The Black Ice hb-2 Page 3

  They smoked and drank and small-talked at first, trying to establish connections and boundaries. Bosch noticed that the name Calexico truly represented Moore’s mixed heritage. Dark complexioned, with hair black as ink, thin hips and wide shoulders, Moore’s dark, ethnic image was contradicted by his eyes. They were the eyes of a California surfer, green like anti-freeze. And there was not a trace of Mexico in his voice.

  “There’s a border town named Calexico. Right across from Mexicali. Ever been there?”

  “I was born there. That’s how come I got the name.”

  “I’ve never been.”

  “Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much. Just a border town like all the rest. I still go on down every now and then.”

  “Family?”

  “Nah, not anymore.”

  Moore signaled the bartender for another round, then lit a cigarette off the one he had smoked down to the filter.

  “I thought you had something to ask about,” he said.

  “Yeah, I do. I gotta case.”

  The drinks arrived and Moore threw his shot back in one smooth movement. He had ordered another before the bartender had finished writing on the tab.

  Bosch began to outline his case. He had caught it a few weeks earlier and so far had gotten nowhere. The body of a thirty-year-old male, later identified through fingerprints as James Kappalanni of Oahu, Hawaii, was dumped beneath the Hollywood Freeway crossing over Gower Street. He had been strangled with an eighteen-inch length of baling wire with wooden dowels at the ends, the better to grip the wire with after it had been wrapped around somebody’s neck. Very neat and efficient job. Kappallani’s face was the bluish gray color of an oyster. The blue Hawaiian, the acting chief medical examiner had called him when she did the autopsy. By then Bosch knew through NCIC and DOJ computer runs that in life he had also been known as Jimmy Kapps, and that he had a drug record that printed out about as long as the wire somebody had used to take his life.

  “So it wasn’t too big a surprise when the ME cut him open and found forty-two rubbers in his gut,” Bosch said.

  “What was in them?”

  “This Hawaiian shit called glass. A derivative of ice, I am told. I remember when ice was a fad a few years back. Anyway, this Jimmy Kapps was a courier. He was carrying this glass inside his stomach, had probably just gotten off the plane from Honolulu when he walks into the baling wire.

  “I hear this glass is expensive stuff and the market for it is extremely competitive. I guess I’m looking for some background, maybe shake an idea loose here. ’Cause I’ve got nothing on this. No ideas on who did Jimmy Kapps.”

  “Who told you about glass?”

  “Major narcs downtown. Not much help.”

  “Nobody really knows shit, that’s why. They tell you about black ice?”

  “A little. That’s the competition, they said. Comes from the Mexicans. That’s about all they said.”

  Moore looked around for the bartender, who was down at the other end of the bar and seemed to be purposely ignoring them.

  “It’s all relatively new,” he said. “Basically, black ice and glass are the same thing. Same results. Glass comes from Hawaii. And black ice comes from Mexico. The drug of the twenty-first century, I guess you’d call it. If I was a salesman I’d say it covers all the demographics. Basically, somebody took coke, heroin and PCP and rocked ’em all up together. A powerful little rock. It’s supposed to do everything. It’s got a crack high but the heroin also gives it legs. I’m talking about hours, not minutes. Then it’s got just a pinch of dust, the PCP, to give it a kick toward the end of the ride. Man, once it really takes hold on the streets, they get a major market going, then, shit, forget about it, there’ll be nothing but a bunch of zombies walking around.”

  Bosch said nothing. Much of this he already knew but Moore was going good and he didn’t want to knock him off track with a question. He lit a cigarette and waited.

  “Started in Hawaii,” Moore said. “Oahu. They were making ice over there. Just plain ice, they called it. That’s rocking up PCP and coke. Very profitable. Then it evolved. They added heroin. Good stuff, too. Asian white. Now they call it glass. I guess that was their motto or something; smooth as glass.

  “But in this business there is no lock on anything. There is only price and profit.”

  He held up both hands to signify the importance of these two factors.

  “The Hawaiians had a good thing but they had trouble getting it to the mainland. You got boats and you got planes and these can be regulated to a good degree. Or, at least, to some degree. I mean, they can be checked and watched. So they end up with couriers like this Kapps who swallow the shit and fly it over. But even that is harder than it seems. First of all, you got a limited quantity that you can move. What, forty-two balloons in this guy? What was that, about a hundred grams? That’s not much for the trouble. Plus you got the DEA, they got people in the planes, airports. They’re looking for people like Kapps. They call them ‘rubber smugglers.’ They’ve got a whole shakedown profile. You know, a list of what to look for. People sweating but with dry lips, licking their lips-the anti-diarrhetic does that. That Kaopectate shit. The rubber smugglers swig that shit like it’s Pepsi. It gives them away.

  “Anyway, what I am saying is that the Mexicans got it a whole helluva lot easier. Geography is on their side. They have boats and planes and they also have a two-thousand-mile border that is almost nonexistent as a form of control and interdiction. They say the feds stop one pound of coke for every ten that gets by them. Well, when it comes to black ice, they aren’t even getting an ounce at the border. I know of not one single black ice bust at the border.”

  He paused to light a cigarette. Bosch saw a tremor in his hand as he held the match.

  “What the Mexicans did was steal the recipe. They started replicating glass. Only they’re using homegrown brown heroin, including the tar. That’s the pasty shit at the bottom of the cooking barrel. Lot of impurities in it, turns it black. That’s how they come up with calling it black ice. They make it cheaper, they move it cheaper and they sell it cheaper. They’ve ’bout put the Hawaiians out of the business. And it’s their own fucking product.”

  Moore seemed to conclude there.

  Harry asked, “Have you heard anything about the Mexicans taking down the Hawaiian couriers, maybe trying to corner the market that way?”

  “Not up here, at least. See, you gotta remember, the Mexicans make the shit. But they ain’t the ones necessarily selling it on the street. You’re talking several levels removed when you get down to the street.”

  “But they still have to be calling the shots.”

  “True. That’s true.”

  “So who put down Jimmy Kapps?”

  “Got me, Bosch. This is the first I’ve heard about it.”

  “Your team ever make any arrests of black ice dealers? Shake anybody down?”

  “A few, but you’re talking about the lowest rungs on the ladder. White boys. Rock dealers on the Boulevard are usually white boys. It’s easier for them to do business. Now, that doesn’t mean it isn’t Mexicans givin’ it to them. It also doesn’t mean it ain’t South-Central gangs givin’ it. So the arrests we’ve made probably wouldn’t help you any.”

  He banged his empty beer mug on the bar until the bartender looked up and was signaled for another round. Moore seemed to be getting morose and Bosch hadn’t gotten much help from him.

  “I need to go further up the ladder. Can you get me anything? I don’t have shit on this and it’s three weeks old. I’ve got to come up with something or drop it and move on.”

  Moore was looking straight ahead at the bottles that lined the rear wall of the bar.

  “Look, I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But you gotta remember, we don’t spend time on black ice. Coke and dust, some reefer, that’s what we deal in day in and day out. Not the exotics. We’re a numbers squad, man. But I’ve got a connection at DEA. I’ll talk to him.”

>   Bosch looked at his watch. It was near midnight and he wanted to go. He watched Moore light a cigarette though he still had one burning in the crowded ashtray. Harry still had a full beer and shot in front of him but stood up and began digging in his pockets for money.

  “Thanks, man,” he said. “See what you can do and let me know.”

  “Sure,” Moore said. After a beat he said, “Hey, Bosch?”

  “What?”

  “I know about you. You know,… what’s been said around the station. I know you’ve been in the bucket. I wonder, did you ever come up against an IAD suit name of Chastain?”

  Bosch thought a moment. John Chastain was one of the best. In IAD, complaints were classified at the end as sustained, unsustained or unfounded. He was known as “Sustained” Chastain.

  “I’ve heard of him,” he said. “He’s a three, runs one of the tables.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s a detective third grade. Shit, everybody knows that. What I mean is, did he… is he one of them that came after you?”

  “No, it was always somebody else.”

  Moore nodded. He reached over and took the shot that had been in front of Bosch. He emptied it, then said, “Chastain, from what you’ve heard, do you think he is good at what he does? Or is he just another suit with a shine on his ass?”

  “I guess it depends on what you mean by good. But, no, I don’t think any of them are good. Job like that, they can’t be. But give ’em the chance, any one of them will burn you down and bag your ashes.”

  Bosch was torn between wanting to ask what was going on and not wanting to step into it. Moore said nothing. He was giving Bosch the choice. Harry decided to keep out of it.

  He said, “If they’ve got a hard-on for you, there isn’t much you can do. Call the union and get a lawyer. Do what he says and don’t give the suits anything you don’t have to.”

  Moore nodded silently once more. Harry put down two twenty-dollar bills that he hoped would cover the tab and still leave something for the bartender. Then he walked out.

  He never saw Moore again.

  * * *

  Bosch connected with the Antelope Valley Freeway and headed northeast. On the Sand Canyon overpass he looked across the freeway and saw a white TV van heading south. There was a large9 painted on its side. It meant Moore’s wife would already know by the time Bosch arrived. And Bosch felt a slight twinge of guilt at that, mixed with relief that he would not be the one breaking the news.

  The thought made him realize that he did not know the widow’s name. Irving had given him only an address, apparently assuming Bosch knew her name. As he turned off the freeway onto the Sierra Highway, he tried to recall the newspaper stories he had read during the week. They had carried her name.

  But it didn’t come to him. He remembered that she was a teacher-an English teacher, he thought-at a high school in the Valley. He remembered that the reports said they had no children. And he remembered that she had been separated a few months from her husband. But the name, her name, eluded him.

  He turned on to Del Prado, watched the numbers painted on the curbs and then finally pulled to a stop in front of the house that had once been Cal Moore’s home.

  It was a common ranch-style home, the kind minted by the hundreds in the planned communities that fed the freeways to overflow each morning. It looked large, like maybe four bedrooms, and Bosch thought that was odd for a childless couple. Maybe there had been plans at one time.

  The light above the front door was not on. No one was expected. No one was wanted. Still, in the moonlight and shadow, Bosch could see the front lawn and knew that the mower was at least a month past due. The tall grass surrounded the post of the white Ritenbaugh Realty sign that was planted near the sidewalk.

  There were no cars in the driveway and the garage door was closed, its two windows dark empty sockets. A single dim light shone from behind the curtained picture window next to the front door. He wondered what she would be like and if she would feel guilt or anger. Or both.

  He threw his cigarette into the street and then got out and stepped on it. Then he headed past the sad-looking For Sale sign to the door.

  Chapter 4

  The mat on the porch below the front door saidWELCOME but it was worn and nobody had bothered to shake the dust off it in some time. Bosch noticed all of this because he kept his head down after knocking. He knew that looking at anything would be better than looking at this woman.

  Her voice answered after his second knock.

  “Go away. No comment.”

  Bosch had to smile, thinking how he had used that one himself tonight.

  “Hello, Mrs. Moore? I’m not a reporter. I’m with the L.A. police.”

  The door came open a few inches and her face was there, backlit and hidden in shadow. Bosch could see the chain lock stretching across the opening. Harry was ready with his badge case already out and opened.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Moore?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am Harry Bosch. Um, I’m a detective, LAPD. And I’ve been sent out-could I come in? I need… to ask you a few questions and inform you of some, uh, developments in-”

  “You’re late. I’ve had Channel 4 and 5 and 9 already out here. When you knocked I figured you were somebody else. Two or seven. I can’t think who else.”

  “Can I come in, Mrs. Moore?”

  He put his badge wallet away. She closed the door and he heard the chain slide out of its track. The door came open and she signaled him in with her arm. He stepped into an entryway of rust-colored Mexican tile. There was a round mirror on the wall and he saw her in it, closing and locking the door. He saw she held tissue in one hand.

  “Will this take long?” she asked.

  He said no and she led him to the living room, where she took a seat on an overstuffed chair covered in brown leather. It looked very comfortable and it was next to the fireplace. She motioned him toward a couch that faced the fireplace. This was where the guests always sat. The fireplace had the glowing remnants of a dying fire. On the table next to where she sat he saw a box of tissues and a stack of papers. More like reports or maybe scripts; some were in plastic covers.

  “Book reports,” she said, having noticed his gaze. “I assigned books to my students with the reports due before the Christmas vacation. It was going to be my first Christmas alone and I guess I wanted to make sure I had something to keep me busy.”

  Bosch nodded. He looked around the rest of the room. In his job, he learned a lot about people from their rooms, the way they lived. Often the people could no longer tell him themselves. So he learned from his observations and believed that he was good at it.

  The room in which they sat was sparse. Not much furniture. It didn’t look like a lot of entertaining of friends or family happened here. There was a large bookshelf at one end of the room that was filled by hardback novels and oversized art books. No TV. No sign of children. It was a place for quiet work or fireside talks.

  But no more.

  In the corner opposite the fireplace was a five-foot Christmas tree with white lights and red balls, a few homemade ornaments that looked as if they might have been passed down through generations. He liked the idea that she had put up the tree by herself. She had continued her life and its routines amidst the ruins of her marriage. She had put the tree up for herself. It made him feel her strength. She had a hard shell of hurt and maybe loneliness but there was a sense of strength, too. The tree said she was the kind of woman who would survive this, would make it through. On her own. He wished he could remember her name.

  “Before you start,” she said, “can I ask you something?”

  The light from the reading lamp next to her chair was low wattage but he could clearly see the intensity of her brown eyes.

  “Sure.”

  “Did you do that on purpose? Let the reporters come up here first so you wouldn’t have to do the dirty work? That’s what my husband used to call it. Telling families. He called
it the dirty work and he said the detectives always tried to get out of it.”

  Bosch felt his face grow warm. There was a clock on the fireplace mantel that now seemed to be ticking very loudly in the silence. He managed to say, “I was told only a short time ago to come here. I had a little trouble finding it. I-”

  He stopped. She knew.

  “I’m sorry. I guess you’re right. I took my time.”

  “It’s okay. I shouldn’t put you on the spot. It must be a terrible job.”

  Bosch wished he had a fedora like the ones the detectives in the old movies always had; that way he could hold it in his hands and fiddle with it and let his fingers trace its brim, give him something to do. He looked at her closely now and saw the quality of damaged beauty about her. Mid-thirties, he guessed, with brown hair and blonde highlights, she seemed agile, like a runner. Clearly defined jawline above the taut muscles of her neck. She had not used makeup to try to hide the lightly etched lines that curved under her eyes. She wore blue jeans and a baggy white sweatshirt that he thought might have been her husband’s once. Bosch wondered how much of Calexico Moore she still carried in her heart.

  Harry actually admired her for taking the shot at him about the dirty work. He knew he deserved it. In the three minutes he had known her he thought she reminded him of someone but he wasn’t sure who. Someone from his past maybe. There was a quiet tenderness there beside her strength. He kept bringing his eyes back to hers. They were magnets.