It was Samuel Delacroix. Bosch recognized him from a driver’s license photo Edgar had pulled and shown him. The man who once played a blond, blue-eyed Aryan soldier and had put a spell on an eighteen-year-old girl was now about as distinguished as a ham sandwich. He was still blond but it obviously came from a bottle and he was bald to the crown of his head. He had day-old whiskers that shone white in the sun. His nose was swollen by time and alcohol and pinched by a pair of ill-fitting glasses. He carried a beer paunch that would’ve been a ticket to a discharge in anybody’s army.

“Two-fifty.”

Bosch looked at the woman behind the cash register.

“For the balls.”

“Right.”

He paid her and picked up the bucket by the handle. He took a last glance at Delacroix, who suddenly looked over at Bosch at the same time. Their eyes locked for a moment and Bosch casually looked away. He headed back toward Edgar. That was when his cell phone started to chirp.

He quickly handed the bucket to Edgar and pulled the phone out of his back pocket. It was Mankiewicz, the day-shift watch sergeant.

“Hey, Bosch, what are you doing?”

“Just hitting some balls.”

“Figures. You guys fuck off while we do all the work.”

“You found my guy?”

“We think so.”

“Where?”

“He’s working at the Washateria. You know, picking up some tips, loose change.”

The Washateria was a car wash on La Brea. It employed day laborers to vacuum and wipe down cars. They worked mostly for tips and what they could steal out of the cars without getting caught.

“Who spotted him?”

“Couple guys from vice. They’re eighty percent sure. They want to know if you want them to make the move or do you want to be on scene.”

“Tell them to sit tight and that we’re on the way. And you know what, Mank? We think this guy’s a rabbit. You got a unit we can use as an extra backup in case he runs?”

“Um…”

There was silence and Bosch guessed that Mankiewicz was checking his deployment chart.

“Well, you’re in luck. I got a couple three-elevens starting early. They should be out of roll call in fifteen. That work for you?”

“Perfect. Tell them to meet us in the parking lot of the Checkers at La Brea and Sunset. Have the vice guys meet us there, too.”

Bosch signaled to Edgar that they were going to roll.

“Uh, one thing,” Mankiewicz said.

“What’s that?”

“On the backup, one of them’s Brasher. Is that going to be a problem?”

Bosch was silent a moment. He wanted to tell Mankiewicz to put somebody else on it but knew it was not his place to. If he tried to influence deployment or anything else based on his relationship with Brasher, then he could leave himself open to criticism and the possibility of an IAD investigation.

“No, no problem.”

“Look, I wouldn’t do it but she’s green. She’s made a few mistakes and needs this kind of experience.”

“I said no problem.”

Chapter 31

THEY planned the takedown of Johnny Stokes on the hood of Edgar’s car. The vice guys, Eyman and Leiby, drew the layout of the Washateria on a legal pad and circled the spot where they had spotted Stokes working under the waxing canopy. The car wash was surrounded on three sides by concrete walls and other structures. The area fronting La Brea was almost fifty yards, with a five-foot retention wall running the border except for entry and exit lanes at each corner of the property. If Stokes decided to run, he could go to the retention wall and climb it, but it was more likely that he would go for one of the open lanes.

The plan was simple. Eyman and Leiby would cover the car wash entrance, and Brasher and her partner, Edgewood, would cover the exit. Bosch and Edgar would drive Edgar’s car in as customers and make the move on Stokes. They switched their radios to a tactical unit and worked out a code; red meant Stokes had rabbitted, and green meant he had been taken peaceably.

“Remember something,” Bosch said. “Almost every wiper, rubber, soaper and vacuum guy on that lot is probably running from something-even if it’s just la migra. So even if we take Stokes without a problem, the others may rumble. Cops showing up at a car wash is like yelling fire in a theater. Everybody scatters till they see who’s the one who’s it.”

Everybody nodded and Bosch looked pointedly at Brasher, the rookie. In keeping with the plan agreed to the night before, they made no showing of knowing each other as anything other than fellow cops. But now he wanted to make sure she understood just how fluid a takedown like this could become.

“You got that, boot?” he said.

She smiled.

“Yeah, I got it.”

“All right, then let’s concentrate. Let’s go.”

He thought he saw the smile stay on Brasher’s face as she and Edgewood walked to their patrol car.

He and Edgar walked to Edgar’s Lexus. Bosch stopped when he got to it and realized that it looked like it had just been washed and waxed.

“Shit.”

“What can I say, Harry? I take care of my car.”

Bosch looked around. Behind the fast-food restaurant was an open Dumpster in a concrete alcove that had recently been washed down. There was a puddle of black water pooling on the pavement.

“Drive through that puddle a couple times,” he said. “Get it on your car.”

“Harry, I’m not going to get that shit on my car.”

“Come on, your car has to look like it needs to be washed or it might be a tell. You said yourself, the guy’s a rabbit. Let’s not give him a reason.”

“But we’re not actually going to get the car washed. I splash that shit on there, it stays there.”

“Tell you what, Jerry. If we get this guy, I’ll have Eyman and Leiby drive him in while you get your car washed. I’ll even pay for it.”

“Shit.”

“Come on, just drive through the puddle. We’re wasting time.”

After messing up Edgar’s car they made the drive to the car wash in silence. As they came up on it, Bosch could see the vice car parked at the curb a few car lengths from the car wash entrance. Further down the block past the car wash, the patrol unit was stopped in a lane of parked cars. Bosch went to his rover.

“Okay, everybody set?”

He got two return clicks on the mike from the vice guys. Brasher responded by voice.

“All ready.”

“Okay. We’re going in.”

Edgar pulled into the car wash and drove into the service lane, where customers delivered their cars to the vacuum station and ordered the kind of wash or wax they wanted. Bosch’s eyes immediately started moving among the workers, all of whom were dressed in identical orange jumpsuits and baseball caps. It slowed the identification process but Bosch soon saw the blue wax canopy and picked out Johnny Stokes.

“He’s there,” he said to Edgar. “On the black Beemer.”

Bosch knew that once they stepped out of the car most of the cons on the lot would be able to identify them as cops. In the same way Bosch could spot a con ninety-eight percent of the time, they in turn could spot a cop. He would have to move swiftly in on Stokes.

He looked over at Edgar.

“Ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

They cracked the doors at the same time. Bosch got out and turned toward Stokes, who was twenty-five yards away with his back turned. He was crouched down and spraying something on the wheels of a black BMW. Bosch heard Edgar tell someone to skip the vacuum and that he’d be right back.

Bosch and Edgar had covered half the distance to their target when they were made by other workers on the lot. From somewhere behind him, Bosch heard a voice call out, “Five-oh, five-oh, five-oh.”

Immediately alerted, Stokes stood up and started turning. Bosch started running.

He was fifteen feet from Stokes when the ex-con realized he was the target. His obvious escape was to his left and then out through the car wash entrance but the BMW was blocking him. He made a move to his right but then seemed to stop when he realized it was a dead end.