Angels Flight Read online

  He turned back and looked at the computer screen.

  ‘You said this was part of a larger web site,’ he said to Rider. ‘Can we look at that?’

  Rider didn’t answer. She just went to work on the keyboard. In a few moments the screen changed and they were looking at a graphic which showed a woman’s stocking-clad leg bent at the knee and reaching across the screen. Below this it said:WELCOME TO GIRLAWHIRL

  A directory of intimate, sensual and erotic services

  in southern California

  Below this was a table of contents by which the user could choose listings of women offering a variety of services, from sensual massage to evening escort to female domination. Rider clicked the mouse on this last offering and a new screen was revealed featuring boxes with the names of mistresses followed by an area code prefix.

  ‘It’s a goddamn Internet whorehouse,’ Chastain said.

  Bosch and Rider said nothing. Rider moved the arrow onto the box marked Mistress Regina.

  ‘This is your directory,’ she said. ‘You choose which page you want and click.’

  She clicked the mouse and the Regina page appeared again.

  ‘He chose her,’ Rider said.

  ‘A white woman,’ Chastain said. There was glee in his voice. ‘Golden blessings from a white woman. I bet they aren’t going to be too pleased about that on the South Side, either.’

  Rider turned around and looked sharply at Chastain. She was about to say something when her eyes widened and looked past the IAD detective. Bosch noticed this and turned. Standing in the doorway of the office was Janis Langwiser. Next to her was a woman Bosch recognized from her newspaper photos and television appearances. She was an attractive woman with the smooth coffee-and-cream skin of mixed races.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Bosch said to Langwiser. ‘This is a crime investigation. She can’t come in here and — ’

  ‘Yes, Detective Bosch, she can,’ Langwiser said. ‘Judge Houghton just appointed her special master on the case. She’ll be reviewing the files for us.’

  With that the woman Bosch recognized stepped fully into the room, smiled but not warmly and held her hand out to him in order to shake his.

  ‘Detective Bosch,’ she said. ‘It’s good to meet you. I hope we will be able to work together on this. I’m Carla Entrenkin.’

  She waited a beat but no one responded. She continued.

  ‘Now the first thing I am going to need is for you and all of your people to vacate these premises.’

  12

  Outside the front doors of the Bradbury the detectives walked empty-handed to their cars. Bosch was still angry but was cooler now. He walked slowly, allowing Chastain and Dellacroce to get to their car first. As he watched them drive off on their way back up Bunker Hill to California Plaza he opened the passenger door of Kiz’s slickback but didn’t get in. He bent down and looked in at her as she pulled the seat belt across her lap.

  ‘You go on up, Kiz. I’ll meet you up there.’

  ‘You’re going to walk it?’

  Bosch nodded and looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty.

  ‘I’ll take Angels Flight. It should be running again. When you get up there you know what to do. Start everybody knocking on doors.’

  ‘Okay, see you up there. You going to go back up and talk to her again?’

  ‘Entrenkin? Yeah, I think so. Do you still have Elias’s keys?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She dug them out of her purse and handed them to Bosch. ‘Is there something I should know about?’

  Bosch paused for a moment.

  ‘Not yet. I’ll see you up there.’

  Rider started the car. She looked over at him again before putting it into drive.

  ‘Harry, you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ He nodded. ‘It’s just the case. First we got Chastain — asshole’s always been able to get to me. Now we’ve got Carla I’mthinkin. It’s bad enough we knew she’d be watching the case. Now she’s a part of it. I don’t like politics, Kiz. I just like putting cases together.’

  ‘I’m not talking about all of that. It’s like you’ve been walking on the sun since we met this morning to pick up the cars in Hollywood. You want to talk about it?’

  He almost nodded.

  ‘Maybe later, Kiz,’ he said instead. ‘We got work to do right now.’

  ‘Whatever, but I’m about to get worried about you, Harry. You need to be straight. If you’re distracted, then we’re distracted and we aren’t going to get anywhere on this thing. That’d be okay most days but on this one you just said it yourself, we’re under the glass.’

  Bosch nodded again. Her having picked up on his personal turmoil was a testament to her skill as a detective — reading people was always more important than reading clues.

  ‘I hear you, Kiz. I’ll straighten up.’

  ‘I copy that.’

  ‘I’ll see you up there.’

  He slapped the roof of the car and watched her drive off, knowing this would be the time he would normally put a cigarette in his mouth. He didn’t. Instead he looked down at the keys in his hand and thought about his next move and how he had to be very careful.

  Bosch went back into the Bradbury and as he rode the slow-moving elevator back up he tumbled the keys in his hand and thought about Entrenkin’s three separate entries into the case. First as a curious listing in Elias’s now missing phone book, then in her capacity as inspector general and now finally a full entrance as a player, the special master who would decide what in Elias’s files the investigators would be allowed to see.

  Bosch didn’t like coincidences. He didn’t believe in them. He needed to know what Entrenkin was doing. He believed he had a good idea what that was and intended to confirm it before going any further with the case.

  After being delivered to the top floor, Bosch pushed the button that would send the elevator back down to the lobby and got off. The door to Elias’s offices was locked and Bosch knocked sharply on the glazed glass, just below the lawyer’s name. In a few moments Janis Langwiser opened it. Bosch could see Carla Entrenkin standing a few feet behind her.

  ‘Forget something, Detective Bosch?’ Langwiser asked.

  ‘No. But is that your little foreign job down there in the no-park zone? The red one? It was about to get towed. I badged the guy and told him to give me five minutes. But he’ll be back.’

  ‘Oh, shit!’ She glanced back at Entrenkin as she headed out the door. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  As she moved by him Bosch stepped into the office and closed the door behind him. He then locked it and turned back to Entrenkin.

  ‘Why did you lock that?’ she asked. ‘Please leave it open.’

  ‘I just thought it might be better if I said what I want to say without anybody interrupting us.’

  Entrenkin folded her arms across her chest as if bracing for an attack. He studied her face and got the same vibe he had gotten before, when she had told them all they had to leave. There was a certain stoicism there, propping her up despite some clear pain beneath. She reminded Bosch of another woman he knew only from TV: the Oklahoma law school teacher who was brutalized in Washington by the politicians a few years before during the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice.

  ‘Look, Detective Bosch, I really don’t see any other way around this. We have to be careful. We have to think about the case as well as the community. The people have to be reassured that everything possible is being done — that this won’t be swept under in the manner they have seen so many times before. I want — ’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You shouldn’t be on this case and we both know it.’

  ‘That’s what is bullshit. I have the trust of this community. You think they will believe anything you say about this case? Or Irving or the police chief?’

  ‘But you don’t have the trust of the cops. And you’ve got one big conflict of interest, don’t you, Inspector General?’

 
‘What are you saying? I think it was rather wise of Judge Houghton to choose me to act as special master. As inspector general I already have a degree of civilian oversight on the case. This just streamlines things instead of adding another person to the mix. He called me. I didn’t call him.’

  ‘I’m not talking about that and you know it. I’m talking about a conflict of interest. A reason you shouldn’t be anywhere near this case.’

  Entrenkin shook her head in an I-don’t-understand gesture but her face clearly showed she feared what Bosch knew.

  ‘You know what I’m saying,’ Bosch said. ‘You and him. Elias. I was in his apartment. Must’ve been just before you got there. Too bad we missed each other. We could’ve settled all of this then.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about but I was just led to believe by Miss Langwiser that you people waited on warrants before entering his apartment and the office. Are you telling me that is not true?’

  Bosch hesitated, realizing he had made a mistake. She could now turn his move away or back on him.

  ‘We had to make sure no one was hurt or in need of help in the apartment,’ he said.

  ‘Sure. Right. Just like the cops who jumped the fence at O.J. Simpson’s house. Just wanting to make sure everybody was okay.’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘The continued arrogance of this department amazes me. From what I had heard about you, Detective Bosch, I expected more.’

  ‘You want to talk about arrogance? You were the one who went in there and removed evidence. The inspector general of the department, the one who polices the police. Now you want to — ’

  ‘Evidence of what? I did no such thing!’

  ‘You cleared your message off the phone machine and you took the phone book with your name and numbers in it. I’m betting you had your own key and garage pass. You came in through the garage and nobody saw you. Right after Irving called to tell you Elias was dead. Only Irving didn’t know that you and Elias had something going on.’

  ‘That’s a nice story. I’d like to see you try to prove any of it.’

  Bosch held his hand up. On his palm were Elias’s keys.

  ‘Elias’s keys,’ he said. ‘There’s a couple on there that don’t fit his house or his apartment or his office or his cars. I was thinking of maybe pulling your address from DMV and seeing if they fit your door, Inspector.’

  Entrenkin’s eyes moved quickly away from the keys. She turned and walked back into Elias’s office. Bosch followed and watched as she slowly walked around the desk and sat down. She looked as if she might cry. Bosch knew he had broken her with the keys.

  ‘Did you love him?’ he asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you love — ’

  ‘How dare you ask me that?’

  ‘It’s my job. There’s been a murder. You’re involved.’

  She turned away from him and looked to her right. She was staring through the window at the painting of Anthony Quinn. Again, the tears appeared to be barely holding back.

  ‘Look, Inspector, can we try to remember one thing? Howard Elias is dead. And believe it or not, I want to get the person who did it. Okay?’

  She nodded tentatively. He continued, talking slowly and calmly.

  ‘In order to get this person, I’m going to need to know everything I can about Elias. Not just what I know from television and newspapers and other cops. Not just from what’s in his files. I’ve got to know — ’

  Out in the reception area someone tried the locked door and then knocked sharply on the glass. Entrenkin got up and went to the door. Bosch waited in Elias’s office. He listened as Entrenkin answered the door and spoke to Langwiser.

  ‘Give us a few minutes, please.’

  She closed the door without waiting for a response, locked it again and came back to Elias’s office, where she took the seat behind the desk. Bosch spoke to her in a voice low enough not to be heard outside of the office.

  ‘I’ve got to know it all,’ he said. ‘We both know you are in a position to help. So can’t we come to some sort of truce here?’

  The first tear fell down Entrenkin’s cheek, soon followed by another on the other side. She leaned forward and began opening drawers in the desk.

  ‘Bottom left,’ Bosch said from memory of his inventory of the desk.

  She opened the drawer and removed the box of tissues. She placed it on her lap, took one tissue and dabbed at her cheeks and eyes. She began to speak.

  ‘It’s funny how things change so quickly ...’

  A long silence went by.

  ‘I knew Howard superficially for a number of years. When I was practicing law. It was strictly professional, mostly “How are you”s in the hallways of the federal building. Then when I was appointed inspector general, I knew it was important that I knew the critics of the police department as well as I knew the department. I arranged to meet Howard. We met right here — him sitting right here ... It went from there. Yes, I loved him ...’

  This confession brought more tears and she pulled out several tissues to take care of them.

  ‘How long were you two ... together?’ Bosch asked.

  ‘About six months. But he loved his wife. He wasn’t going to leave her.’

  Her face was dry now. She returned the tissue box to its drawer and it seemed as though the clouds that had crossed her face moments before were gone. Bosch could see she had changed. She leaned forward and looked at him. She was all business.

  ‘I’ll make a deal with you, Detective Bosch. But only with you. Despite everything ... I think if you give me your word then I can trust you.’

  ‘Thank you. What is your deal?’

  ‘I will only talk to you. In return I want you to protect me. And by that I mean keep the source of your information confidential. You don’t have to worry, nothing I tell you would be admitted in court anyway. You can keep everything I tell you in background. It may help you, it may not.’

  Bosch thought about this for a moment.

  ‘I should be treating you as a suspect, not a source.’

  ‘But you know in your gut that it wasn’t me.’

  He nodded.

  ‘It wasn’t a woman’s murder,’ he said. ‘It’s got male written all over it.’

  ‘It’s got cop written on it, too, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe. That’s what I’m going to find out—if I could just get to the case and not have to worry about the community and Parker Center politics and everything else.’

  ‘Then do we have an agreement?’

  ‘Before making any agreement like that I have to know something first. Elias had a source inside Parker. Somebody with high access. Somebody who could get him unsustained IAD files. I need — ’

  ‘It wasn’t me. Believe me, I may have crossed a line when I began a relationship with him. That was my heart, not my head. But I didn’t cross the line you are talking about. Never in a hundred years. Contrary to what most of your fellow officers think, my goal is to save and improve the department. Not destroy it.’

  Bosch looked at her blankly. She took it as disbelief.

  ‘How would I get him files? I am public enemy number one in that department. If I went in to get files, or even just made a request for them, the word would spread around that building and out into the ranks faster than an earthquake wave.’

  Bosch studied her defiant face. He knew she was right. She wouldn’t make much of a deep cover source. He nodded.

  ‘Then we have an agreement?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. With one asterisk.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘If you lie one time to me and I find out about it, all bets are off.’

  ‘That is more than acceptable to me. But we can’t talk now. I want to finish the files so that you and your people can pursue all leads. Now you know why I want this case solved not only for the sake of the city but for myself. What do you say we meet later? When the files are done.’

  ‘Fin
e with me.’

  As Bosch crossed Broadway fifteen minutes later he could see the garage doors of the Grand Central Market had been rolled up. It was years since he had been in the market, maybe decades. He decided to cut through it to Hill Street and the Angels Flight terminus.

  The market was a huge conglomeration of food booths, produce stalls and butcher shops. Vendors sold cheap trinkets and candy from Mexico. And though the doors had just opened and there were more sellers readying for the day than buyers inside, the overwhelming smell of oil and fried food already hung heavy in the air. As he made his way through Bosch picked up pieces of conversations, delivered in staccato snippets of Spanish. He saw a butcher carefully placing the skinned heads of goats on ice in his refrigerated display case next to the neat rows of sliced oxtail. At the far end old men sat at picnic tables, nursing their cups of thick, dark coffee and eating Mexican pastries. Bosch remembered his promise to Edgar to bring doughnuts before they began the canvass. He looked around and found no doughnuts but bought a bag of churros, the crisp-fried dough sticks with cinnamon sugar that were the Mexican alternative.

  As he came out on the Hill Street side of the market he glanced to his right and saw a man standing in the spot where Baker and Chastain had found the cigarette butts hours earlier. The man had a blood-stained apron wrapped around his waist. He wore a hair net. He snaked his hand in underneath the apron and came out with a pack of smokes.

  ‘Got that right,’ Bosch said out loud.

  He crossed the street to the Angels Flight arch and waited behind two Asian tourists. The train cars were passing each other at the midpoint on the tracks. He checked the names painted above the doors of each car. Sinai was going up and Olivet was coming down.

  A minute later, Bosch followed the tourists as they stepped onto Olivet. He watched as they unknowingly sat on the same bench where Catalina Perez had died about ten hours earlier. The blood had been cleaned away, the wood too dark and old to reveal any stain. He didn’t bother telling them the recent history of their spot. He doubted they understood his language anyway.

  Bosch took the spot where he had sat before. He yawned again the moment the weight was off his feet. The car jerked and started its ascent. The Asians started taking photos. Eventually they got around to using sign language to ask Bosch to take one of their cameras and take photos of them. He obliged, doing his part for the tourist trade. They then quickly took the camera back and moved to the other end of the car.