The Reversal

“Can Maddie stay with you two tonight? She brought a change of clothes in her backpack. I’d come by in the morning in time to take her to school.”

The request seemed to take Maggie by surprise, especially since the girls had just met. Bosch pressed her.

“I need to meet somebody tonight and I don’t know where it will take me,” Bosch said. “It might even lead to Roman. I need to be able to move without worrying about Maddie.”

She nodded.

“Okay, that’s fine. It sounds like they’re becoming fast friends. I just hope they don’t stay up all night.”

“Thank you, Maggie.”

About thirty seconds of silence went by before I spoke.

“Tell us about this dungeon, Harry.”

“I was standing in it last night.”

“Why the Santa Monica pier?”

“My guess is that it’s because of the proximity to what’s on top of the pier.”

“Prey.”

Bosch nodded.

“But what about noise? You’re saying this place is directly below the pier?”

“There are ways of controlling human sound. And last night the sound of waves crashing against the pilings under there was so loud you could’ve screamed all night and nobody would’ve heard you. You probably wouldn’t even hear a gunshot from down there.”

Bosch spoke with a certain authority of the dark places of the world and the evil they held. I lost my appetite then and pushed my plate away. I felt dread come inside me.

Dread for Melissa Landy and all the other victims in the world.

Thirty-six

Wednesday, April 7, 11:00 P.M.

Gilbert and Sullivan were waiting for him in a car parked on Lankershim Boulevard near its northern terminus at San Fernando Road. It was a blighted area populated primarily with used-car lots and repair shops. In the midst of all of this low-rent industry was a run-down motel advertising rooms for fifty dollars a week. The motel had no name on display. Just the lighted sign that said MOTEL.

Gilbert and Sullivan were Gilberto Reyes and John Sullivan, a pair of narcs assigned to the Valley Enforcement Team, a street-level drug unit. When Bosch was looking for Edward Roman he put the word out in all such units in the department. His assumption from Roman’s record was that he had never gotten away from the life as Sarah Gleason had. There had to be somebody in the department’s narco units with a line on him.

It paid off with a call from Reyes. He and his partner didn’t have a bead on Roman but they knew him from past interactions on the street and knew where his current trick partner was holed up and apparently awaiting his return. Long-term drug addicts often partnered with a prostitute, offering her protection in exchange for a share of the drugs her earnings bought.

Bosch pulled his car up behind the narcs’ UC car and parked. He got out and moved up to their car, getting in the back after checking the seat to make sure it was clean of vomit and any other detritus from the people they had transported lately.

“Detective Bosch, I presume?” said the driver, whom Bosch guessed was Reyes.

“Yeah, how are you guys?”

He offered his fist over the seat and they both gave him a bump while identifying themselves. Bosch had it wrong. The one who looked to be of Latin origin was Sullivan and the one who looked like a bag of white bread was Reyes.

“Gilbert and Sullivan, huh?”

“That’s what they called us when we got partnered,” Sullivan said. “Kind of stuck.”

Bosch nodded. That was enough for the meet-and-greet. Everybody had a nickname and a story to go with it. These guys together didn’t add up to how old Bosch was and they probably had no clue who Gilbert and Sullivan were, anyway.

“So you know Eddie Roman?”

“We’ve had the pleasure,” Reyes said. “Just another piece of human shit that floats around out here.”

“But like I told you on the phone, we ain’t seen him in a month or so,” Sullivan added. “So we got you his next best thing. His onion. She’s over there in room three.”

“What’s her name?”

Sullivan laughed and Bosch didn’t get it.

“Her name is Sonia Reyes,” said Reyes. “No relation.”

“That he knows of,” Sullivan added.

He burst into laughter, which Bosch ignored.

“Spell it for me,” he said.

He took out his notebook and wrote it down.

“And you’re sure she’s in the room?”

“We’re sure,” Reyes said.

“Okay, anything else I should know before I go in?”

“No,” Reyes said, “but we were planning on goin’ in with you. She might get squirrelly with you.”

Bosch reached forward and clapped him on the shoulder.

“No, I got this. I don’t want a crowd in the room.”

Reyes nodded. Message delivered. Bosch did not want any witnesses to what he might need to do here.

“But thanks for the help. It will be noted.”

“An important case, huh?” Sullivan said.

Bosch opened the door and got out.

“They all are,” he said.

He closed the door, slapped the roof twice and walked away.

The hotel had an eight-foot security fence around it. Bosch had to press a buzzer and hold his badge up to a camera. He was buzzed into the compound but walked right by the office and down a breezeway leading to the rooms.

“Hey!” a voice called from behind.