Aguila agreed and said he would go to the Justice Plaza to complete paperwork on the confirmation of Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa’s death. Bosch wanted to tell him about the shovel with the new handle he had seen in EnviroBreed but thought better of it. He planned to tell only one person about the break-in.
Bosch drank coffee and Aguila drank tea for a while without speaking. Bosch finally asked, “Have you ever seen Zorrillo? In person?”
“At a distance, yes.”
“Where was that? The bullfights?”
“Yes, at the Plaza de los Toros. El Papa often attends to see his bulls. But he has a box in the shade reserved each week for him. I have afforded only seats on the sun side of the arena. This is the reason for the distance from which I have viewed him.”
“He pulls for the bulls, huh?”
“Excuse me?”
“He goes to see his bulls win? Not the fighters?”
“No. He goes to see that his bulls die honorably.”
Bosch wasn’t sure what that meant but let it go.
“I want to go today. Can we get in? I want to sit in a box near the pope’s.”
“I don’t know. These are expensive. Sometimes they cannot sell them. Even so, they keep them locked…”
“How much?”
“You would need at least two hundred dollars American, I’m afraid. It is very expensive.”
Bosch took out his wallet and counted out $210. He left a ten on the table for the breakfast and pushed the rest across the faded green tablecloth to Aguila. It occurred to him it was more money than Aguila made in a six-day week on the job. He wished he had not been so quick to make a decision that would have taken Aguila hours of careful consideration.
“Get us a box near the pope.”
“You must understand, there will be many men with him. He will be-”
“I just want a look at him, is all. Just get us the box.”
They left the restaurant then and Aguila said he would walk to the Justice Plaza, a couple blocks away. After he left, Harry stood in front of the restaurant waiting for Ramos. He looked at his watch and saw it was eight o’clock. He was supposed to be in Irving’s office at Parker Center. He wondered if the assistant chief had initiated disciplinary action against him yet. Bosch would probably be put on a desk as soon as he got back into town.
Unless… unless he brought back the whole package in his back pocket. That was the only way he would have any leverage with Irving. He knew he had to come out of Mexico with everything tied together.
It dawned on him that it was stupid to be standing like a target on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. He stepped back inside and watched for Ramos through the front door. The waitress approached him and bowed effusively several times and walked away. It must’ve been the three-dollar tip, he thought.
It took Ramos nearly an hour to get there. Bosch decided he didn’t want to be without a car so he told the agent he would follow him. They drove north on Lopez Mateos. At the circle around the statue of Juarez they went east, into a neighborhood of unmarked warehouses. They went down an alley and parked behind a building that had been tagged dozens of times with graffiti. Ramos looked furtively around after he got out of the beat-up Chevy Camaro with Mexican plates he was driving.
“Welcome to our humble federal office,” he said.
Inside, it was Sunday morning quiet. No one else was there. Ramos put on the overhead lights and Bosch saw several rows of desks and file cabinets. Toward the back were two weapons storage lockers and a two-ton Cincinnati safe for storing evidence.
“Okay, let me see what we got while you tell me about last night. You are sure somebody tried to do you, right?”
“Only way to be surer was if I got hit.”
The Band-Aid Bosch had used on his neck was covered by his collar. There was another on his right palm, which also was not very noticeable.
Bosch told Ramos about the hotel shooting, leaving out no detail, including that he had recovered a shell from room 504.
“What about the slug? Recoverable?”
“I assume it’s still in the headboard. I didn’t hang around long enough to check.”
“No, I bet you went running to warn your pal, the Mexican. Bosch, I am telling you to wise up. He may be a good guy but you don’t know him. He mighta been the one that set the whole thing up.”
“Actually, Ramos, I did warn him. But then I left and did what you wanted me to do.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“EnviroBreed. I went in last night.”
“What? Are you crazy, Bosch? I didn’t tell you to-”
“C’mon, man, don’t fuck with me. You told me all that shit last night so I would know what was needed to get the search okayed. Don’t bullshit me. We’re alone here. I know that’s what you wanted and I got it. Put me down as a CI.”
Ramos was pacing in front of the file cabinets. He was making a good show of it.
“Look, Bosch, I have to clear any confidential informant I use with my supe. So that’s not going to fly. I can’t-”
“Make it fly.”
“Bosch, I-”
“Do you want to know what I found there or should we just drop it?”
That quieted the DEA agent for a few moments.
“Do you have your ninjas, the-what did you call them, the clits, in town yet?
“CLETs, Bosch. And, yeah, they came in last night.”
“Good. You’re going to have to get going. I was seen.”
Bosch watched the agent’s face grow dark. He shook his head and dropped down into a chair.
“Fuck! How do you know?”
“There was a camera. I didn’t see it until it was too late. I got out of there but some people came looking. I wasn’t identifiable. I was wearing a mask. But, still, they know somebody was inside.”
“Okay, Bosch, you aren’t leaving me many options. What did you see?”
There it was. Ramos was acknowledging the illegal search. He was sanctioning it. Bosch would not have it come back on him now. He told the agent about the trapdoor hidden beneath the stack of bug trays in the radiation room.
“You didn’t open it?”
“Didn’t have time. But I wouldn’t have done it anyway. I worked tunnels in Vietnam. Every trapdoor was just that, a trap. The people that came after I got out of there came by car, not through the tunnel. That tells you right there that there might be a rig in the tunnel.”
He then told Ramos that his application for a search warrant or approval or whatever they called them in Mexico should include requests to seize all tools and debris from trash cans.
“Why?”
“Because the stuff you will find will help me make one of the murder cases I came down here for. There is also evidence of a conspiracy to murder a law enforcement officer-me.”
Ramos nodded and didn’t ask for further explanation. He wasn’t interested. He got up and went to a file cabinet and pulled out two large black binders.
Bosch sat down at an empty desk and Ramos put the binders down in front of him.
“These are KOs-known operatives-associated with Humberto Zorrillo. We have some bio info on some of them. Others, it’s just surveillance stuff. We might not even have a name.”
Bosch opened the first binder and looked at the picture on top. It was a fuzzy eight-by-ten blow-up of a surveillance shot. Ramos said it was Zorrillo and Bosch had guessed as much. Dark hair, beard, intense stare through dark eyes. Bosch had seen the face before. Younger, no beard, a smile instead of the long, empty gaze. It was the grown-up face of the boy who had been in the pictures with Calexico Moore.
“What do you know about him?” Bosch asked Ramos. “You know anything about his family?”
“None that we know of. Not that we looked real hard. We don’t give a shit where he came from, just what he’s doing now and where he’s going.”