Bosch turned to see Teresa Corazón walking up behind him.
“Yeah, just got in.”
“You could use a shave.”
“And a few other things. How’s it going, Teresa?”
“Never better.”
“Good to hear. What happened this morning after we talked?”
“About what you expected. We pulled DOJ prints on Moore and compared them to what Irving had given us. No match. Two different people. That isn’t Moore in the silver bullet over there.”
Bosch nodded. Of course, by now he didn’t need her confirmation. He had his own. He thought of Moore’s faceless body lying on the bed.
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked.
“I’ve already done it.”
“What?”
“I had a little discussion with Assistant Chief Irving before the funeral mass. Wish you could have seen his face.”
“But he didn’t stop the funeral.”
“He’s playing the percentages, I guess. Chances are Moore, if he knows what’s good for him, won’t ever show up again. So he is hoping that all it costs him is a recommendation on the medical examiner’s office. He volunteered to do it. I didn’t even have to explain his position to him.”
“I hope you enjoy the job, Teresa. You’re in the belly of the beast now.”
“I will, Harry. And thanks for calling me this morning.”
“Does he know how you came up with all of this? Did you tell him I called?”
“No. But I’m not sure I had to.”
She was right. Irving would know Bosch was in the middle of this somehow. He looked past Teresa to look at Sylvia again. She was sitting quietly. The chairs on either side of her empty. No one was going to come near her.
“I’m going over to the group,” Teresa said. “I told Dick Ebart I would meet him here. He wants to set up a date to call for the commission’s full vote.”
Bosch nodded. Ebart was a county commissioner of twenty-five years in office and closing in on seventy years old. He was her informal sponsor for the job.
“Harry, I still want to keep things on just a professional basis. I appreciate what you did for me today. But I want to keep things at a distance, for a while at least.”
He nodded and watched her walk toward the gathering, her footing unsteady in high heels on the cemetery turf. For a moment Bosch envisioned her in a carnal coupling with the aged commissioner whose photos in the newspaper were most notable because of his drooping, crepe-paper neck. He was repulsed by the image and by himself for imagining it. He blanked it out of his mind and watched Teresa mingling in the crowd, shaking hands and becoming the politician she would now have to be. He felt a sense of sadness for her.
The service was a few minutes away and people were still arriving. In the crowd he picked up the gleaming head of Assistant Chief Irvin Irving. He was in full uniform, carrying his hat under his arm. He was standing with the chief of police and one of the mayor’s front men. The mayor was apparently late as usual. Irving then saw Bosch, broke away and started walking toward him. He seemed to be taking in the vista of the mountains as he walked. He didn’t look at Bosch until he was next to him under the oak tree.
“Detective.”
“Chief.”
“When did you get in?”
“Just now.”
“Could use a shave.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“So what do we do? What do we do?”
The way he said it was almost wistful and Bosch didn’t know whether Irving wanted an answer from him or not.
“You know, Detective, yesterday when you did not come to my office as ordered, I opened a one-point-eighty-one on you.”
“I figured you would, Chief. Am I suspended?”
“No action taken at the moment. I’m a fair man. I wanted to speak with you first. You spoke with the acting chief medical examiner this morning?”
Bosch wasn’t going to lie to him. He thought this time he held all of the high cards.
“Yes. I wanted her to compare some fingerprints.”
“What happened down there in Mexico to make you want to do that?”
“Nothing I care to talk about, Chief. I’m sure it will all be on the news.”
“I’m not talking about that ill-fated raid undertaken by the DEA. I am talking about Moore. Bosch, I need to know if I need to walk over there and stop this funeral.”
Bosch watched a blue vein pop high on Irving’s shaven skull. It pulsed and then died.
“I can’t help you there, Chief. It’s not my call. We’ve got company.”
Irving turned around to look back toward the gathering. Lieutenant Harvey Pounds, also in dress uniform, was walking toward them, probably wanting to find out how many cases he could close from Bosch’s investigation. But Irving held up a hand like a traffic cop and Pounds abruptly stopped, turned and walked away.
“The point I am trying to make with you, Detective Bosch, is that it appears we are about to bury and eulogize a Mexican drug lord while a corrupt police officer is running around loose. Do you have any idea what embarrass-Damn it! I can’t believe I just spoke those words out loud. I cannot believe I spoke those words to you.”
“Don’t trust me much, do you, Chief?”
“In matters like these, I do not trust anyone.”
“Well, don’t worry about it.”
“I am not worried about who I can and cannot trust.”
“I mean about burying a drug lord while a corrupt cop is running around loose. Don’t worry about it.”
Irving studied him, his eyes narrowing, as if he might be able to peer through Bosch’s own eyes, into his thoughts.
“Are you kidding me? Don’t worry about it? This is a potential embarrassment to this city and this department of unimaginable proportions. This could-”
“Look, man, I am telling you to forget about it. Understand? I am trying to help you out here.”
Irving studied him again for a long moment. He shifted his weight to the other foot. The vein on his scalp pulsed with new life. Bosch knew it would not sit well with him, to have someone like Harry Bosch keeping such a secret. Teresa Corazón he could deal with because they both played on the same field. But Bosch was different. Harry rather enjoyed the moment, though the long silence was getting old.
“I checked with the DEA on that fiasco down there. They said this man they believe to be Zorrillo escaped. They don’t know where he is.”
It was a half-assed effort to get Bosch to open up. It didn’t work.
“They never will know.”
Irving said nothing to this but Bosch knew better than to interrupt his silence. He was working up to something. Harry let him work, watching as the assistant chief’s massive jaw muscles bunched into hard pads.
“Bosch, I want to know right now if there is a problem on this. Even a potential problem. Because I have to know in the next three minutes whether to walk over there in front of the chief and the mayor and all of those cameras and put a stop to this.”
“What’s the DEA doing now?”
“What can they do? They are watching the airports, contacting local authorities. Putting his photo and description out. There is not a lot they can do. He is gone. At least, they say. I want to know if he is going to stay gone.”
Bosch nodded and said, “They’re never going to find the man they are looking for, Chief.”
“Convince me, Bosch.”
“Can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“Trust goes two ways. So does the lack of trust.”
Irving seemed to consider this and Bosch thought he saw an almost imperceptible nod.
Bosch said, “The man they are looking for, who they believe to be Zorrillo, is in the wind and he isn’t coming back. That’s all you need to know.”
Bosch thought of the body on the bed at Castillo de los Ojos. The face was already gone. Another two weeks and the flesh would go. No fingerprints. No identification, other than the bogus credentials in the wallet. The tattoo would stay intact for a while. But there were plenty who had that tattoo, including the fugitive Zorrillo.