BALLARD AND BOSCH 20 страница

Bosch bent his elbows and raised his hands to show he was no threat. He hoped that the metallic sound of the shot and Mitchell’s body dropping might bring the officer from the waiting area. Or maybe Gustafson and Reyes would finally arrive and save the day.

Bosch nodded at the body.

“I guess the Manley suicide isn’t going to sell now,” he said.

She didn’t take the bait at first. She just looked at him with what was either a sneer or a crooked smile. Like an actress Bosch had always liked over the years. Oddly, he started thinking about the movies she had been in: Diner, Sea of Love, the one where she was a detective working a serial case and—

“Why did you do this?” the woman said. “You’re not even a cop.”

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Once a cop, always a cop, I guess.”

“You should’ve stayed away from it.”

Bosch detected a slight accent but couldn’t place it. Eastern Europe, he guessed. He knew she was going to shoot him now and there was no way he could get to his own gun in time.

“Why didn’t you leave—after Manley?” he asked. “You should have been long gone.”

“I did,” she said. “I was clear. But then I saw you. I came back for you. The job was Manley and you. You just saved me a lot of time.”

Bosch put it together: Michaelson was cleaning up a mess. No matter what hold Manley had had on him and the firm, he had finally outstayed his welcome by letting the fox into the henhouse. He had to go—and so did the fox.

“What about Mitchell?” Bosch asked. “Was he a freebie?”

“No, he was just in the way,” the woman said. “But I can make it work. You’ll get credit for him too.”

Bosch nodded.

“I get it,” he said. “Angry ex-cop goes on a rampage. Throws his lawyer off the roof, kills the founding partner. It won’t work. I was with a cop when you threw Manley over the edge.”

She made a gesture with the gun.

“It’s the best I can do under the circumstances,” she said. “I’ll be gone when they figure it out.”

She steadied her aim and Bosch knew this was it. He suddenly thought of Tyrone Power dying while fighting a fake duel and doing what he loved. And John Jack Thompson going to his grave with a terrible secret. He wasn’t ready to go either way.

“Let me ask you one question,” he said. “Hurry,” she said. “How’d you get him up there? Manley. How’d you get him to the roof?”

She gave the crooked smile again before answering. Bosch saw her aim drop again.

“That was easy,” she said. “I told him you were coming for him and that we had a helicopter waiting for him on the roof. I said we were going to Vegas, where he was getting a new name and a new life. I told him Mr. Michaelson had set it all up.”

“And he believed you,” Bosch said.

“That was his mistake,” she said. “We purged his computer and he sent an e-mail to the firm saying goodbye. Once we were up there, the rest was easy. Just like this.”

BALLARD

Ballard came out of the elevator and immediately saw the uniformed police officer standing in a waiting area to the left. She walked directly to him, pulling her jacket back to show her badge. She saw his name was French.

“I’m looking for a guy—sixties, mustache, looks like a cop,” she said.

“There was a guy like that but he had a legit ID,” French said.

“Where is he?”

French pointed.

“He went around the stairs,” he said.

“Okay,” Ballard said.

She walked to the reception desk, where a young man was playing solitaire on his phone.

“Where is Clayton Manley’s office?”

“You go around the stairs and it’s the last office at the end of the hall past Mr. Michaelson’s and Mr. Mitchell’s offices. I can take you back.”

“No, you stay here. I’ll find it.”

Ballard moved quickly toward the curving staircase and the hall. As she entered the passageway she saw the first two doors on the left closed, but the last door was open and she heard voices. One belonged to a woman and the other, unmistakably, to Harry Bosch.

She quietly drew her weapon and held it in two hands in front of her as she moved down the hallway and closer to the open door. She strained to listen.

“That was his mistake,” the woman said.

“We purged his computer and he sent an e-mail to the firm saying goodbye. Once we were up there, the rest was easy. Just like this.”

Ballard came to the door and saw a woman standing with her back to her. Dark hair, dark clothes. She thought: Black Widow. Beyond her was a man facedown on the floor. Gray hair but not like Bosch’s.

The woman was raising a weapon with a sound suppressor attached.

“You move, you die,” Ballard said.

The woman froze, her arm straight but the weapon only halfway up to firing position.

“Drop the weapon and let me see both hands,” Ballard ordered. “Now!”

The woman remained frozen and Ballard knew she was going to have to shoot her.

“Last chance. Drop … the … weapon.”

Ballard raised her arms slightly so she could sight down the barrel of her pistol. She would cut the woman’s cords with a shot to the back of the neck.

The woman opened her gun hand and the weight of the barrel with the suppressor dropped the muzzle downward as the handle came up.

“I’ve got a hair trigger on this,” she said. “I drop it, it could go off. I’m going to lower it to the ground.”

“Slowly,” Ballard said. “Harry?”

“I’m here,” Bosch said from the right.

“You carrying?”

“Have it on her right now.”

“Good.”

The woman in the room started to bend her knees and flex down. Ballard followed her with the aim of her gun, holding her breath the whole time until the weapon was dropped the last few inches.

“All right, stand up,” Ballard ordered. “Move to the window and put your palms flat on the glass.”

The woman did as instructed, stepping to the floor-to-ceiling glass panel and then raising and placing her hands against it.

“You got her?” Ballard asked.

“I’ve got her,” Bosch said.

He raised his aim to assure Ballard he had the woman firmly in his sights. Ballard holstered her weapon and moved in to search the woman.

“Do you have any other weapons on you?”

“Just the one on the floor.”

“I’m going to search you now. If I find another weapon on you it’s going to be a problem.”

“You won’t.”

Ballard moved forward and used her foot to push the woman’s legs apart. She then began a pat-down that started low with the legs before moving up.

“Do you have to do that?” the woman asked.

“With you, yes,” Ballard said. “And I bet you like it.”

“Part of the job.”

Finished with the search, Ballard put her hand on the woman’s back to hold her in place. She then pulled her cuffs off her belt.

“Okay, one at a time,” she said. “I want you to bring your hand down from the glass and behind your back. Your right first.”

Ballard reached up and grabbed the right wrist as it was coming down and started bringing it behind the Black Widow’s back. But the woman turned as if being pivoted by Ballard. Ballard tried to stop it.

“No—”

Ballard saw it before she felt it. In the woman’s hand was an open folding knife with a blade curved like a horn. All matte black except for the edge of the blade that had been sharpened to a shine. The woman brought it up and into Ballard’s left armpit and then put her other arm around her neck in a V hold. She was now behind Ballard and using her as a shield. Ballard saw Bosch holding his weapon, looking for a clean shot that wasn’t there.

“I sliced a bleeder under her arm,” the woman said. “She’s got three minutes and she’ll bleed out. You put the gun down. I walk out of here. She lives.”

“Take the shot, Harry,” Ballard said.

The woman adjusted herself behind Ballard to improve her shielding. Ballard could feel her breath on the back of her neck. She could feel blood running over her ribs and down her side.

“Two and a half minutes,” the woman said.

“There’s a cop out front,” Bosch said.

“And there’s an exit to the stairs in the copy room. We’re almost at two minutes.”

Bosch remembered seeing the emergency exit door. He signaled with the gun toward the door.

“Go,” he said.

“Gun,” the woman said.

Bosch put his gun down on the desk.

“Harry, no,” Ballard managed to say in a whisper.

She then felt herself being dragged toward the office door.

“Get back against the bookshelf,” the woman ordered.

Bosch raised his hands and moved back. Ballard was dragged toward the door.

“You’re going to have a choice now,” the woman said. “Save her or go after me.”

Ballard felt the woman’s grip release and she fell back against the doorframe and then slid down to a sitting position.

Bosch came quickly around the desk to her. His hands immediately went inside her jacket to her belt and pulled off the radio. He knew how to use it.

“Officer down! Need immediate medical on sixteenth floor of California Plaza West. Office of Clayton Manley. Repeat, officer down. Officer stabbed, losing blood, needs immediate medical.”

He put the rover on the floor and then opened Ballard’s jacket to get a look at the knife wound.

“Harry … I’m okay, go after her.”

“I’m going to lay you on your right side so the wound is on the high side. You’re going to be all right. I’ll compress the wound.”

“No, go.”

Bosch ignored her. As he gently put her down on her side he heard footsteps running in the hallway. Officer French appeared in the doorway.

“French,” Bosch yelled. “Get the EMTs. There’s a team down in the plaza. Get them up here, now. Then put out a broadcast. A woman, thirties, white, black hair, all black clothing, armed and dangerous. She went into the exit stairs. She’s trying to get out of the building.”

French didn’t move. He seemed frozen by what he was seeing.

“Go!” Bosch yelled.

French disappeared. Ballard looked up from the floor to Bosch. She felt her clock running out. For some reason, she smiled. She barely heard Bosch talking to her.

“Stay with me, Renée. I’m going to use your arm to compress the wound. It’s gonna hurt.”

Holding her by the elbow, he shifted her arm up so that he could hold her biceps down on the wound. It didn’t hurt at all and that made her smile.

“Harry …”

“Don’t talk. Don’t waste your energy. Just stay with me, Renée. Stay with me.”

BALLARD AND BOSCH

Ballard couldn’t seem to move on the bed without setting off searing pain that ran like branches of lightning over the left side of her body. She was being treated at White Memorial in Boyle Heights. It was the second morning after the events at California Plaza and she was out of the intensive care unit. The Black Widow had only nicked her axillary artery with her curving blade, but nevertheless Ballard had suffered a major loss of blood. The EMTs had contained it and then an ER doctor had sutured her damaged blood vessels in a four-hour surgery. It was just that now her left arm felt like it had been strapped to her body with bungee cords and any little movement set off pain like she had never felt in her life.

“Stop moving.”

She turned her head to see Bosch enter the room.

“Easier said than done,” she said. “Did you have trouble getting in this time?”

“No,” Bosch said. “I’m finally on the Approved list.”

“I told them you were my uncle.”

“I’ll take that over grandfather.”

“I should’ve thought of that. So, what’s the news? She’s still in the wind?”

Bosch sat down on a chair next to the bed. There was a table to his left crowded with flower vases and stuffed animals and cards.

“The Black Widow’s in the wind,” he said. “But at least they know who they’re looking for. They got a print off one of the cartridges in the gun she left and IDed her—they think. Turns out the FBI’s been looking for her for a while for some wet work she did in Miami.”

“They have her name?”

“Catarina Cava.”

“What’s that, Italian?”

“No, Cuban, actually.”

“How did she get hooked up with Batman?”

“You forget, I’m not part of the club anymore. People from your department aren’t telling me jack. What I know I got from a fed who interviewed me and is part of the task force they’re putting together on this. The bureau, Vegas Metro, LAPD. He told me Butino and his people picked up on her when they had a piece of work that was mutually beneficial. Then she became his go-to. Which in turn brought her to the attention of Michaelson & Mitchell.”

“They have Michaelson?”

“Yeah, they grabbed him at Van Nuys Airport. He was about to take a private jet to Grand Cayman. Now he’s trying to deal his way out, laying everything off on Manley. Of course, Manley’s dead and his computer was purged before he went off the roof. But I told them what Cava told me: that Michaelson set up the hit on Manley and me.”

“Well, I hope they put Michaelson away for a hundred years.”

“It’s a dance. He’ll eventually realize he has to reveal all if he wants any shot at a break.”

“Does your FBI source have any idea about what Manley’s hold was on Michaelson? Like why they didn’t get rid of him sooner?”

“They just assume he knew too much. They believe they’re going to find other cases where Michaelson used Cava. Judge Montgomery wasn’t the first hit. In fact, that may have been a rogue operation—Manley making use of their in-house hitter without Michaelson’s approval. But what was he going to do? Fire him? He knew too much. Michaelson was probably going to wait for Herstadt to be convicted, the case to die down a little bit, and then he would make his move on Manley.”

“But you came along and sped it all up.”

“Something like that.”

Bosch absentmindedly picked up a stuffed dog that had been sent to Ballard with a get-well-soon card.

“That’s from my friend Selma Robinson,” Ballard said. “The deputy D.A. on the Hilton case.”

“Nice,” Bosch said.

He put the dog back. Ballard looked at the crowded table. It seemed odd to receive bouquets and get-well cards after being slashed with an assassin’s blade—there was no specialty card for that from Hallmark. But the table and just about every other horizontal surface in the room seemed to be covered with flowers, cards, stuffed animals, or something else from well-wishers, most of them fellow cops. It was an odd contradiction to receive so much attention and so many get-wells from a department she thought had turned its back on her long ago. The doctor told her that more than thirty cops had showed up the night of her surgery to donate blood for her. He gave her a list of names. Many were from the late show but most were complete strangers to her. When she read the names, a tear had gone down her cheek.

Bosch seemed to understand the currents that were going through her. He gave her a moment before asking, “So, Olivas been by?”

“Yes, actually,” Ballard said. “This morning. Probably felt he had to.”

“He’s had a good week.”

“Damn right. First he gets credit on the Hilton case. Now all of this. He’s going to clear Montgomery, Banks, and Manley. The guy’s going four for four.”

“That’s a hell of an average. All because of you.”

“And you.”

“Maybe it’ll get you off the late show.”

“No, I don’t want that. I’d still never work for him. Olivas. And if not RHD, where am I going to go? Besides, after midnight is when it all happens in this town. I like the dark hours. As soon as they let me, I’m going back.”

Bosch smiled and nodded. He had known that would be her answer.

“What about you?” Ballard asked. “What are you going to do now?”

“Today’s my day for visiting,” Bosch said. “I’m going to go see Margaret Thompson next.”

Ballard nodded.

“Are you going to tell her about John Hilton?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Not sure she needs to know all that.”

“Maybe she already does.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it. I don’t think she would have called me in the first place if she’d known. I don’t think she would have done that to me, you know? Led me to finding out about him.”

Bosch was silent after that and Ballard waited a moment before speaking.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know he was important to you. And to have this … truth come out …”

“Yeah, well …,” Bosch said. “True heroes are hard to come by, I guess.”

They were silent another moment and Bosch wanted to change the subject.

“When I went there last, to her house,” he said, “you know, to look through his office—before we knew why he took the murder book … anyway, I found a box in his closet where he kept old cases. Not full murder books, but copies of some chronos, reports, and summaries from old cases.”

“That he had worked?” Ballard asked.

“Yeah, from his own cases. And there was one—it was a sixty-day summary from a case I had worked with him. This girl rode her bike under the Hollywood freeway … and then she disappeared. A few days later she was found dead. Murdered. And we never cleared it.”

“What was her name?”

“Sarah Freelander.”

“When was the murder?”

“Nineteen eighty-two.”

“Wow, that’s old. And never solved?”

Bosch shook his head.

“I’m going to ask Margaret for that box,” he said.

Ballard could tell that Bosch’s eyes were seeing the case from long ago. Then he seemed to come back to the present. He brightened and smiled at her.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I guess I’ll let you rest. Any idea when you’ll be out of here?”

“They’re just worried about infection now,” Ballard said. “Otherwise, it’s all good. So I think they’re going to watch it another day and then let me go. Two days at the most.”

“Then I’ll be back tomorrow. You need anything?”

“I’m good. Unless you want to go take my dog for a walk.”

Bosch paused.

“I didn’t think so,” Ballard said, smiling.

“I’m not really good with animals,” Bosch said. “I mean, did you want—”

“Don’t worry about it. Selma has been checking on her and taking her out.”

“Then good. That’s perfect.”

Bosch stood up, squeezed her right hand, and then headed toward the door.

“Sarah Freelander,” Ballard said.

Bosch stopped and turned around.

“If you work that case, I work it with you.”

Bosch nodded.

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “That’s a deal.”

He started to leave the room. Ballard stopped him again.

“Actually, Harry, I need one more thing from you.”

He came back to the bed.

“What?”

“Can you take a picture of all the flowers and stuffed animals? I want to remember all of this.”

“Sure.”

Bosch pulled his phone and stepped to one side so he could get the whole display of good wishes in the frame.

“You want to be in it?” he asked.

“God, no,” Ballard said.

Bosch took three shots from slightly different angles, then opened the camera app on the phone to select the best shot to send her. As he clicked on the “All Photos” option, he saw the shot he had taken while searching Clayton Manley’s office. He had forgotten about it in all the activity that had occurred later. It was a photo of a document on Manley’s computer before it had been purged.

The document was named TRANSFER and contained only a thirteen-digit number followed by the letters G.C. Bosch realized now that G.C. might stand for Grand Cayman.

“Harry, something wrong?” Ballard asked.

“Uh, no,” Bosch said. “Something’s right.”

EPILOGUE

She always sat facing the door. She always came as soon as they opened at 11 so she could get her café con leche and Cuban toast before he arrived. This time was no different. It was early, before the lunch rush at El Tinajon. Otherwise they wouldn’t make the Cuban toast. It wasn’t on the menu—you had to ask for it.

In her peripheral vision she saw a woman come from the kitchen and she thought it was Marta with her toast. But it wasn’t. The woman sat down across from her, and there was a familiarity about her.

“Batman’s not coming,” she said.

Now Cava recognized her.

“You lived,” she said.

Ballard nodded.

“He gave me up, didn’t he?” Cava said.

“No,” Ballard said. “Batman’s not talking. It was Michaelson.”

“Michaelson …”

She seemed genuinely surprised.

“Grand Cayman was the nexus,” Ballard said. “He was headed there when they grabbed him. Then we found your offshore account there—thanks to Harry Bosch. That led to the feds finding his at the same bank. Once the feds got to his money, the game was over. He gave everybody up just so he could keep enough to take care of his family.”

“Family first,” Cava said.

“And he told us how to find you.”

“The only mistakes I have ever made came from trusting men.”

“They can let you down. Some of them.”

Cava nodded. Ballard watched her hands.

“Don’t move your hands,” she said. “You’re under arrest.”

Those last three words were the cue. Soon, members of the task force—FBI, Vegas Metro, LAPD—came down the back hallway and through the kitchen and the front door, weapons drawn, no chances taken with the Black Widow.

Ballard stood up and backed away from the table. Men moved in on Cava, took her by the arms, held her tightly, and searched her. They found the curved knife in the homemade forearm scabbard that Ballard had missed that day four weeks earlier. They found a pistol in the purse she had put down on the floor.

As she was being cuffed, Cava kept her eyes on Ballard. She smiled slightly when she was led away from the table and toward the front door. There was a van waiting to transport her to the bureau’s Las Vegas field office. It took off as soon as the side door was slammed shut.

“Way to go, Renée.”

It was Kenworth from Vegas Metro. He moved behind her and took the recorder off her belt as she detached the mini-microphone from inside the opening of her blouse. She pulled the wire up and out and handed it to him.

“She didn’t really give up anything,” Ballard said.

“She exhibited knowledge of the conspiracy and crimes,” Kenworth said. “That’s what the prosecutor will say. And I say: good job.”

“I have to make a call now.”

She pulled her phone and hit one of the names on her list of favorites as she stepped into the rear hall for privacy.

“Harry, we got her.”

“No hitches?”

“No hitches. She even had the knife. It was in this elastic strap on her forearm. I just missed it that day.”

“Anybody would have.”

“Maybe.”

“So, she talk to you? Say anything?”

“She said you can never trust men.”

“Word to the wise, I guess. How do you feel?”

“I feel good. But she sort of smiled at me when they were taking her out of here. Like she was saying this isn’t over.”

“What else could she do? Anyway, she gave me that smile too.”

“It was weird, though.”

“Vegas is weird. When are you coming back?”

“I’ll go to the bureau’s field office and see what they need from me. Then I’ll head back as soon as I’m clear.”

“Good. Let me know.”

“You working on Freelander?”

“Yeah, and I found the guy. The one she said no to. He’s still around.”

“Don’t do anything until I get back.”

“Roger that.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author had the help of many in the writing of this book. They include Rick Jackson, Mitzi Roberts, Tim Marcia, and David Lambkin on the law enforcement side and Daniel Daly and Roger Mills on the legal side.

With regard to researching and editing I wish to thank Asya Muchnick, Linda Connelly, Jane Davis, Heather Rizzo, Terrill Lee Lankford, Dennis Wojciechowski, John Houghton, Henrik Bastin, Pamela Marshall, and Allan Fallow.

Many thanks to all.

Author’s Note: The steps a law enforcement agency must take to obtain a court-approved wiretap are many. They were shortened for dramatic purposes in this novel.

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