The Drop

27

A taxi garage was much like a police station. It operated solely as a hub for the refueling, maintenance and direction of vehicles that continually spread out across a geographic jurisdiction. And, of course, it was the place where those vehicles were replenished with those who drove them. The vehicles were always in play until mechanical failure pulled them out of the lineup. In that there was a rhythm that could be counted on. Cars in, cars out. Drivers in, drivers out. Mechanics in and mechanics out. Dispatchers in and dispatchers out.

Bosch and Chu sat on Gower and watched the front of the Black & White Taxi garage for nearly an hour before they saw the man they believed was Mark McQuillen park a car on the curb and then walk in through the open garage door. He wasn’t what Bosch expected. In his mind’s eye he was picturing the McQuillen he remembered from twenty-five years earlier. The McQuillen whose photo was splashed across the media as the scapegoat of the choke hold task force. The twenty-eight-year-old stud with the buzz cut and the biceps that looked strong enough to crush a man’s skull, let alone his carotid artery.

The man who sauntered into B&W Taxi was thicker in the hips than the shoulders, had straggly hair in an unkempt gray ponytail and walked with the pace of a man going where he didn’t really care to go.

“That’s him,” Bosch said. “I think.”

They were his first words in twenty minutes. He had very little to say anymore to Chu.

“You sure?” Chu asked.

Bosch looked down at the copy of the driver’s license photo Chu had printed. It was three years old but he was sure he had it right.

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Bosch didn’t wait for his partner’s response. He got out of the car and headed diagonally across Gower toward the garage. He heard the other door slam behind him and Chu’s shoes on the pavement as he scurried to catch up.

“Hey, are we going to do this together or is it one-man-army time?” Chu called out.

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “Together.”

For the last time, he thought.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the garage. There was more activity than on their previous visit. Shift change. Drivers and cars coming and going. They headed directly to the dispatch office, not wanting anyone to get the news to McQuillen before they got to him.

Bosch rapped on the door with his knuckles as he opened it. As he stepped in, he saw two men in the room, just as before. But one was McQuillen and the other was a new man as well. McQuillen was standing by his workstation, spraying a disinfectant on the radio headset he was about to put on. He seemed unfazed by the appearance of the two men in suits. He even nodded as if to signal that they were expected.

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

“Mark McQuillen?” Bosch asked.

“That would be me.”

“Detectives Bosch and Chu, LAPD. We want to ask you a few questions.”

McQuillen nodded again and turned to the other dispatcher.

“Andy, you hold the fort? Hopefully this won’t take long.”

The other man nodded and gave the smooth-seas signal with his hand.

“Actually,” Bosch said, “it might. Maybe you should see if you can get someone in.”

This time McQuillen spoke while looking directly at Bosch.

“Andy, call Jeff, get him out. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Bosch turned and gestured toward the door. McQuillen started out of the office. He was wearing a baggy shirt that was not tucked in. Bosch stayed behind him and kept his eyes on his hands the whole time. When they got into the garage, he put his hand on McQuillen’s back and directed him toward a taxi that was on jacks.

“Do you mind putting your hands on the hood for a minute?”

McQuillen complied, and when he did so his wrists extended past the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. Bosch saw the first thing he was hoping to see. A military-style watch on his right wrist. It had a large steel bezel with grip ridges.

“Not at all,” McQuillen said. “And I’ll tell you right now that in my right-front waistband you will find a little two-shot popper I like to carry. It’s not the safest job in the world. I know you have it tougher but we work in there through the night, the garage door always open. We take each driver’s bank at the end of shift and sometimes the drivers themselves aren’t the nicest guys, if you know what I mean.”

Bosch reached around McQuillen’s substantial girth and found the weapon. He pulled it out and held it up to show Chu. It was a Cobra Derringer with a big-bore barrel. Nice and small but hardly a popper. It could fire two.38 caliber rounds and they could do some damage if you used it up close enough. The Cobra had been on the list of guns McQuillen had registered and that Chu had pulled up on the ATF computer. Harry put it into his pocket.

“You have a concealed weapons permit?” Bosch asked.

“Not quite.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

As Bosch finished the pat-down, he felt what he was sure was a phone in McQuillen’s right-front pocket. He left it in place, acting as though he had missed it.

“Do you shake down everybody you bring in for questioning?” McQuillen asked.

“Rules,” Bosch said. “Can’t take you in the car without cuffs unless we do the pat-down.”

Bosch wasn’t exactly talking about department rules. More his own rules. When he had seen the Cobra on the ATF report, he guessed that it was a weapon McQuillen liked to carry on him — there wasn’t really much other reason to have a pocket pistol. Harry’s first priority was to separate him from it and anything else that might not have been on the ATF’s radar.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They walked out of the garage and into the late afternoon sun. Walking on either side of McQuillen, the detectives led him toward their car.

“Where are we going for this voluntary conversation?” McQuillen asked.

“The PAB,” Bosch replied.

“Haven’t seen the new building but if it is all the same, I’d rather go to Hollywood. It’s close and I can get back to work sooner.”

This was the start of a cat-and-mouse game. The key thing from Bosch’s perspective was to keep McQuillen cooperating. The moment he shut down and said, I want a lawyer, was the moment everything halted. Being a former cop, McQuillen was smart enough to know this. He was playing them.

“We can check if they have the space,” Bosch said. “Partner, give them a call.”

Bosch had used the code word. As Chu pulled his phone, Bosch opened the back door of their sedan and held it while McQuillen climbed in. He closed it and over the hood of the car gave Chu a hand signal, like a cutoff motion. The meaning was, we are not going to Hollywood.

Once they were all in the car Chu proceeded to fake a phone call with the lieutenant in charge of the detective squad room at Hollywood Division.

“L.T., Detective Chu, RHD, my partner and I are in the vicinity and would like to borrow one of your nine-by-nines for about an hour if we could. We could be there in five. Would that be all right with you?”

There was a long silence followed by “I see” three times from Chu. He then thanked the lieutenant and closed his phone.

“No good. They just rolled a DVD counterfeiting warehouse and they got all three rooms stacked. It will be a couple hours.”

Bosch glanced back at McQuillen and shrugged.

“Looks like you get to see the PAB, McQuillen.”

“I guess so.”

Bosch was pretty sure McQuillen had not fallen for the charade. On the rest of the drive Bosch tried to make small talk that would either elicit information or lower McQuillen’s guard. But the former cop knew all the tricks of the trade and remained mute almost the entire ride. This told Bosch that the interview at PAB was going to be difficult. Nothing was more difficult than trying to get a former cop to talk.

But that was okay. Bosch was ready for the challenge and had a few things up his sleeve that he was pretty sure McQuillen hadn’t seen.

Once they got into the PAB, they walked McQuillen through the vast RHD squad room and then placed him in one of the Open-Unsolved Unit’s two interview rooms.

“We just need to check on a few things and we’ll get right back to you,” Bosch said.

“I know how it works,” McQuillen said. “See you in about an hour, right?”

“No, not that long. We’ll be right back.”

The door automatically locked when he pulled it closed. Bosch went down the hall to the next door and stepped into the video room. He started the video and audio recorders and then went to the squad room. Chu was at his desk, opening the envelopes containing George Irving’s credit-card records. Bosch took his own seat.

“How long are you going to let him cook?” Chu asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe a half hour. I missed his cell phone during the pat-down. Maybe he’ll make a call and say the wrong thing and we’ll have it on video. Might get lucky.”

“It’s happened before. You think he’s walking out of here tonight?”

“I kind of doubt it. Even if he gives us nothing. Did you see his watch?”

“No, he’s got long sleeves.”

“I saw it. It fits. We book him and take the watch and it goes to forensics. We go for DNA and wound matching. DNA will take a while but maybe they can make the wound match by lunch tomorrow and then we go to the DA.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’m going to get a cup of coffee. You want something?”

Bosch turned and looked at his partner for a long moment. Chu’s back was to him. He was putting the credit-card reports into one stack and tapping the edges clean.

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“As long as you’re letting him cook awhile, I might sit down and look at all of this stuff. You never know.”

Chu got up, putting the credit-card data into a fresh green file.

“Yeah, you never know.”

Chu walked out and Bosch watched him go. He then got up and went to the lieutenant’s office, popping his head in and telling Duvall that they had placed McQuillen in interview room 1 and that he was there voluntarily.

He then went back to his desk and texted his daughter, making sure she had gotten home safely from school. She replied quickly, as her phone was an extension of her right hand and they had a rule that they never delayed responses to each other.

Home safe. Thought you were working last night.

Bosch wasn’t sure what she was getting at. He had taken pains that morning to erase any indication that Hannah Stone had been there. He sent back an innocent response and then she nailed him.

Two wineglasses in the Bosch.

They always called the dishwasher after its manufacturer’s name. Bosch realized he had left one detail uncovered. He thought for a moment and then typed out a text.

They were getting dusty on the shelf. I just washed them. But I am glad to know you are doing your chores.

He doubted it would get by her but he waited two minutes and there was no reply. He felt bad about not telling her the truth but it wasn’t the right time to open up a discussion with his daughter about his romantic life.

Deciding he had given Chu enough of a head start, he took the elevator down to the ground floor. He went out the front entrance of the PAB and over to Spring Street, where he crossed and entered the Los Angeles Times Building.

The Times had a full cafeteria on the bottom floor. The PAB had snack machines and that was it. In what was billed as a gesture of neighborliness when the new police headquarters was opened a couple years earlier, the Times had offered use of its cafeteria to all PAB officers and workers. Bosch had always thought it was a hollow gesture, primarily motivated by the financially beleaguered newspaper’s hope to make at least the cafeteria profitable while no other department in the once powerful institution was.

After badging his way past the security desk, he entered the cafeteria that had been put in the cavernous space where the old printing presses had turned for decades. It was a long room with a buffet line on one side and rows of tables on the other. He quickly scanned the room, hoping to see Chu before his partner saw him.

Chu was sitting on the far side of the room at a table with his back turned to Bosch. He was with a woman who looked like she was of Latin descent. She was writing in a notebook. Bosch walked up to their table, pulled out a chair and sat down. Both Chu and the woman looked like they were being joined at the table by Charles Manson.

“I changed my mind about the coffee,” Bosch said.

“Harry,” Chu blurted out. “I was just—”

“Telling Emily here about our case.”

Bosch looked directly at Gomez-Gonzmart.

“Isn’t that right, Emily?” he said. “Or can I call you GoGo?”

“Look, Harry, it’s not what you think,” Chu said.

“Really? It’s not? Because it looks to me like you’re laying out our case for the Times right here on their home court.”

He quickly reached out and grabbed the notebook off the table.

“Hey!” Gomez-Gonzmart cried. “That’s mine.”

Bosch read the notes on the exposed page. The notes were in some sort of shorthand but he saw repeated notations about McQ and the phrase watch match = key. It was enough to confirm his suspicions. He handed her the notebook.

“I’m going,” she said as she snatched the notebook out of his hands.

“Not quite yet,” Bosch said. “Because you two are going to sit here and work out a new arrangement.”

“You don’t tell me what to do!” she snapped.

She pushed back her chair so hard it fell over as she stood up.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Bosch said. “But I do have your boyfriend’s future and career in my hands here. So if any of that means anything to you, then you’ll sit down and hear me out.”

He waited and watched her. She pulled her purse strap over her shoulder, ready to walk off.

“Emily?” Chu said.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I have a story to write.”

She walked away, leaving Chu’s face drained of blood. He stared into the distance until Bosch snapped him out of it.

“Chu, what the fuck did you think you were doing?”

“I thought. .”

“Whatever it was, you got burned. You fucked up and you better start thinking of a way to back her off. What exactly did you just tell her?”

“I. . I told her we brought McQuillen in and that we were going to try to turn him in the room. I told her it wouldn’t matter if he confessed or not if the watch matched the wound.”

Bosch was so angry, he had to hold back from swinging at Chu and smacking the back of his head.

“When did you start talking to her?”

“The day we got the case. I knew her from before. She did a story a few years ago and we had a few dates. I always liked her.”

“So she calls up this week and starts leading you by the dick right into my case.”

Chu turned and looked at him for the first time.

“Yeah, you got it, Harry. Your case. Not our case. Your case.”

“But why, David? Why would you do this?”

“You did this. And don’t start calling me David. I’m surprised you even know my first name.”

“What? I did this? Are you—”

“Yeah, you. You cut me out, Harry. You wouldn’t tell me shit and you cut me out, made me chase down the other case while you ran this one. And this wasn’t the first time. More like every time. You don’t do that to a partner. If you had treated me right, I never would have done it!”

Bosch composed himself and calmed his voice. He sensed they had drawn the attention of people sitting at nearby tables. Newspaper people.

“We’re not partners anymore,” Bosch said. “We finish out these two cases and then you put in for a transfer. I don’t care where you go but you’re out of OU. If you don’t do it, I’ll make it known what you did, how you sold out your own partner and your case for a piece of tail. Then you’ll be a pariah and nobody and no unit outside of IAD will take you. You’ll be outside looking in.”

Bosch stood up and walked away. He heard Chu call his name weakly but he didn’t turn back around.