The Burning Room

28

The Beverly Hilton was a vast hotel complex with several entrances and many different-size rooms to accommodate weddings, political fund-raisers, and other gatherings. Bosch had been there several times over the years for both professional and personal reasons. He and Soto self-parked in the garage and then walked in through the main lobby, where they moved through the crowds amassed for various events and followed signs to the escalators leading up to the banquet rooms. Along the way Bosch noticed several hotel security men in blue blazers posted throughout the lobby, radio buds in their ears, eyes scanning the crowd. He guessed that Zeyas was drawing some heavy hitters to his five-hundred-dollars-a-plate dinner.

On the second floor they walked down a long hallway with entrances to the various ballrooms. The Merv Griffin Room was actually a grand ballroom at the end of the hallway with two sets of double doors that stood open and waiting. On the wall between the doors was a ten-foot-high poster showing a black-and-white photo of Armando Zeyas shaking hands and engaged with a circle of smiling supporters. The shot had been taken with a fish-eye lens, which gave the resulting photo an exaggerated sense that Zeyas stood at the center of the people. Bosch paused in horror when he saw the slogan printed above the circle of people of every age, gender, and race:

Below the poster was a long draped table behind which three women sat waiting to check people in and collect their money for the Zeyas bid for the governor’s seat. Standing to the side of either entrance to the ballroom were two men with beefy physiques beneath blue blazers.

Not wanting to give away their identity right off the bat, Bosch directed Soto to the left of the welcoming table, and they walked down a short hallway to a set of glass doors leading to an outdoor promenade, which Bosch knew from times past was used as a smokers’ porch.

“Where are we going?” Soto asked as they pushed through the doors.

“Strategic advantage,” Bosch said. “You try to hang on to it for as long as you can.”

They stepped out onto the windy promenade. It overlooked Wilshire Boulevard, which was packed with wall-to-wall traffic. The hotel was situated at the intersection of two main traffic arteries — Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, a crossroads that was always a traffic knot.

Bosch leaned his elbows on the balcony edge and looked down at the traffic. In times past he would have lit a smoke.

“What’s our advantage?” Soto asked.

“They don’t know who we are,” Bosch said. “I didn’t want to walk up first thing and badge them. Makes it a little harder to move around.”

“I thought we wanted to get a look at Broussard, maybe have him get a look at us.”

“Right. But we want to be subtle about it. Make him think. Make him wonder. You know what I mean?”

“I think.”

Soto turned her back to the view and took in the massive facade of the building.

“So this is the place where Whitney Houston died,” she said.

“Right,” Bosch said. “In a bathtub.”

“They played one of her songs at my high school graduation.”

“Which one?”

“‘Greatest Love of All.’”

Bosch nodded.

“Where’d you go? Garfield?”

“No, by then I was up in the Valley. I graduated from San Fernando High in Pacoima.”

“Forgot you were up there.”

“What about you?”

“I went to Hollywood High but I didn’t graduate. Went into the service early and had to get a GED when I got back.”

“Oh, right. Vietnam. Did you do any college?”

“Yeah, City College for a couple years. Then I joined the Department. Where’d you go after high school?”

She smiled and shook her head. She was embarrassed by the answer.

“Mills. It’s a girls’ school up in Oakland.”

Bosch whistled.

“Nice.”

Now that his daughter was a year away from college, he was familiar with most of what was out there, especially in California. Mills was a tough school to get into, even tougher to afford.

“I know, I know,” she said. “How did a Pacoima girl end up at Mills?”

“More like how did a Mills girl end up in the LAPD?” he said.

She nodded. Good question.

“Well, I got a lot of scholarship money and I chose Mills because at the time I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. You know, civil rights, Legal Aid, tenant rights, things like that. But then, when I got away from L.A. and really started thinking about things, I thought about being a cop, you know, and maybe that would be the best way to help my community.”

Bosch nodded but knew she was leaving something out.

“And there was the Bonnie Brae case,” he said.

She nodded back.

“There was that, too,” she said.

She seemed to drop the conversation at that point. Bosch went back to considering what he had hoped to accomplish by coming to the fund-raiser. There had been no real plan other than to get a look at Broussard. It was like a coach scouting the opposition. Perhaps Bosch would get a measure of the man he was zeroing in on. But now that he was here, he was trying to think of how they were going to handle getting into the Merv Griffin Room and eyeballing Broussard. Harry was beginning to realize that it was probably a faulty idea in the first place. At this level of politics, there was always a high degree of security involved. His idea of just blending in with the crowd and moving through the doors was unrealistic. He was considering bagging the whole thing and heading over to Hollywood to check on his daughter — from a distance.

“Uh, Harry?” Soto said.

“What?” he responded.

“I think we’re about to lose strategic advantage.”

Bosch turned away from the traffic. He saw Soto looking down the length of the promenade. He followed her eye line and saw a door sixty feet farther down. Two men in tuxedos had stepped out and were bent over against the wind as they attempted to light cigarettes. When they straightened up, Bosch saw that one was Connor Spivak, candidate Zeyas’s right-hand man. The other man looked familiar to Bosch. He was big and had a full beard.

“Is that…?” Soto asked.

“Broussard,” Bosch said. “I think so.”

Bosch had only seen photos of Broussard and glimpsed the dark figure on the balcony of his house the night before.

“We’ve been made,” he said.

Spivak had spotted them and now he and the other man were walking toward them.

“What’s our reason for being here?” Soto said under her breath.

“I’ll handle it,” Bosch said. “Follow my lead.”

Spivak was smiling as he approached. The other man was moving a little more slowly and was a few paces behind.

“Detectives?” Spivak said. “I thought that was you two. What a surprise!”

He shook hands with both of them.

“What brings you here?” he asked.

“Well,” Bosch said, “we heard about the dinner tonight and thought we’d come by, maybe see if we could talk to the candidate for a few moments. You know, keep him informed about the investigation, since he’s putting his own money on the line.”

“That’s very thoughtful. He will be impressed. But he isn’t here just yet. He had to make a stop at a synagogue in Westwood and then he’s going to swing in after the dinner to say a few words here.”

He checked his watch.

“That probably won’t be for another hour,” he said. “But I’d be happy to take the update and pass it on.”

Bosch glanced at Broussard and then back to Spivak.

“Oh, of course,” Spivak said. “We want to keep this on the down low. By the way, this is one of our generous hosts for the evening, Charles Broussard.”

Broussard offered his hand first to Bosch. Harry shook it, holding eye contact with the man he believed had been responsible for the shooting of Orlando Merced.

“My friends call me Brouss.”

Soto shook his hand next.

“You people do fine work under very difficult circumstances,” Broussard said. “I wish you all the best. Stay safe.”

“Thank you,” Soto said.

“Brouss, maybe you can wait for me inside,” Spivak suggested.

“No problem,” Broussard said. “Just one last drag and then it’s back in for politics as usual.”

Bosch smiled at him and Spivak laughed a little too hard.

Broussard tipped his head back and blew smoke into the air. He then dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. He play-punched Spivak on the arm.

“See you inside, Sparky,” he said to him. Then to Bosch and Soto, he said, “Pleasure to meet you.”

Broussard started down the promenade toward the door he and Spivak had come through.

“That’s sort of a backstage holding area,” Spivak explained. “We snuck out.”

“How much does a guy have to give to be a host at one of these things?” Bosch asked.

“A hundred K,” Spivak answered without hesitation.

Bosch whistled.

“He can afford it,” Spivak said. “Did you say you have an update on the Merced case, Detective?”

“Yes, for the candidate,” Bosch said. “What are the chances of getting five minutes with him when he gets here?”

“I have to be honest, not good. As soon as he gets here, he’s got to go to the podium. Then as soon as I get him offstage we head to the airport and I put him on a plane. He’s got a prayer breakfast in the morning in San Francisco.”

“What happened to ‘Everybody counts or nobody counts’? We can’t grab him for five minutes?”

Spivak shook his head as though he wished he had a better answer.

“I’m sorry, Detectives,” he said. “It’s just not a good night. But I can take any update you want to give him. I’ll keep it confidential. It will go just to him.”

Bosch canted his head back and forth as though he were weighing the option of going through Spivak.

“It can wait,” he finally said. “Just tell the candidate that he better get his checkbook ready.”

Bosch made a move toward the door.

“Then you’re getting close?” Spivak asked.

Bosch looked at him, noting the excited tone in his voice.

“That’s for the candidate,” he said. “Not the masses. Understand? I don’t want it to end up in a speech tonight or the newspaper tomorrow.”

“Of course, of course,” Spivak said. “Completely confidential.”

Bosch and Soto left him there and went back to the doors they had come through. Spivak headed off to his own door.

“Think he’ll tell Broussard?” Soto asked, once they were inside the building again.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Maybe.”

“I wish I could be there for that.”

“Let’s go. I want to get over to Hollywood Station.”

They walked down the short hall and saw that the table in front of the ballroom doors was now abandoned. The banquet had begun and the check-in ladies had moved inside. The security men were gone as well, probably posted inside the doors for the duration of the event.

Bosch looked around and saw that at the moment, there was no one present but him and Soto. He quickly moved behind the welcome table and pulled the poster down off the wall. He started rolling it up into a tight tube.

“Harry, what are you doing?” Soto asked in an urgent whisper.

“He stole my line,” Bosch said. “I’m just stealing it back.”

Bosch finished putting the poster into a tight roll and turned to head down the hallway. They were almost to the escalator alcove when Virginia Skinner came around the corner, her head down as she tried to pull something bulky from her purse.

“Ginny?”

She looked up and stopped herself from colliding with Bosch.

“Harry, you’re here.”

Bosch handed the rolled poster to his partner. Then he pulled out his car key.

“Take this,” he said to Soto. “And go get the car. Pick me up out front.”

“You got it,” she said.

After Soto disappeared down the escalator, Bosch turned his attention back to Skinner.

“I thought you said you don’t cover these things,” he said.

“And I thought you were going to tell me if you were going,” Skinner said.

“It was spur of the moment and I wasn’t planning on staying, so I didn’t call.”

“Spur of the moment here too,” Skinner said. “You’re right, I don’t cover these things. Not usually. But I thought I’d drop by and maybe put a paragraph or two into my column. I mean, the cat’s out of the bag with Zeyas. He’s running and it’s just a matter of fund-raising semantics.”

“So it’s nothing to do with me or what we’ve been talking about?”

“No, nothing. We have a deal and I’m sticking to it. I promise.”

“Okay, good.”

“What was that rolled-up thing that you gave her? Is that your partner? She’s young.”

Bosch didn’t know which question to answer first.

“Yes, she’s my partner. The Department always pairs the old with the new. And the rolled-up thing was just a souvenir.”

“A souvenir of what?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Did you see Broussard here?”

“Yes, I saw him. I actually met him. He was with Spivak and it sort of just happened.”

“Ugh, Spivak. The only guy in the Zeyas entourage I can’t stand. Too greasy. I think Zeyas would be better off without him — especially now that he’s going statewide. Spivak is not a big-league guy. He’s a ground-level local guy who’s risen to his level of incompetence. If you ask me.”

“Broussard called him Sparky.”

“Yeah, that’s an old one. He wrote a position paper for a candidate once. It favored replacing lethal injection with the electric chair. His thesis was that it would be a better deterrent. The idea obviously failed but people started calling him ‘Sparky’ Spivak after that.”

Bosch nodded.

“Well,” he said. “I gotta go.”

“And I should go in,” Skinner said.

“I’ll see you.”

“Yes, you will. Just remember, Harry, the deal we have is a two-way street. I better hear from you before anybody else does.”

“Don’t worry. When the time is right, you will.”

Bosch went down the escalator two steps at a time. When he went through the automatic doors to the valet circle, Soto was waiting for him in the Ford. He jumped in and she pulled out.

“Who was that woman in the hallway?” Soto asked.

“Oh, just a friend,” Bosch said. “A reporter, actually.”

“She looked like she wants to be more than friends with you.”

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

After dropping Soto off at her car at the PAB, Bosch headed back to Hollywood. He put the division’s tactical channel on his car’s scanner and soon learned the location of the alcohol sting involving the station’s Explorers. The current target was a convenience store on La Brea south of Sunset. Bosch moved in close but not too close. His plain-wrap Ford would be easily made as a police vehicle. It would be the height of embarrassment for Bosch’s daughter if he were to spoil the sting.

Bosch spent the next two hours mostly listening to the operation as the sting was carried out at several different locations in Hollywood. No arrests were made. They would be made later after the results of the operation were taken to the City Attorney’s Office for filing of charges against individuals or against the license-holders of the businesses.

When he heard the field supervisor call the code that ended the operation for the night, Bosch headed home, taking Laurel Canyon up to Mulholland and then heading east. This allowed him to cruise by Broussard’s house on his way home. He once more stopped at the overlook and checked on the concrete house but he saw no lights on and no figure on any of the rear balconies. Even the pool light was out.

Bosch managed to leave the overlook without encountering the park ranger Bender and got to his home before his daughter. He texted her to ask for an arrival time but she walked in the door five minutes later. He asked how the night had gone and never let on that he already knew the answer because he had ghosted the operation.

“It was great,” she said. “I put in a fake nose ring. It was fun.”

“How many of them sold you booze?” he asked.

“Just about all of them. It wasn’t random. Each place either had a history already or there had been complaints. One skeezy guy told me he’d only sell me the six-pack if I got behind the counter and gave him oral sex. Isn’t that gross?”

“Yeah.”

Bosch had not heard that while monitoring the tactical channel. He decided to stop asking questions at that point. He just gave his daughter a hug.

“I’m proud of you,” he said.

“Thanks, Dad. You know, I’m dead tired and I have school tomorrow,” she said.

“Then go to sleep.”

“I am. Good night.”

“Good night.”

He watched her head toward the hallway that led to their bedrooms.

“Hey, Mads.”

She turned and looked back at him.

“What is ‘skeezy,’ anyway?”

“I don’t know. Old, creepy, gross.”

He nodded.

“What I thought. Good night.”

“Good night.”