Bosch went back to the table and turned to the list of names in his notebook. Now he picked up the pen and circled Mittel’s name as well. He felt like having another beer but he settled for a cigarette.

Chapter Fourteen

IN THE MORNING Bosch called the LAPD personnel office and asked them to check whether Eno and McKittrick were still current. He doubted they were still around but knew he had to make the check. It would be embarrassing if he went through a search for them only to find one or both still on the payroll. The clerk checked the roll and told him no such officers were currently on the force.

He decided he would have to put on his Harvey Pounds pose after that. He dialed the DMV in Sacramento, gave the lieutenant’s name and asked for Ms. Sharp again. By the tone she inflected in the single word “Hello” after picking up the phone, Bosch had no doubt that she remembered him.

“Is this Ms. Sharp?”

“That’s who you asked for, isn’t it?”

“I did, indeed.”

“Then it’s Ms. Sharp. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I wanted to mend our fences, so to speak. I have a few more names I need driver’s license addresses for and I thought that directly working with you would expedite the matter and perhaps repair our working relationship.”

“Honey, we don’t have a working relationship. Hold the line, please.”

She punched the button before he could say anything. The line was dead for so long that he began to believe his scam to burn Pounds wasn’t worth it. Finally, a different clerk picked up and said Ms. Sharp had instructed her to help. Bosch gave her Pounds’s serial number and then the names Gordon Mittel, Arno Conklin, Claude Eno and Jake McKittrick. He said he needed the home addresses on their licenses.

He was put on hold again. During the time he waited he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and fried an egg over easy in a pan on the stove. He made a sandwich out of it with two slices of white toast and cold salsa from a jar he kept in the refrigerator. He ate the dripping sandwich while leaning over the sink. He had just wiped his mouth and poured himself a second cup of coffee when the clerk finally picked back up.

“Sorry it took so long.”

“No problem.”

He then remembered he was Pounds and wished he hadn’t said that.

The clerk explained that she had no addresses or license information on Eno or McKittrick, then gave him addresses for Conklin and Mittel. Goff had been right. Conklin lived in Park La Brea. Mittel lived above Hollywood on Hercules Drive in a development called Mount Olympus.

Bosch was too preoccupied at that point to continue the Pounds charade. He thanked the clerk without further confrontation and hung up. He thought about what his next move should be. Eno and McKittrick were either dead or out of state. He knew he could get their addresses through the department’s personnel office but that might take all day. He picked up the phone again and called Robbery-Homicide, asking for Detective Leroy Ruben. Ruben had put nearly forty years in on the department, half of it in RHD. He might know something about Eno and McKittrick. He might also know Bosch was on stress leave.

“Ruben, can I help you?”

“Leroy, it’s Harry Bosch. What do you know?”

“Not much, Harry. Enjoying the good life?”

Right away he was telling Bosch he knew of his situation. Bosch knew now that his only alternative was to be straight with him. To a point.

“It ain’t bad. But I’m not sleeping late every day.”

“No? What’re you getting up for?”

“I’m kind’ve freelancing on an old case, Leroy. That’s why I called. I want to try to track down a couple of old dicks. Thought maybe you’d know of them. They were out of Hollywood.”

“Who are they?”

“Claude Eno and Jake McKittrick. Remember them?”

“Eno and McKittrick. No…I mean, yeah, I think I remember McKittrick. He checked out…it must’ve been ten, fifteen years ago. He went back to Florida, I think. Yeah, Florida. He was here in RHD for a year or so. At the end there. The other one, Eno, I don’t remember any Eno.”

“Well, it was worth a try. I’ll see what I can find in Florida. Thanks, Leroy.”

“Hey, Harry, what gives anyway?”

“It’s just an old case I had in my desk. It’s giving me something to do while I see what happens.”

“Any word?”

“Not yet. They got me talking to the shrink. If I can talk my way past her, I’ll get back to the table. We’ll see.”

“Okay, well, good luck. You know, me and some of the boys here, when we heard that story we laughed our asses off. We heard about that guy Pounds. He’s an asshole. You done good, kid.”

“Well, let’s hope I didn’t do so good that I lost my job.”

“Ah, you’ll be all right. They send you to Chinatown a few times, brush you off and send you back into the ring. You’ll be okay.”

“Thanks, Leroy.”

After hanging up, Bosch got dressed for the day, putting on a fresh shirt and the same suit as the day before.

He headed downtown in his rented Mustang and spent the next two hours in a bureaucratic maze. He first went to the Personnel Office at Parker Center, told a clerk what he wanted and then waited half an hour for a supervisor to tell him all over again. The supervisor told him he had wasted his time and that the information he sought was at City Hall.

He walked across the street to the City Hall annex, took the stairs up and then crossed on the tramway over Main Street into the white obelisk of City Hall. He took the elevator up to the Finance Department, on nine, showed his ID card to another counter clerk and told her that, in the interest of streamlining the process, maybe he should talk to a supervisor first.

He waited on a plastic chair in a hallway for twenty minutes before he was ushered into a small office cramped with two desks, four file cabinets and several boxes on the floor. An obese woman with pale skin and black hair, sideburns and the slight hint of a mustache sat behind one of the desks. On her calendar blotter Bosch noticed a food stain from some prior mishap. There was also a reusable plastic quart soda container with a screw-on top and straw on her desk. A plastic name plate on the desk said Mona Tozzi.

“I’m Carla’s supervisor. She said you are a police officer?”

“Detective.”

He pulled the chair away from the empty desk and sat down in front of the fat woman.

“Excuse me, but Cassidy is probably going to need her chair when she gets back. That’s her desk.”

“When’s she coming back?”

“Anytime. She went up for coffee.”

“Well, maybe if we hurry we’ll be done by then and I’ll be out of here.”

She gave a short who-do-you-think-you-are laugh that sounded more like a snort. She said nothing.

“I’ve spent the last hour and a half trying to get just a couple addresses from the city and all I get are a bunch of people who want to send me to someone else or make me wait out in the hall. And what’s funny about that is that I work for the city myself and I’m trying to do a job for the city and the city isn’t giving me the time of day. And, you know, my shrink tells me I’ve got this post-traumatic stress stuff and should take life easier. But, Mona, I gotta tell you, I’m getting pretty fucking frustrated with this.”

She stared at him a moment, probably wondering if she could possibly make it out the door if he decided to go nuts on her. She then pursed her lips, which served to change her mustache from a hint to an announcement, and took a hard pull on the straw of her soda container. Bosch saw a liquid the color of blood go up through the straw into her mouth. She cleared her throat before talking in a comforting tone.

“Tell you what, Detective, why don’t you tell me what it is you are trying to find?”

Bosch put on his hopeful face.