Lost Light

8

I drove back into Hollywood and ate a late lunch at Musso’s. A Ketel One martini for openers, followed by chicken pot pie, creamed spinach on the side. A good combination, but not good enough to make me forget about Lawton Cross and his situation. I asked for a second martini to help with that and tried to concentrate on other things.

I hadn’t been back to Musso’s since my retirement party and I missed the place. I had my head down and was reading and writing some notes when I heard a voice in the restaurant that I recognized. I looked up and saw Captain LeValley being led to a table with a man I didn’t recognize. She was commander of the Hollywood Division, which was only a few blocks away. Three days after I’d left my badge in a desk drawer and walked out she called to ask me to reconsider. She almost convinced me but I said no. I told her to send in my papers and she did. She didn’t come to my retirement party and we hadn’t spoken since.

She didn’t see me and sat with her back to me in a booth far enough away that I could not hear her conversation. I left by the back way without finishing the second martini. In the lot I paid the attendant and got in my car, a Mercedes Benz ML55 that I’d bought used from a guy moving to Florida. It had been the one big extravagance I allowed myself after retiring. In my mind the ML55 stood for Money Lost: $55,000, because that was what I paid for it. It was one of the fastest sport utility vehicles on the road. But that wasn’t really why I bought it. The low mileage on it wasn’t the reason either. I bought it because it was black and it blended in. Every fifth car in L.A. was a Mercedes, or so it seemed. And every fifth one of them was a black M-class SUV. I think maybe I knew where I was going long before I started the journey. Eight months before I would need it I’d bought an automobile that would serve me well as a private investigator. It had speed and comfort, it had dark smoked windows, and if you looked in your mirror and saw one of these behind you in L.A. it wouldn’t cause a second thought.

The Mercedes took some getting used to. In terms of comfort as well as routine operation and maintenance. In fact, I had already run out of gas on the road twice. It was one of those little things that came with giving up the badge. For several years before my retirement I had been a detective third grade, a supervisory-level position that came with a take-home car. That car was a Ford Crown Victoria, the Police Interceptor model that rode like a tank, had vinyl wash-off seats, heavy-duty suspension and the expanded gas tank. I never needed gas when on the job. And the car was routinely refueled at the station by the guys from the motor pool. As a citizen I had to re-learn to watch the needle. Or else I found myself sitting on the side of the road.

From the center console I retrieved my cell phone and turned it on. I’d had little need for a cell phone but had kept the one I carried on the job. I don’t know, maybe I thought somebody from the division would call and ask my advice on a case or something. For four months I kept it charged and turned it on every day. Nobody ever called. After the second time I ran out of gas I plugged it into the charger in the center console and left it there for the next time I would need roadside assistance.

Now I needed assistance but not of the roadside variety. I called information and got the number for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Los Angeles. I called the number and asked for the supervisory agent in the bank squad. I figured the agent that had contacted Dorsey might have worked in the unit that handled bank robberies. It was the unit that most often dealt with currency numbers.

My call was transferred and picked up by someone who simply said, “Nunez.”

“Agent Nunez?”

“Yes, what can I help you with?”

I knew that handling a supervising FBI agent would not be the same as handling the secretary of a movie mogul. I had to be as up-front as I could with Nunez.

“Yes, my name is Harry Bosch. I just retired from the LAPD after about thirty years and I -”

“Good for you,” he said curtly. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. About four years ago I was working a homicide case that was connected to a large cash robbery involving currency that had been recorded.”

“What case?”

“Well, you probably won’t recognize it by case name but it was the murder of Angella Benton. The murder preceded the robbery, which took place on a movie set in Hollywood. It made a big splash. The bad guys got away with two million dollars. Eight hundred of the hundred-dollar bills had been recorded.”

“I remember it. But we did not work it. We had noth-”

“I know that. Like I told you, I worked the case.”

“Then go on, what can I do for you?”

“Several months into the case an agent from your office contacted the LAPD to report an anomaly in the recorded numbers. She had received the list of serials because we had sent it all over.”

“An anomaly, what is that?”

“An anomaly is a deviation, something that doesn’t -”

“I know what the word means. What anomaly are you talking about?”

“Oh, sorry. This agent called and said one of the numbers was a misprint or a couple of the numbers got inverted, something like that. But that’s not what I’m calling about. She said she had a computer program that cross-referenced and cross-matched numbers from these sorts of cases. I think it was her own program, something that she worked up on her own. Does any of this ring a bell? Not the case but the agent. An agent who had this program. A female agent.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I have misplaced her name. Actually, I never got it because she spoke to one of the other investigators on the case. But I would like to speak to her, if I could.”

“Speak to her about what? You said you are retired.”

I knew it would come to this, and this is where I was weak. I had no station, no validity. You either had a badge that opened all doors or you didn’t. I didn’t.

“Some cases die hard, Agent Nunez. I’m still working it. Nobody else is, so I figured I’d take the shot. You know how it is.”

“No, actually, I don’t. I’m not retired.”

A real hard-ass. He was silent after that and I found myself getting angry with this faceless man who was probably trying to balance a burdensome caseload with a lack of manpower and funding. L.A. was the bank robbery capital of the world. Three a day was the norm and the FBI had to respond to every one of them.

“Look, man,” I said. “I don’t want to waste your time. You can either help me or not. You either know who I am talking about or you don’t.”

“Yeah, I know who you’re talking about.”

But then he was silent. I tried one last angle. I had held it back because I wasn’t sure I wanted it known in some circles what I was doing. But the visit from Kiz Rider sort of shot that down anyway.

“Look, you want a name, somebody you can check me out with? Call over to Hollywood detectives and ask for the lieutenant. Her name is Billets and she can vouch for me. She won’t know anything about this though. As far as she knows, I’m swinging in a hammock.”

“All right, I’ll do that. Why don’t you call me back? Give me ten minutes.”

“Right. I will.”

I closed the phone and checked my watch. It was almost three. I started the Mercedes and drove down to Sunset and headed east. I turned on the radio but didn’t like the fusion that was playing. I turned it back off. At the ten-minute mark I pulled to the curb in front of the Splendid Age Retirement Home. I picked up the phone to call Nunez back and it rang in my hand. I thought maybe Nunez had caller ID on his line and had gotten the number. But then I remembered I had been transferred to his line. I didn’t think an ID record could jump with a transfer.

“Harry Bosch.”

“Harry, it’s Jerry.”

Jerry Edgar. It was turning into old home week. First Kiz Rider and now Jerry Edgar.

“Jed, how you doing?”

“I’m fine, man. How’s the retiring life?”

“It’s very restful.”

“You don’t sound like you’re on the beach, Harry.”

He was right. The Splendid Age was just yards from the Hollywood Freeway and the din of gas-combustion machinery was ever present. Quentin McKinzie told me that they house the Splendid Age residents with hearing loss in the rooms on the west side because they are closer to the noise.

“I’m not a beach guy. What’s up? Don’t tell me that eight months after I’m gone you actually want to ask my advice on something?”

“Nah, it’s not that. I just got a call from somebody who was checking you out.”

I was immediately embarrassed. My pride had led me to conclude that Edgar needed me on a case.

“Oh. Was it a bureau agent named Nunez?”

“Yeah, he didn’t say what it was about, though. You starting a new career or something, Harry?”

“Thinking about it.”

“You ever get your private ticket?”

“Yeah, about six months ago, just in case. I stuck it in a drawer somewhere. What did you tell Nunez? I hope you said I was a man of high moral standing and courage.”

“Absolutely not. I gave him the straight dope. I said you could trust Harry Bosch about as far as you could throw him.”

I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Thanks, man. You’re a pal.”

“I just thought you should know. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

I was silent for a moment as I thought about this. I didn’t want to tell Edgar what I was doing. Not that I didn’t trust him. I did. But as a rule I operated under the belief that the fewer people who know your business the better.

“Not right now, Jed. I’m late for an appointment and have to get going. But I’ll tell you what-you want to catch lunch one of these days? I’ll tell you all about my exciting life as a pensioner.”

I sort of laughed as I said the last line and I think it worked. He agreed to lunch but said he’d have to call me back about it. I knew from experience it was difficult to schedule a lunch ahead of time when you were working homicide. What would happen was that he would call on the morning he had a lunch free. That was the way it worked. We said we’d stay in touch and ended the call. It was nice to know that he apparently wasn’t carrying the same anger as Kiz Rider over my abrupt departure from our partnership and the department.

I called the bureau back and was put through to Nunez.

“You get a chance to make that call?”

“Yeah, but she wasn’t there. I talked to your old partner.”

“Rider?”

“No, his name was Edgar.”

“Oh, yeah. Jerry. How is he doing?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I’m sure you did when he just called you.”

“Excuse me?”

He had nailed me.

“You can skip the bullshit, Bosch. Edgar told me he felt obligated to call you and let you know someone was checking you out. I said that was fine with me. I asked him for your number so that way I would know I was dealing with the real Harry Bosch. He gave it to me and when I tried to call a couple minutes ago it was busy. I figure you were talking to Edgar, so I don’t appreciate your little dumb-guy dance.”

My embarrassment over being cornered turned to anger. Maybe it was the vodka in my stomach or the hammering reminder that I was an outsider now, but I was tired of dealing with this guy.

“Man, you are a great investigator,” I said into the phone. “A brilliant deductive mind. Tell me, do you ever use it on cases or do you reserve it only for busting the chops of people who are just trying to get something done in the world?”

“I have to be careful about who I give information to. You understand that.”

“Yeah, I understand that. I also understand why law enforcement works about as well as the freeways in this town.”

“Hey, Bosch, don’t go away mad. Just go away.”

I shook my head in frustration. I didn’t know if I had blown it or if I was never going to get anything from him in the first place.

“So that’s your little dance, huh? You call me on my act but you were acting the whole time, too. You never were going to give me the name, were you?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s just a name, Nunez. No harm no foul.”

Still nothing from the agent.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. You’ve got my name and number. And I think you know what agent I am talking about. So go to her and let her decide. Give her my name and number. I don’t care what you think about me, Nunez. You owe it to your fellow agent to give it to her. Just like Edgar. He was obligated. So are you.”

That was it. That was my pitch. I waited in the silence, this time deciding not to speak again until Nunez did.

“Look, Bosch, I would tell her you were calling for her. I would have told her before I even talked to Edgar. But obligations only go so far. The agent you were asking about? She’s not around anymore.”

“What do you mean not around? Where is she?”

Nunez said nothing. I sat up straight, my elbow hitting the wheel, drawing a blast from the horn. Something was in my memory, something about a female agent in the news. I couldn’t quite get to it.

“Nunez, is she dead?”

“Bosch, I don’t like this. This talking on the phone with somebody I’ve never met. Why don’t you come in and maybe we can talk about this.”

“Maybe?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk. When can you come in?”

The dashboard clock said it was five after three. I looked at the front door of the retirement home.

“Four o’clock.”

“We’ll be here.”

I closed the phone and sat there unmoving for a long moment, working at the memory. It was there, just out of reach.

I reopened the phone. I didn’t have my phone book with me, and numbers I once knew by heart had washed away in the past eight months like they had been written in sand on the beach. I called information and got the number for the Times newsroom. I then was connected to Keisha Russell. She remembered me like I had never left the department. We’d had a good relationship. I fed a number of exclusives to her over the years and she returned the favor by helping me with clip searches and keeping stories in the paper when she could. The Angella Benton case had been one of the times she couldn’t.

“Harry Bosch,” she said. “How are you?”

I noticed that her Jamaican accent was now almost completely gone. I missed it. I wondered if that was intentional or just the product of living ten years in the so-called melting pot.

“I’m fine. You still on the beat?”

“Of course. Some things never change.”

She had once told me that the cop beat was an entry-level position in journalism but that she never wanted to leave it. She thought moving up to cover city hall or elections or almost anything else would be terminally boring compared with writing stories about life and death and crime and consequences. She was good and thorough and accurate. So much so she had been invited to my retirement party. It was a rarity for an outsider of any ilk, especially a journalist, to earn such an invitation.

“Unlike you, Harry Bosch. You, I thought, would always be there in Hollywood Division. Almost a year later now and I still can’t believe it. You know, I called your number out of habit on a story a few months ago and a strange voice answered and I just had to hang up.”

“Who was it?”

“Perkins. They moved him over from autos.”

I hadn’t kept up. I didn’t know who had taken my slot. Perkins was good but not good enough. But I didn’t tell Russell that.

“So what’s up with you, mon?”

Every now and then she would turn on the accent and the patter. It was her way of making a transition, getting to the point.

“Sounds like you’re busy.”

“A bit.”

“Then I won’t bother you.”

“No, no, no. No bother. What can I do for you, Harry? You’re not working a case are you? Have you gone private?”

“Nothing like that. I was just curious about something that’s all. It can wait. I’ll check you later, Keisha.”

“Harry, wait!”

“You sure?”

“I am not too busy for an old friend, you know? What are you curious about?”

“I was just wondering, remember a while back there was an FBI agent, a woman, who disappeared? I think it was in the Valley. She was last seen driving home from -”

“Martha Gessler.”

The name brought it all back. Now I remembered.

“Yeah, that’s it. Whatever happened with her, do you know?”

“As far as I know she’s still missing in action, presumed dead probably.”

“There hasn’t been anything about her lately? I mean, any stories?”

“Nope, because I would’ve written them and I haven’t written about her in, oh, two years at least.”

“Two years. Is that when it happened?”

“No, more like three. I think I did a one-year-later story. An update. That was the last time I wrote about her. But thanks for the reminder. It may be time for another look.”

“Hey, if you do that, hold off a few days, would you?”

“So you are working on something, Harry.”

“Sort of. I don’t know if it’s related to Martha Gessler or not. But give me till next week, okay?”

“No problem if you come clean and talk to me then.”

“Okay, give me a call. Meantime, could you pull the clips on her? I’d like to read what you wrote back then.”

I knew they still called it pulling clips even though it was all on computer now and actual newspaper clippings were a thing of the past.

“Sure, I can do that. You have a fax or an e-mail?”

I had neither.

“Maybe you can just mail them to me. Regular mail, I mean.”

I heard her laugh.

“Harry, you won’t make it as a modern private detective like that. I bet all you have is a trench coat.”

“I’ve got a cell phone.”

“Well, that’s a start then.”

I smiled and gave her my address. She said the clips would go out in the afternoon mail. She asked for my cell number so she could call me the following week and I gave her that, too.

Then I thanked her and closed the phone. I sat there for a moment considering things. I had taken an interest in the Martha Gessler case at the time. I didn’t know her but my former wife had. They had worked together in the bureau’s bank robbery unit many years before. Her disappearance had held in the news for several days, then the reports were more sporadic and then they just dropped off completely. I had forgotten about her until now.

I felt a burning in my chest and I knew it wasn’t the midday martini backing up. I felt like I was closing in on something. Like when a child can’t see something in the dark but is sure it is there just the same.