say nothing. If you go down, you go down and we’ll take care of you.”
“You told me you never worked a triad case before.”
“I haven’t but some things are universal and this is one of them. You get one shot at these cases. You have to do it right.”
“Okay, so we do it your way. What’s next?”
“We go back to the parking lot and cut your friends loose. We’ll take it from here. It’s our case, not theirs.”
“They’re not going to like that.”
“I don’t care if they like it or not. That’s the way it’s going to be. You figure out a way of letting them down nice. Tell them we’ll bring them back in when we’re ready to make a move on the guy.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. You invited them in, you invite them out.”
“Thanks, Bosch.”
“Any time, Chu. Welcome to homicide.”
13
Bosch, Ferras and Chu sat on one side of the meeting table across from Lieutenant Gandle and Captain Bob Dodds, commander of the Robbery-Homicide Division. Spread across the polished surface between them were the case documents and photographs, most notably the shot of Bo-Jing Chang from the Fortune Liquors security camera.
“I’m not convinced,” Dodds said.
It was Thursday morning, just six hours after Bosch and Chu had ended their surveillance of Chang, with the suspect going to an apartment in Monterey Park and apparently retiring for the night.
“Well, Cap, you shouldn’t be convinced yet,” Bosch said. “That’s why we want to continue the surveillance and get the wire.”
“What I mean is, I’m not convinced it’s the way to go,” Dodds said. “Surveillance is fine. But a wire is a lot of work and effort for long-shot results.”
Bosch understood. Dodds had an excellent reputation as a detective but he was now an administrator and about as far removed from the detective work in his division as a Houston oil executive is from the gas pump. He now worked with personnel numbers and budgets. He had to find ways of doing more with less and never allowing a dip in the statistics of arrests made and cases closed. That made him a realist and the reality was that electronic surveillance was very expensive. Not only did it take double-digit man hours to carefully draft a fifty-plus-page affidavit seeking court permission, but once permission was granted, a wiretap room had to be staffed twenty-four hours a day with a detective monitoring the line. Often a single-number tap led to other numbers needing to be tapped and under the law each line had to have its own monitor. Such an operation quickly sucked up overtime like a giant sponge. With the RHD’s OT budget seriously down because of economic constraints on the department, Dodds was reluctant to give any of it up for what amounted to an investigation of the murder of a south side liquor store clerk. He would rather save it for a rainy day-a big-time media case that might come up and that would demand it.
Dodds, of course, would not say any of this out loud but Bosch knew, just as everyone else in the room knew, that this was the issue the captain wrestled with and which left him unconvinced. It had nothing to do with the particulars of the case.
Bosch took one last shot at convincing him.
“This is the tip of the iceberg, Captain,” he said. “We’re not just talking about a liquor store shooting. This is just a doorway. We could take down a whole triad before this is over.”
“Before this is over? I retire in nineteen months, Bosch. These sorts of things can last forever.”
Bosch shrugged.
“We could call in the bureau, go partners. They’re always up for an international case and they’ve got money to spend on wiretaps and surveillance.”
“But we’d have to share everything,” Gandle said, meaning the spoils of the bust. Headlines, press conferences, everything.
“I don’t like the idea of doing that,” Dodds said as he held up the photo of Bo-Jing Chang.
Bosch threw in his last card.
“What if we did it without overtime?” Bosch asked.
The captain was holding a pen in his hand. It probably reminded him of his authority. He was the one who signed off on things. He twiddled it now as he considered Bosch’s unexpected question but quickly shook his head.
“You know I can’t ask you to do that,” he said. “I can’t even know about that.”
It was true. The department had been sued so many times for unfair labor practices that no one in administration would ever give even tacit approval to detectives working off the clock.
Bosch’s frustration with budgets and bureaucracy finally got the best of him.
“Then, what do we do? Bring Chang in. We all know he’s not going to say a word to us and the case will die right there.”
The captain wiggled his pen.
“Bosch, you know what the alternative is. You work the case until something breaks. You work the witnesses. You work the evidence. There’s always a link. I spent fifteen years doing what you’re doing and you know there is always something. Find it. A wiretap is a long shot and you know it. Legwork is always the better bet. Now, is there anything else?”
Harry felt his face growing red. The captain was dismissing him. What burned was that deep down Bosch knew Dodds was right.
“Thanks, Captain,” he said curtly and stood up.
The detectives left the captain and the lieutenant in the conference room and convened in Bosch’s cubicle. Bosch threw a pen he was carrying down on his desk.
“Guy’s an ass,” Chu said.
“No, he’s not,” Bosch quickly said. “He’s right and that’s why he’s the captain.”
“Then, what do we do?”
“We stay with Chang. I don’t care about overtime and what the captain doesn’t know won’t hurt him. We watch Chang and we wait for him to make a mistake. I don’t care how long it takes. I can make a hobby of it if I have to.”
Bosch looked at the other two, expecting them to decline to participate in a surveillance that would likely go beyond the bounds of the eight-hour day.
To his surprise, Chu nodded.
“I already talked to my lieutenant. I’m detached to this case. I can do it.” Bosch nodded and at first considered that he had been wrong to be so suspicious of Chu. His next thought, however, was that the suspicion was valid and that Chu’s commitment to stay with the case was just a means of remaining close to the investigation and monitoring Bosch.
Harry turned to his partner.
“What about you?”
Ferras reluctantly nodded and gestured toward the conference room across the squad room. Through the glass wall, Dodds could be seen still talking with Gandle.
“You know they know this is what we’re doing,” he said. “They’re not going to pay us and they leave it to us to either step up or let it go. It’s not fucking fair.”
“Yeah, so?” Bosch said. “Life isn’t fair. Are you in or out?”
“I’m in, but with a limit. I’ve got a family, man. I’m not sitting on surveillance all night. I can’t do it-especially for nothing.”
“All right, fine,” Bosch said, even though his tone communicated his disappointment with Ferras. “You do what you can. You handle the inside work and Chu and I will stay with Chang.”
Noting Bosch’s tone, Ferras put a mild protest in his own tone.
“Look, Harry, you don’t know what it’s like. Three kids…you try selling it at home. That you’re going to sit in a car all night watching some triad guy and your paycheck is going to look the same no matter how many hours you’re gone.”
Bosch put his hands up as if to say enough said.
“You’re right. I don’t have to sell it. I just have to do it. That’s the job.”