The Crossing

37

Bosch was familiar with the sprawling Veterans Hospital in Westwood from many years of visiting doctors and once rehabbing there from a gunshot wound. The complex was divided by Wilshire Boulevard and Bosch knew that the rehab centers were on the south side. He parked in a lot that told much about the clientele that the medical center served. Mostly old, taped-up cars, live-in vans, and pickups with camper shells, all of them pasted with bumper stickers proudly proclaiming their service to their country, their specific branch of the military, fighting unit, and politics. The message was clear. It didn’t matter what war was fought, coming back home was another battle altogether.

He went in through a glass door printed with the motto SERVING THOSE WHO SERVED and checked the sign-in list at the front counter of the physical therapy center. There was a receptionist there but she didn’t look up from her computer screen. Bosch saw that Dennis Wojciechowski, aka Cisco, had checked in forty minutes before. Bosch figured he would almost be through with his session. He took a seat in the waiting room where he could see the door and would be able to spot Cisco as he was leaving.

Bosch noted that the magazines spread across the table in front of the couch were all several months old. Instead of picking one up, he opened his e-mail on his phone for the first time in several days. He saw the one from Lucia Soto providing the names of Ellis and Long. Most of the other e-mails were spam and he deleted them. There were two from former colleagues, containing messages of disappointment over the news that Bosch was now working in criminal defense. Bosch started typing out a return e-mail to the first one but halfway through realized he could never explain himself or win back the loyalty of the men and women still in the LAPD. He stopped writing and deleted the message.

The thought of his predicament was depressing. He decided he would not check his e-mail going forward because it was likely that he would be receiving more of the same kind of messages. He was putting his phone back into his pocket when it buzzed in his hand. He checked the screen before answering it and saw the name Francis Albert. He didn’t recognize the name but took the call, getting up and walking out through the door to abide by the signs that said no cell phone calls in the waiting room.

“Harry Bosch.”

He stepped into an alcove to the right.

“Detective Bosch, this is Francis Albert, your neighbor on Woodrow Wilson.”

Bosch still couldn’t place the name or come up with a face. And he didn’t know if Francis Albert was the full name or a two-part first name, maybe in homage to Francis Albert Sinatra.

“Yes. How are you?”

“I’m fine. You might not remember me, but I hosted the Neighborhood Watch meeting a couple months ago that you were kind enough to attend.”

Now Bosch had him. Old man, stooped shoulders, no family, and too much free time on his hands. Bosch, newly retired and with too much time on his own hands, had agreed to attend the meeting back in March. Francis Albert probably wanted him to come back and address the troops again.

“Of course I remember you,” Bosch said. “But I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back later?”

“Sure, that’s fine. But I just thought you’d want to know that somebody was watching your house this morning. He claimed he was a cop but I have my doubts.”

Suddenly Bosch wasn’t in such a hurry to end the call.

“What do you mean ‘watching my house’?” he asked.

“Well, you know the Robinson’s property across the street from me?” Francis Albert responded. “Where they knocked the house down but left the pad there to build on?”

“Right, I know it.”

“I go out this morning to pick up the paper, and first thing I see is some schmuck’s parked in front of my garage. And then I see the guy. He went under the tape and is out on the pad with a pair of binoculars. And he’s looking right at your house, Detective Bosch.”

“Call me Harry. I’m not a detective anymore. Are you sure he was looking at my house?”

“Definitely looked that way to me. And you call me Frank.”

“How long did he stay there, Frank?”

“Till I hassled him and he took off. That’s why I don’t think he was a legit cop — even though he showed me a badge.”

“You hassled him?”

“Yeah, I went out and asked him what he was doing. He got all nervous and left. That’s when he showed me this cockamamie badge he had around his neck.”

Bosch reached into his jacket and pulled out the remaining photocopy of the photos of Ellis and Long. He unfolded it and stared at the two vice cops.

“What did he look like?” he asked.

There was a long pause before Albert answered.

“I don’t know, he was normal,” he finally said.

“Normal?” Bosch asked. “Was he white, black, brown?”

“White.”

“How old?”

“Uh, forties. I think. Maybe thirties.”

Bosch looked at the two photos.

“Did he have a mustache?”

“Yeah, he had a mustache. You know him?”

Long had a mustache. Ellis didn’t.

“I don’t know. Are you going to be around later? I have a couple photos I’d like to show you.”

“Sure, I’m here all the time.”

“Thanks, Frank.”

“Just watching out for the neighborhood. That’s what we do.”

Bosch disconnected and looked at the photos of the two vice cops. He didn’t think he needed to go by Frank’s to confirm what he knew in his gut. It had been Long with the binoculars. It seemed odd to Bosch that he was snooping around so soon. It was only nine-thirty. Why had he already gotten suspicious about the Cherokee not moving?

Bosch decided that there must be something else that had sent Long up the hill. He folded the photocopy and put it back into his jacket pocket. While he was doing it, he saw a man he believed was Wojciechowski walking out through the front door of the rehab center.

The man had a noticeable limp and was walking with the aid of a cane — black with flames painted on it. He wore blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and a leather vest with the Harley-Davidson insignia on the back. The traditional wings of the logo were broken. Bosch knew this was to indicate the rider had gone down, gotten hurt, and had survived.

“Cisco?” Bosch called.

The man stopped and turned back to see who had called out. Bosch caught up to him.

“You’re Cisco, right?”

“Maybe. Who are you?”

“Harry Bosch. Mickey Haller’s—”

“Investigator. Yeah, you took my job.”

“I was going to say brother. I didn’t take your job. I don’t want your job, and it will be there for you as soon as you’re ready to go back. I’m just working this one case for him and that’s it.”

Cisco put both hands on the cane. Bosch could tell that standing and walking weren’t his favorite pastimes at the moment. There were several benches lining the walkway, places for people to wait for those in rehab.

“Can we sit down for a minute?” Bosch asked.

He pointed to one of the benches. Cisco headed that way and seemed relieved to take his weight off his knee. He was a big man with massive arms and a powerful V-shaped torso, an inverted pyramid unsteady on its points of support.

“So this isn’t a coincidence?” he asked. “Mick told me you were in the Army, too.”

“I was in the Army and I’ve been in this place before, but this isn’t a coincidence,” Bosch said. “I came looking for you. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“About what?”

“Well, let’s start with your accident. Mickey told—”

“It was no accident.”

“Well, that’s what I want to know. Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t get it. Why?”

“You heard that Mickey got popped for a DUI, right?”

“Yeah. Your old pals the LAPD.”

“It was a setup. I think it was to hinder his efforts on the Foster case. I think the same thing might’ve happened with you. So what happened?”

Bosch could see a coldness set in Cisco’s eyes.

“It was fucking April Fools’ Day. I was on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, heading down toward Hollywood. The guy in the lane next to me pushes over and I had no choice; let him knock me down and go under his wheels or take my chances in the oncoming lanes. I almost made it.”

“What makes you think it was intentional?”

“I don’t think it. I know it. Two things. Number one, the guy didn’t stop. I mean, he didn’t even slow down. And number two, he knew what he was doing. Hell, I reached out and kicked the side of his car and he still kept coming. Steel-toe boot, man. He heard it. He knew I was there.”

“You saw the driver?”

Bosch started taking the photocopy back out of his coat pocket.

“No, I didn’t see him,” Cisco said. “The windows on the car were tinted too dark. Way beyond legal.”

Bosch left the photocopy in his pocket.

He knew that a favored tactic of the UC units in the LAPD was to smoke the windows of their cars beyond legal limits.

“What kind of car was it?”

“A Camaro. Burnt orange with black rims and yellow calipers. I got a good look at the wheels, you could say. Real up close and personal.”

“But I take it you didn’t get the plate.”

“Too busy trying to stay alive by that point. What’s in your pocket anyway? What were you going to show me?”

Bosch pulled out the photocopy.

“These are the two guys who pulled over Haller. I thought maybe you’d recognize one of them — if you had seen the driver.”

Cisco unfolded the page and looked at the two faces. They were just head shots, but in both, the top collars of police uniforms were evident.

“So you’re saying two cops might be behind all of this?” he said.

Bosch nodded.

“It’s beginning to look that way.”

“Jesus Christ. Rogue cops. What’ll they think of next?”

“I’m going to need you to keep all of this to yourself. Haller’s okay, but nobody else. It might fuck things up if it leaks.”

“You didn’t have to say that.”

“Right, sorry. So your accident, it occurred—”

“I told you, it was no accident.”

“Right, sorry, wrong word. So this attack occurred right after Haller got the Foster case. Had you started working the case yet?”

“Not in a big way. We had the case and we were gearing up for it, but the discovery hadn’t come in yet and so we were sort of waiting on the D.A. to cough up the murder book.”

Bosch nodded.

“So you really hadn’t begun.”

“Not really. Just sort of grasping at straws until we got our hands on those records. That’s where it all starts, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that. So ‘grasping at straws’ — what does that mean?”

“Well, you always get your client’s side of the story and you can pursue that. Our guy said he had an alibi, so I looked into that and found we were a day late and a dollar short. The pro he said he was with got himself murdered.”

“James Allen.”

“That was the guy.”

“How deep did you go into that?”

“Not that deep. The guy was dead and we couldn’t talk to him, end of story. I had a couple calls into the LAPD guys on it but — big surprise — hadn’t heard anything back.”

“Do you think you did anything on the investigation that could have brought about the attack with the Camaro? Anything come to mind at all?”

Cisco thought for a moment and then shook his head.

“I really don’t, or else I would have already jumped on it, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Bosch realized that if there was a connection between Cisco being sent into oncoming traffic and Ellis and Long, then he was going to have to find it through other means.

“Sorry I’m not much help,” Cisco said.

“You gave me a solid description of the car. That’ll help.”

“I wish I knew something, but I don’t know what I did that would have brought them on. Mickey I get. But I had barely started on the case.”

“Well, you did something or they thought you were about to do something. Maybe they just wanted to put Haller in the hole by knocking out his investigator. Maybe we’ll never know.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you report the incident to the police?”

“Sure, but that was a waste of time.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Come on, man, look at me. The cops take one look at me and say ‘biker.’ They think whoever ran me off the road was doing the public a solid. I called them and they didn’t give a shit. The report went straight into the circular file. All it got me was my insurance payout, but the cops I never heard from again.”

There was a time when Bosch might have defended the LAPD against those kind of accusations. But he wasn’t in the fold anymore. He just nodded in an understanding way. The men exchanged cell numbers and then Bosch headed off, leaving Cisco on the bench. He said he was going to rest the knee a little longer before getting up and going to the parking lot.