The Drop hb-17

by Michael Connelly

  “Can we get you something before we start?” Bosch asked.

  “How about a Coke, a smoke and a poke?”

  He started to laugh. The detectives didn’t.

  “How about just a Coke?” Bosch said.

  Bosch reached into his pocket for his change and then picked four quarters off his palm. He handed them to Chu. Since Chu was the junior partner here, he would go out to the machines in the back hallway.

  “So, Hooch, why don’t we start with you telling me your real full name?”

  “Richard Alvin Rollins.”

  “How did you get the name Hooch?”

  “I don’t know, man, I just always had it.”

  “What did you mean back at the shop when you said you didn’t want to get jacked like the other fellas?”

  “That wasn’t anythin’, man.”

  “Sure it was. You said it. So tell me who’s getting jacked up. You tell me and it doesn’t leave this room.”

  “Ah, man, you know. It just looks to us like they coming after us all a sudden with the DUIs and everything.”

  “And you think those were setups?”

  “Come on, man, its pol-o-tics. What do you expect? I mean, look at what they did to that Armenian bastard.”

  Bosch remembered one of the drivers arrested was named Hratch Tartarian. He assumed Rollins was referring to him.

  “What about him?”

  “He was just sitting on the stand and they pull up and pull ’im outta the car. He refuses to blow but then they find the bottle under the seat and he’s toast. That bottle, man, is always under there. It stays in that car and nobody be driving drunk. You take a couple sips a night to make yourself right. But everybody wants to know how those officers knew about that bottle, you know?”

  Bosch sat back in his chair and tried to follow and decipher what had been said. Chu came back in and put a can of Coke down in front of Rollins. He then took a seat at the corner of the table and to Bosch’s right.

  “This conspiracy to set you guys up, who’s behind it? Who’s running it?”

  Rollins raised his hands in a gesture meant to say Isn’t it obvious?

  “It’s the councilman and he just lets his son do the dirty work and run things. I mean, he did. Now he’s dead.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I seen it in the paper. E’rybody knows that.”

  “Did you ever see the son before? In person?”

  Rollins didn’t speak for a long moment. His mind was probably working, dancing around the trap being set for him. He decided not to lie.

  “For like ten seconds. I was on a drop Sunday at the Chateau and saw him going in. That was it.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “How did you know who he was?”

  “Because I seen a picture of him.”

  “Where? The newspaper?”

  “No, somebody had a picture of him after we got the letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “B and W, man. We got a copy of a letter from the Irving guy telling the city people that they were coming after our ticket. They were going to shut us down. Somebody Googled the motherfucker in the office. They got his picture and showed it around. It was on the bulletin board with the letter. They wanted us drivers to know what was up and what was at stake. That this guy was leading the charge against us and we better shape up and fly straight.”

  Bosch understood the strategy.

  “So you recognized him when you pulled into the Chateau Marmont on Sunday night.”

  “Damn right. I knew he was the asshole tryin’ to run us out of business.”

  “Have some Coke.”

  Bosch needed to break momentum to think about this. While Rollins opened the can and started to drink, Harry thought of the next set of questions. There were a number of things going on here that he had not seen coming.

  Rollins took a long drink and put the can down.

  “When did you get off shift Sunday night?” Bosch asked.

  “I didn’t. I need doubles on account of my girl’s about to drop a kid without no insurance. I took a second shift just like I’m doing today and worked on through to the light a day. That would be Monday.”

  “What were you wearing that night?”

  “What is this shit, man? You said I’m not a suspect.”

  “You’re not as long as you keep answering questions. What were you wearing, Hooch?”

  “My usual thing. Tommy Bahama and my cargoes. You sit in a car sixteen hours and you want to be comfortable.”

  “What color was the shirt?”

  He gestured to his chest.

  “This is the shirt.”

  It was bright yellow with a surfboard design on it. Bosch was pretty sure of one thing. It was a Tommy Bahama knockoff, not the real thing. Either way, it seemed to him to be a stretch to consider the shirt gray. Unless Rollins had changed clothes, he wasn’t the man on the fire escape ladder.

  “So who did you tell that you had seen Irving at the hotel?” Bosch asked.

  “No one.”

  “Are you sure about that, Hooch? You don’t want to start lying to us. That would make it tough for us to let you go.”

  “Nobody, man.”

  Bosch could tell by the sudden lack of eye contact that Rollins was lying.

  “That’s too bad, Hooch. I figured you were smart enough to know we wouldn’t ask a question we didn’t already know the answer to.”

  Bosch stood up. He reached under his jacket and pulled his handcuffs off his belt.

  “I only told my shift supervisor,” Rollins said quickly. “Just like in passing. On the radio. I said, Guess who I just saw. Like that.”

  “Yeah, and did he guess it was Irving?”

  “No, I had to tell him. But that was it.”

  “Did your shift supervisor ask where you just saw Irving?”

  “No, he knew ’cause I had called in my twenty on the drop-off. He knew where I was.”

  “What else did you tell him?”

  “That was it. Just that, like conversation.”

  Bosch paused to see if anything else would come out. Rollins was silent, his eyes holding on the cuffs in Bosch’s hand.

  “Okay, Hooch, what’s the name of the shift supervisor you had Sunday night?”

  “Mark McQuillen. He’s on the stick at night.”

  “The stick?”

  “He’s the dispatcher. But they call him the stick cause in the old days there was like a microphone or something on the desk. The stick. You know, somebody told me he’s an ex-cop.”

  Bosch looked at Rollins for a long moment as he fit the name McQuillen into the picture. Rollins was right about his being an ex-cop. And the feeling Bosch had had earlier about things tumbling together now returned. Only things weren’t tumbling anymore. They were cascading. Mark McQuillen was a name out of the past. Both Bosch’s and the department’s.

  Bosch finally came away from his thoughts and looked at Rollins.

  “What did McQuillen say when you told him you saw Irving?”

  “Nothing. I think he asked if the guy was checking in.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “That I thought he was. I mean, he was dumping his car at the garage. That garage is too small; they only let hotel guests park there. If you’re just going to the bar or something, you have to use the outside valet.”

  Bosch nodded. Rollins was right about that.

  “Okay, we’re going to take you back now, Hooch. If you tell anybody what we talked about here, I’m going to know. And I promise you if that happens, it’s not going to turn out good for you.”

  Rollins raised his hands in surrender.

  “I’m straight with that,” he said.

  19

  After they dropped Rollins off they headed back toward downtown and the PAB.

  “So, McQuillen,” Chu said, as Bosch knew he would. “Who is he? I could tell the name meant something to you.”

  “Like Hooch sai
d, a former cop.”

  “But you know him? Or knew him?”

  “I knew of him. I never met him.”

  “Well, what’s the story?”

  “He was a cop who was sacrificed to the gods of appeasement. He lost his job for doing it just the way they taught him.”

  “Stop talking in circles, Harry. What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that I have to go up to the tenth floor and talk to somebody.”

  “The chief?”

  “No, not the chief.”

  “And this is one of those times again where you’re not going to tell your partner what’s going on until you feel like it.”

  Bosch didn’t answer. He was grinding things down.

  “Harry! I’m talking to you.”

  “Chu, when we get back, I want you to start a moniker search.”

  “Who?”

  “Somebody who went by the name Chill in the North Hollywood–Burbank area about twenty-five years ago.”

  “What the fuck? Are you talking about the other case now?”

  “I want you to find this guy. His initials are C. H. and people called him Chill. It’s got to be a variation on his first name.”

  Chu shook his head.

  “That’s it, man, I’m done after this. I can’t work this way. I’ll tell the lieutenant.”

  Bosch just nodded.

  “‘After this’? Does that mean you’ll do the moniker search first?”

  Bosch didn’t call ahead to Kiz Rider. He just took the elevator up to the tenth floor and entered the OCP suite without invitation or appointment. He was met by twin desks with twin adjutants behind them. He went to his left.

  “Detective Harry Bosch. I need to see Lieutenant Rider.”

  The adjutant was a young officer in a crisp uniform with the name RIVERA on his nameplate. He picked up a clipboard from the side of his desk and studied it for a moment.

  “I don’t have anything here. Is the lieutenant expecting you? She’s in a meeting.”

  “Yes.”

  Rivera seemed surprised by the answer. He had to check the clipboard again.

  “Why don’t you have a seat, Detective, and I’ll check on availability.”

  “You do that.”

  Rivera didn’t move. He waited for Bosch to go away. Harry walked over to some chairs arranged near a set of windows that looked out upon the civic center—the signature spire of City Hall took up most of the view. He stayed standing. When Harry was a safe distance from the desk, Rivera picked up his phone and made a call, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece when he spoke to someone on the other end. Soon he hung up but did not even glance in Bosch’s direction.

  Bosch turned back to the window and looked down. He saw a television camera crew set up on the steps of City Hall, waiting for a sound bite from some politician with something to sell. Bosch wondered if it would be Irving who would come out and descend the marble steps.

  “Harry?”

  He turned. It was Rider.

  “Walk with me.”

  He wished she hadn’t said that line. But he followed when she turned and walked out the double doors to the hallway. Once they were alone she turned on him.

  “What’s going on? I have people in my office.”

  “We need to talk. Now.”

  “So talk.”

  “No, not here like this. Things are breaking. It’s going the way I warned you. The chief should know. Who’s in your office? Is it Irving?”

  “No, stop being paranoid.”

  “Then why are we talking out here?”

  “Because the office is busy and because it was you who demanded complete confidentiality on this. Give me ten minutes and meet me by Charlie Chaplin.”

  Bosch walked over and pushed the elevator button. There was only a down button.

  “I’ll be there.”

  It was a block’s walk to the Bradbury Building. Bosch went in the side door on Third and into the dimly lit stairwell vestibule. There was a bench there and next to it was a sculpture of Charlie Chaplin as his signature character, the Tramp. Bosch took a seat in the shadows next to Charlie and waited. The Bradbury was the oldest and most beautiful building in downtown. It housed private offices as well as LAPD offices, including the board of rights hearing rooms used by Internal Affairs. It was an odd choice for a surreptitious meeting, but it was the spot Bosch and Rider had used in the past. No discussion or direction was needed once Kiz had said meet me at Charlie Chaplin.

  Rider was almost ten minutes past the first ten minutes but that was okay with Bosch. He had used the time to construct the story he would tell her. It was complicated and still emerging, even improvisational.

  He had just finished walking himself through it when he felt the buzz of an incoming text on his phone. He pulled it from his pocket, half expecting the message to be a cancellation of the meeting from Rider. But it was from his daughter.

  Having dinner and study hall at Ash’s. Her mom makes goooood pizza. K?

  He felt a slight pang of guilt because he welcomed the message. With his daughter taken care of for the evening, he had more time to work his cases. It also meant he could see Hannah Stone again if he could come up with a viable investigative reason. He sent back his approval but told his daughter she had to be home by ten. He told her to call if she needed a ride.

  Bosch was pocketing his phone when Rider came in, hesitated a moment while her eyes adjusted to the shadows and then sat down next to him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said.

  He waited a moment for her to settle but she wasn’t interested in wasting time.

  “Well?”

  “You ready?”

  “Of course. I’m here. Tell me the story.”

  “Well, it goes like this. George Irving has a consulting firm that is really an influence firm. He sells his influence, his connection to his father and the faction his father is part of on the city council. He—”

  “Do you have documentary evidence of this?”

  “Right now it’s just a story, Kiz, and it’s just you and me here. Let me tell it and then you can ask your questions when I’m done.”

  “Go ahead, then.”

  The door on Third opened and a uniformed officer walked in, took off his sunglasses and looked around, blindly at first and then focusing on Bosch and Rider and correctly sizing them up as cops.

  “Is this where the BORs are heard?” he asked.

  “Third floor,” Rider said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Yeah.”

  Bosch waited until the cop left the vestibule and rounded the corner into the main lobby where the elevators were located.

  “Okay. So George sells influence with the council and by extension with all the different boards the council appoints. In some cases he can do even more than that. He can tilt the game.”

  “I don’t get it. How so?”

  “Do you know how taxi franchises are awarded in this city?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “By geographic zones and on two-year contracts. You come up for review every two years.”

  “All right.”

  “So I don’t know if George goes to them or they come to George, but there’s a franchise holder in South L.A. called Regent Taxi and they hire George to help them get a more lucrative franchise up in Hollywood, where there are highline hotels and tourists on the streets and lots more money to be made. The current franchise holder is Black and White Taxi.”

  “I think I know where this is going. But wouldn’t Councilman Irving have to be transparent on this? He’d have a conflict of interest voting for any company repped by his son.”

  “Of course he would. But the first vote is with the Taxi Franchise Board, and who puts the people on that board? The council. And when it next comes before the council for ratification, sure, Irving nobly cites conflict of interest and steps out on the vote and it all looks completely above
board. But what about the backroom trade-offs? ‘You vote for me when I step out and next time I’ll vote for you.’ You know what goes on, Kiz. But what George offers is even more of a sure thing. He offers a fuller service, shall we say. Regent says, yes, we’ll take the full package, and a month after he’s hired by Regent, things start going sideways for the current holder of the franchise, B and W.”

  “What do you mean ‘sideways’?”

  “I’m trying to tell you. Less than a month after George Irving is hired by Regent, B and W drivers start getting popped on deuce raps and traffic citations and suddenly the company’s not looking so good.”

  “How many arrests?”

  “Three, the first coming a month after Irving signed on. And then there’s an auto accident where the B and W driver is held at fault. There are several traffic violations—all moving violations that give the appearance of reckless driving. Speeding, running traffic lights and stop signs.”

  “I think the Times wrote about this. The DUIs, anyway.”

  “Yeah, I have the story and I’m pretty sure George Irving’s the one who tipped them to it. It was all part of an organized plan to get the Hollywood taxi franchise.”

  “So you’re saying that the son went to the father and said put some pressure on B and W? The father then in turn reached into the department?”

  “I am not exactly sure how it worked yet. But both of them—father and son—still have connections in the department. The councilman has sympathizers and his son was a cop for five years. A guy who was a close friend of his works patrol in Hollywood. I have all the B and W arrest reports and the traffic citations. The same cop—George Irving’s friend—made all three DUI arrests and wrote two of the moving violations. A guy named Robert Mason. What are the chances of that? That he’d get all three deuces.”

  “It could happen. You make one arrest and then you know what to look for after that.”

  “Sure, Kiz, whatever you say. One of these guys wasn’t even pulled over. He was parked at a cab stand on La Brea when Mason rolled up on him.”

  “Well, were these legit busts or not? Did they blow?”

  “They blew and the busts were legit as far as I know. But three busts starting a month after Irving was hired. The DUIs, the moving violations and the accident report then become the centerpiece of Regent’s application to the franchise board to take Hollywood away from B and W. He had it completely greased and it just doesn’t smell right, Kiz.”