The Drop Read online

  “Okay, on the other report, your interview with this writer, Thomas Rapport. You have any more details on why he’s in L.A.?”

  “I don’t know, he’s some kind of a big screenwriter. The studio put him up in one of those bungalows in the back where Belushi died. That’s two grand a night and he said he was in town for the whole week. He said he’s doing rewrites on a script.”

  At least that answered one question before Bosch had to ask it. How long would they have local access to Rapport if they needed him?

  “So did the studio pop for a limo? How’d he get to the hotel?”

  “Uh . . . no, he took a cab in from the airport. His plane landed early and the studio car wasn’t there yet, so he grabbed a cab. He said that’s why Irving got in front of him at the check-in. They arrived at the same time but Rapport had to wait for the cab driver to print out a receipt and it took forever. He was sort of pissed about that. He was on East Coast time and dead tired. He wanted to get into his bungalow.”

  Bosch felt a brief stirring in his gut. It was a mixture of instinct and knowing that there was an order of things in the world. The truth was revealed to the righteous. He often felt it at the moment things started to tumble together on a case.

  “Jerry,” he said, “did Rapport tell you which cab company brought him to the hotel?”

  “You mean what kind?”

  “Yeah, you know, Valley Cab, Yellow Cab, which company? It says it on the door of the taxi.”

  “He didn’t say but what’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Maybe nothing. Did you get a cell phone for this guy?”

  “No, but he’s there at the hotel for a week.”

  “Right. I got that. I tell you what, Jerry, I want you and your partner to go back over to the hotel and ask about the man on the fire escape. Find out if they had anybody working that night who could have been the man on the ladder. And find out about the uniforms they wear.”

  “Come on, Bosch. It was at least two hours before Irving went down. Most likely longer.”

  “I don’t care if it was two days, I want you out there asking the questions. Send me the report when you’re done. By tonight.”

  Bosch closed the phone. He turned and looked at Chu.

  “Let me see the file on Irving’s taxi franchise client.”

  Chu looked through the stack of files and handed one to Bosch.

  “What’s going on?” Chu asked.

  “Nothing yet. What are you working on?”

  “The insurance. So far, it’s all legit. But I have to make a call.”

  “Me, too.”

  Bosch picked up his desk phone and called the Chateau Marmont. He was in luck. When he was transferred to Thomas Rapport’s bungalow the writer answered.

  “Mr. Rapport, this is Detective Bosch with the LAPD. I have a few follow-up questions regarding the interview you gave my colleagues earlier. Would this be a good time to talk?”

  “Uh, not really. I’m in the middle of a scene right at the moment.”

  “A scene?”

  “A movie scene. I’m writing a movie scene.”

  “I see and I understand, but this will only take a few minutes of your time and this is very important to the investigation.”

  “Did the guy jump or was he pushed?”

  “We can’t say for sure, sir, but if you answer a couple questions, we will be closer to knowing.”

  “Go ahead, Detective. I’m all yours. From your voice, I’m picturing you as sort of a Columbo-looking guy.”

  “That’s fine, sir. Can I start?”

  “Yes, Detective.”

  “You arrived at the hotel on Sunday evening by taxi, is that correct?”

  “Yes, it is. Direct from LAX. Archway was supposed to send a car but I got in early and there was no car. I didn’t want to wait, so I just took a cab.”

  “Do you happen to remember the name of the cab company you used?”

  “The company? You mean like Checker Cab or something?”

  “Yes, sir. We have several companies that are licensed to operate in the city. I’m looking for the name that was on the door of your cab.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know it. There was just a line of taxis and I jumped in one.”

  “You remember what color it was?”

  “No. I just remember it was dirty inside. I should’ve waited for the studio car.”

  “You told Detectives Solomon and Glanville that you were delayed a bit on your arrival at the hotel while waiting for the cab driver to print out a receipt. Do you have that receipt handy?”

  “Hold on.”

  While Bosch waited, he opened the file for Irving’s taxi franchise project and started looking through the documents. He found the contract Irving had signed with Regent five months earlier, then came to a letter that was addressed to the city’s franchise board. It informed the board that Regent Taxi would be competing for the Hollywood franchise when it came up for renewal in the coming year. The letter also listed the “performance and trust” issues facing the current franchise holder, Black & White Taxi. Before Bosch finished reading the letter, Rapport came back on the phone.

  “I have it here, Detective. It was Black and White. That was the name of the company.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Rapport. I have one last question. Does it say on the receipt who the driver was?”

  “Uh . . . hmm . . . uh, no, it just gives his number. It says driver twenty-six. Does that help?”

  “It does, sir. It helps a lot. Now, that’s a pretty nice place you’re staying in, right?”

  “Very nice, and I think you know who died here.”

  “Yes, I do. But the reason I ask is, do you know if that room is equipped with a fax machine?”

  “I don’t have to look. I know it is because I faxed pages to the set an hour ago. You want me to fax you this receipt?”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  Bosch gave him the number to the fax in the lieutenant’s office. No one would be able to look at the receipt except Duvall.

  “It will be on its way as soon as I hang up, Lieutenant,” Rapport said.

  “That’s Detective.”

  “I keep forgetting you’re not Columbo.”

  “No, sir, I’m not. But I am going to hit you with just one more question.”

  Rapport laughed.

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s a tight space in the garage area where you come in. Did your taxi pull in ahead of Mr. Irving’s car or was it the other way around?”

  “Other way. We pulled in right behind him.”

  “So when Irving got out of his car, did you see him?”

  “Yeah, he stood there and gave his keys to the valet guy. The valet then wrote his name on a receipt and tore off the bottom half and gave it to him. The usual thing.”

  “Did your driver see this?”

  “I don’t know but he had a better view through the windshield than I did in the back.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Rapport, and good luck with the scene you’re writing.”

  “I hope I’ve helped.”

  “You have.”

  Bosch hung up and while he waited for the receipt to arrive via fax, he called George Irving’s office manager, Dana Rosen, and asked her about the letter to the city’s franchise board that was in the Regent Taxi file.

  “Is this a copy or the original that was not yet sent out?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, that was sent out. We sent it individually to every member of the board. That was the first step in announcing the plans to go for the Hollywood franchise.”

  Bosch was looking at the letter as they spoke. It was dated two Mondays earlier.

  “Was there any response to this?” he asked.

  “Not yet. It would have been in the file if there was.”

  “Thank you, Dana.”

  Bosch hung up and went back to looking through the Regent file. He found a paper-clipped batch of printouts that must have been the backup Irving used fo
r the allegations contained in the letter. There was a copy of a story that had been in the Times which reported that the third Black & White driver in four months had been arrested for driving drunk while operating a taxi. The story also reported that a B&W driver was determined to have been at fault in an accident involving serious injuries to the couple in the cab’s backseat earlier in the year. The stack also contained copies of the arrest reports on the DUI stops and a batch of moving violations that had been written against B&W drivers. Everything from running red lights to double-parking, the moving violations were probably just routine and collateral to the DUI arrests.

  The records made it easy for Bosch to see why Irving thought B&W was vulnerable. Snatching the Hollywood franchise was probably going to be the easiest piece of business he had ever done.

  Bosch quickly scanned the arrest reports but was snagged by a curiosity. He noticed that in each of the reports, the same badge number had been entered in the block identifying the arresting officer. Three arrests spread over four months. It seemed beyond coincidence that the same cop would have made all three arrests. He knew that it was conceivable that the badge number simply belonged to the jail officer who had administered the Breathalyzer tests at Hollywood Division after the cab drivers were taken into custody by other officers. But even that would have been unusual and out of procedure.

  He picked up the phone and called the department’s personnel office. He gave his own name and badge number and said he needed to get an ID off a badge. He was transferred to a mid-level bureaucrat who looked it up on the computer and gave Bosch the name, rank and assignment.

  “Robert Mason, P-three, Hollywood.”

  As in Bobby Mason. George Irving’s longtime friend—until recently.

  Bosch thanked her and hung up. He wrote down the information he had just assembled and then studied it. He could not dismiss as happenstance the fact that Mason had made three DUI arrests of B&W drivers at a time he was apparently still friends with a man representing a rival to B&W’s Hollywood franchise.

  He circled Mason’s name in his notes. The patrol officer was definitely someone Bosch wanted to talk to. But not yet. Bosch needed to know far more than he knew now before he could make the approach.

  He moved on and next studied the arrest summaries, which contained the probable cause for detaining the drivers. In each case the driver had been observed driving erratically. In one of the cases, the summary noted that a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey had been found under the driver’s seat of the taxi.

  Bosch noted that the report did not mention the size of the bottle and for a moment he mused over the choice of the words half empty over half full and the different interpretations the descriptions might bring. But then Chu rolled his chair over and leaned against his desk.

  “Harry, it sounds like you have something going.”

  “Yeah, maybe. You want to take a ride?”

  18

  Black & White Taxi was located on Gower south of Sunset. It was an industrial neighborhood full of businesses that catered to the movie industry. Costume warehouses, camera houses, prop houses. B&W was in one of two side-by-side sound-stages that looked old and worn-out. The cab company operated out of one, and the other was a storage and rental facility for movie cars. Bosch had been in the car storage facility before on a case. He had taken his time walking through. It was like a museum with every car that had ever caught his eye as a teenager.

  The two hangar doors of B&W were wide open. Bosch and Chu walked in. In the moment of blindness when their eyes adjusted from the transition of sunlight to shadows, they were almost hit by a taxi heading out to the street. They jumped back and let the black-and-white-checked Impala go between them.

  “Asshole,” Chu said.

  There were cars sitting dormant and cars up on jacks being worked on by mechanics in greasy coveralls. At the far end of the large space, two picnic tables sat next to a couple of snack and beverage machines. A handful of drivers were hanging out there, waiting for their chariots to pass muster with the mechanics.

  To their right was a small office with windows that were so dirty they were opaque. But behind them Harry could see shapes and movement. He led Chu that way.

  Bosch knocked once on the door and went in without waiting for a response. They stepped into an office with three desks pushed up against three of the walls and overflowing with paperwork. Two of them were occupied by men who had not turned to see who had entered. Both of them were wearing headsets. The man on the right was dispatching a car to a pickup at the Roosevelt Hotel. Bosch waited for him to finish.

  “Excuse me,” he said.

  Both men turned to look at the intruders. Bosch was ready with his badge out.

  “I need to ask a couple questions.”

  “Well, we’re running a business here and don’t—”

  A phone rang and the man on the left punched a button on his desk to activate his headset.

  “Black and White. . . . Yes, ma’am, that will be five to ten minutes. Would you like us to call upon arrival?”

  He wrote something down on a yellow Post-it, then tore it off the pad and handed it to the dispatcher so he could send a car to the address.

  “Car’s on the way, ma’am,” he said, then punched the desk button to disconnect the call.

  He swiveled in his seat to face Bosch and Chu.

  “You see?” he said. “We don’t have any time for your bullshit.”

  “What bullshit is that?”

  “I don’t know, whatever you’re spinning today. We know what you’re doing.”

  Another call came in, and the info was taken and moved to the dispatcher. Bosch stepped into the space between the two desks. If the call taker wanted to pass a Post-it to the dispatcher now, he’d have to go through Bosch.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bosch said.

  “Good, then neither do I,” the call taker said. “We can just never mind this whole thing. Have a good day.”

  “Except I still need to ask a couple questions.”

  The phone buzzed again but this time when the man reached for the desk button, Bosch was quicker. He pushed it once to connect the call, then again to disconnect it.

  “What the fuck you doing, man? This is our business here.”

  “It’s my business being here, too. They’ll just call somebody else. Maybe Regent Cab will get their business.”

  Bosch checked him for a reaction and saw his tight-lipped response.

  “Now, who is driver twenty-six?”

  “We don’t give drivers numbers. We give cars numbers.”

  His tone was meant to convey that he thought this was the dumbest pair of cops going.

  “Then tell me who was driving car twenty-six about nine thirty Sunday night.”

  The call taker leaned back so he could look around Bosch at the dispatcher and they exchanged a silent message.

  “You got a warrant for that?” the dispatcher asked. “We’re not just going to give you a guy’s name so you can go out and trump up another bullshit arrest on us.”

  “I don’t need a warrant,” Bosch said.

  “The hell you don’t!” cried the dispatcher.

  “What I need is your cooperation, and if I don’t get it, those deuces you’re worried about are going to be the least of your problems. And at the end of the day, I’m still going to get what I want. So decide right now how you want to play it.”

  The two B&W men looked at each other again. Bosch looked at Chu. If the bluff didn’t work, they might have to amp up the situation. Bosch checked Chu’s face for any sign of retreat. There was none.

  The dispatcher opened a binder that was to the side of his desk. From Bosch’s angle he could see it was some sort of schedule. He turned back three pages to Sunday.

  “All right, Hooch Rollins had that car Sunday night. Now leave, the both of you.”

  “Hooch Rollins? What’s his real name?”

  “How the fuck
should we know?”

  It was the dispatcher. Bosch was getting pretty annoyed with him. He stepped over closer and looked down at him. The phone rang.

  “Don’t answer that,” Bosch said.

  “You’re killing us here, man!”

  “They’ll call back.”

  Bosch locked in on the dispatcher.

  “Is Hooch Rollins working right now?”

  “Yeah, he’s working a double today.”

  “Well, dispatcher, get on the radio and call him back here.”

  “Yeah, what do I say to get him to do that?”

  “You tell him you need to switch out his car. Tell him you’ve got a better one for him. It just came in on the truck.”

  “He won’t believe that. We got no truck coming. We’re about to go out of business thanks to you people.”

  “Make him believe it.”

  Bosch gave the dispatcher a hard look and the man turned to his microphone and called Hooch Rollins in.

  Bosch and Chu stepped out of the office and conferred about what to do when Rollins showed up. They decided that they would wait until he was out of the car before making an approach to him.

  A few minutes later a beat-up taxi that was a year past needing a wash pulled into the bay area. It was driven by a man in a straw hat. He jumped out and said to no one in particular, “Where’s my new wheels?”

  Bosch and Chu approached from two sides. When they got close enough to contain Rollins, Bosch spoke.

  “Mr. Rollins? We’re with the LAPD and we need to ask you some questions.”

  Rollins looked confused. Then the fight-or-flight look entered his eyes.

  “What?”

  “I said we need to ask you a few questions.”

  Bosch badged him then so he’d know that it was formal and official. There was no running from the law.

  “What’d I do?”

  “As far as we know, nothing, Mr. Rollins. We want to talk to you about something you may have seen.”

  “You’re not going to jack me up like the other fellas, are you?”

  “We don’t know anything about that. Will you please accompany us to the Hollywood police station so we can sit in a quiet room and talk?”

  “Am I under arrest?”