Bosch turned the TV off after the report. The uniforms went back down the hall and he went back to his spot at the homicide table and sat down. The picture they had shown of Moore had been taken a few years back, Harry guessed. His face was younger, the eyes clearer. There was no portent of a hidden life.
Thinking about it brought to mind the other photographs, the ones Sylvia Moore had said her husband had collected over his life and looked at from time to time. What else had he saved from the past? Bosch didn’t have one photo of his mother. He hadn’t known his father until the old man was on his deathbed. What baggage did Cal Moore carry with him?
It was time for him to head for the Code Seven. But before heading out to the car, Harry walked down the hall to the watch office. He picked up the clipboard that hung on the wall next to the wanted flyers and carried the station’s duty roster clipped to it. He doubted that it would have been updated in the last week and he was correct. He found Moore’s name and address in Los Feliz on the page listing sergeants. He copied the address into his notebook and then headed out.
17
Bosch dragged deeply on a cigarette and then dropped the butt into the gutter. He hesitated before pulling the billy club that was the door handle of the Code Seven. He stared across First Street to the grass square that flanked City Hall and was called Freedom Park. Beneath the sodium lights he saw the bodies of homeless men and women sprawled asleep in the grass around the war memorial. They looked like casualties on a battlefield, the unburied dead.
He went inside, walked through the front restaurant and then parted the black curtains that hid the entrance to the bar like a judge’s robes. The place was crowded with lawyers and cops and blue with cigarette smoke. They had all come to wait out the rush hour and either gotten too comfortable or too drunk. Harry went down to the end of the bar where the stools were empty and ordered a beer and a shot. It was seven on the dot according to the Miller clock over the bar. He scanned the room in the mirror behind the bar but saw nobody he could assume was the DEA agent Corvo. He lit another cigarette and decided he would give it until eight.
The moment he decided that he looked back in the mirror and saw a short, dark man with a full black beard split the curtain and hesitate as his eyes focused in the dim bar. He wore blue jeans and a pullover shirt. Bosch saw the pager on his belt and the bulge the gun made under his shirt. The man looked around until their eyes met in the mirror and Harry nodded once. Corvo came over and took the stool next to him.
“So you made me,” Corvo said.
“And you made me. I guess we both need to go back to the academy. You want a beer?”
“Look, Bosch, before you start getting friendly on me, I gotta tell you I don’t know about this. I don’t know what this is about. I haven’t decided whether to talk to you.”
Harry took his cigarette from the ashtray and looked at Corvo in the mirror.
“I haven’t decided if Certs is a breath mint or a candy.”
Corvo slid back off his stool.
“Have a good one.”
“C’mon Corvo, have a beer, why don’t you? Relax, man.”
“I checked you out before I came over. The line on you is that you’re just another head case. You’re on the fast track to nowhere. RHD to Hollywood, the next stop probably riding shotgun in a Wells Fargo truck.”
“No, the next stop is Mexicali. And I can go down there blind, maybe walk in on whatever you got going with Zorrillo, or you can help me and yourself by telling me what’s what.”
“What’s what is that you aren’t going to do anything down there. I leave here I pick up the phone and your trip is over.”
“I leave here and I’m gone, on my way. Too late to stop. Have a seat. If I’ve been an asshole, I’m sorry. It’s the way I am sometimes. But I need you guys and you guys need me.”
Corvo still didn’t sit down.
“Bosch, what are you gonna do? Go down to the ranch, put the pope over your shoulder and carry him back up here? That it?”
“Something like that.”
“Shit.”
“Actually, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m just going to play it as it comes. Maybe I never see the pope, maybe I do. You want to risk it?”
Corvo slid back onto the stool and signaled the bartender. He ordered the same as Bosch. In the mirror Bosch noticed a long, thick scar cutting through the right side of Corvo’s beard. If he had grown the beard to cover the purplish-pink slug on his cheek, it hadn’t worked. Then again, maybe he didn’t want it to. Most DEA agents Bosch knew or had worked with had a macho swagger about them. A scar couldn’t hurt. It was a life of bluffing and bluster. Scars were worn like badges of courage. But Bosch wondered if the guy could do much undercover work with such a recognizable physical anomaly.
After the bartender put down the drinks, Corvo threw back the shot like a man used to it.
“So,” he said. “What are you really going down there for? And why should I trust you the least bit?”
Bosch thought about it for a few moments.
“Because I can give you Zorrillo.”
“Shit.”
Bosch didn’t say anything. He had to give Corvo his due, had to let him run out his string. After he was done posturing they would get down to business. Bosch thought at the moment that the one thing the movies and TV shows didn’t get wrong or overexaggerate was the relationship of jealousy and distrust that existed between local and federal cops. One side always thought it was better, wiser, more qualified. Usually, the side that thought that was wrong.
“Okay,” Corvo said. “I’ll bite. What have you got?”
“Before I get into it. I have one question. Who are you, man? I mean, you’re up here in L.A. Why are you the one in Moore’s files? How come you’re the expert on Zorrillo?”
“That’s about ten questions. The basic answer to all of them is I’m a control agent on an investigation in Mexicali that is being jointly worked by Mexico City and L.A. offices. We are equidistant; we are splitting the case. I’m not telling you anything else until I know you’re worth talking to. Talk.”
Bosch told him about Jimmy Kapps, Juan Doe and the ties between their deaths and Dance and Moore and the Zorrillo operation. Lastly, he said that he had information that Dance had gone to Mexico, probably Mexicali, after Moore was murdered.
Corvo drained his beer glass and said, “Tell me something, because it’s a big fucking hole in your scenario. How come you think this Juan Doe was whacked out down there? And then, how come his body was taken all the way up here? Doesn’t make sense to me.”
“The autopsy puts his death six to eight hours before Moore found it, or said he found it up here. There were things about the autopsy that tie it to Mexicali, to a specific location in Mexicali. I think they wanted to get it out of Mexicali to make sure it was not connected to that location. It got sent to L.A. because there was already a truck heading this way. It was convenient.”
“You’re talking jigsaws, Bosch. What location are we talking about?”
“We aren’t talking. That’s the problem. I’m talking. You haven’t said shit. But I’m here to trade. I know your record. You guys haven’t taken down one of Zorrillo’s shipments. I can give you Zorrillo’s pipeline. What can you give me?”
Corvo laughed and shot a peace sign at the bartender. He brought two more beers.
“Know something? I like you. Believe it or not. I did check you out but I do like what I know of you. But something tells me you don’t have shit worth trading for.”
“You ever check out a place down there called EnviroBreed?”
Corvo looked down at the beer placed in front of him and seemed to be composing his thoughts. Bosch had to prompt him.