Chapter Thirty-eight

MONTE KIM LIVED on Willis Avenue in Sherman Oaks in the midst of a ghost town of apartment buildings red-tagged after the quake. Kim’s apartment building was a gray-and-white Cape Cod affair that sat between two empties. At least they were supposed to be empty. As Bosch pulled up he saw lights go out in one of the buildings. Squatters, he guessed. Like Bosch had been, always on alert for the building inspector.

Kim’s building looked as though it had been either completely spared by the quake or already completely repaired. Bosch doubted it was the latter. He believed the building was more a testament to the serendipitous violence of nature, and maybe a builder who didn’t cut corners. The Cape Cod had stood up while the buildings around it cracked and slid.

It was a common, rectangular building with apartment entrances running down each side of it. But to get to one of the doors, you had to be buzzed through a six-foot-tall electronic gate. The cops called them “feel good” gates because they made the dwellers inside feel safer, but they were worthless. All they did was put up a barrier for legitimate visitors to the building. Others could simply climb over, and they did, all over the city. Feel good gates were everywhere.

He said only that it was the police when Kim’s voice sounded on the intercom and he was buzzed in. He took the badge wallet out of his pocket as he walked down to apartment eight. When Kim opened up, Bosch shoved the open badge wallet through the door and about six inches from his face. He held it so his finger was across the badge and obscured the marking that said LIEUTENANT. He then pulled the wallet back quickly and put it away.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the name on there,” Kim said, still blocking the way.

“Hieronymus Bosch. But people call me Harry.”

“You’re named for the painter.”

“Sometimes I feel old enough that I think he was named for me. Tonight’s one of those nights. Can I come in? This shouldn’t take long.”

Kim led him into the living room with a confused look on his face. It was a decent-sized and neat room with a couch and two chairs and a gas fireplace next to the TV. Kim took one of the chairs and Bosch sat on the end of the couch. He noticed a white poodle sleeping on the carpet next to Kim’s chair. Kim was an overweight man with a wide, florid face. He wore glasses that pinched his temples and what was left of his hair was dyed brown. He wore a red cardigan sweater over a white shirt and old khakis. Bosch guessed Kim wasn’t quite sixty. He had been expecting an older man.

“I guess this is where I ask, ‘What’s this all about?’ ”

“Yeah, and I guess this is where I tell you. Problem is I’m not sure how to begin. I’m investigating a couple of homicides. You can probably help. But I wonder if you’d indulge me and let me ask you some questions going a while back? Then, when we’re done, I’ll explain why.”

“Seems unusual but…”

Kim raised his hands and waved off any problems. He made a movement in his chair as if to get more comfortable. He checked the dog and then squinted his eyes as if that might better help him understand and answer the questions. Bosch could see a film of sweat developing in the defoliated landscape that had once been his scalp.

“You were a reporter for the Times. How long did that last?”

“Oh, boy, that was just a few years in the early sixties. How do you know that?”

“Mr. Kim, let me ask these questions first. What kind of reporting did you do?”

“Back then they called us cub reporters. I was on the crime beat.”

“What do you do now?”

“Currently, I work out of my home. I’m in public relations. I have an office upstairs in the second bedroom. I had an office in Reseda but the building was condemned. You could see daylight through the cracks.”

He was like most people in L.A. He didn’t have to preface his remarks by saying he was talking about earthquake damage. It was understood.

“I have several small accounts,” he continued. “I was a local spokesman for the GM plant in Van Nuys until they closed it down. Then I went out on my own.”

“What made you quit the Times back in the sixties?”

“I got-Am I a suspect in something?”

“Not at all, Mr. Kim. I’m just trying to get to know you. Indulge me. I’ll get to the point. You were saying why you quit the Times.”

“Yes, well, I got a better job. I was offered the position of press spokesman for the district attorney at the time, Arno Conklin. I took it. Better pay, more interesting than the cop beat and a brighter future.”

“What do you mean, brighter future?”

“Well, actually I was wrong about that. When I took the job I thought the sky would be the limit with Arno. He was a good man. I figured I’d eventually-you know, if I stayed with him-ride with him to the governor’s mansion, maybe the Senate in Washington. But things didn’t turn out. I ended up with an office in Reseda with a crack in the wall I could feel the wind come through. I don’t see why the police would be interested in all-”

“What happened with Conklin? Why didn’t things turn out?”

“Well, I’m not the expert on this. All I know is that in sixty-eight he was planning on running for attorney general and the office was practically his for the taking. Then he just…dropped out. He quit politics and went back to practice law. And it wasn’t to harvest the big corporate bucks that sit out there when these guys go into private practice. He opened a one-man law firm. I admired him. As far as I heard, sixty percent or better of his practice was pro bono. He was working for free most of the time.”

“Like he was serving a penance or something?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

“Why’d he drop out?”

“I don’t know.”

“Weren’t you part of the inner circle?”

“No. He didn’t have a circle. He had one man.”

“Gordon Mittel.”

“Right. You want to know why he didn’t run, ask Gordon.” Then it clicked in Kim’s brain that Bosch had introduced the name Gordon Mittel to the conversation. “Is this about Gordon Mittel?”

“Let me ask the questions first. Why do you think Conklin didn’t run? You must have some idea.”

“He wasn’t officially in the race in the first place, so he didn’t have to make any public statement about dropping out. He just didn’t run. There were a lot of rumors, though.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, lots of stuff. Like he was gay. There were others. Financial trouble. Supposedly there was a threat from the mob that if he won, they’d kill him. Just stuff like that. None of it was ever more than backroom talk amongst the town politicos.”

“He was never married?”

“Not as far as I know. But as far as him being gay, I never saw anything like that.”

Bosch noted that the top of Kim’s head was slick now with sweat. It was already warm in the room but he kept the cardigan on. Bosch made a quick change of tracks.

“Okay, tell me about the death of Johnny Fox.”

Bosch saw the quick glimmer of recognition pass behind the glasses but then it disappeared. But it was enough.

“Johnny Fox, who’s that?”

“C’mon, Monte, it’s old news. Nobody cares what you did. I just need to know the story behind the story. That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re talking about when I was a reporter? I wrote a lot of stories. That was thirty-five years ago. I was a kid. I can’t remember everything.”

“But you remember Johnny Fox. He was your ticket to that brighter future. The one that didn’t happen.”

“Look, what are you doing here? You’re not a cop. Did Gordon send you? After all these years, you people think I…”

He stopped.

“I am a cop, Monte. And you’re lucky I got here before Gordon did. Something’s coming undone. The ghosts are coming back. You read in the paper today about that cop found in his trunk in Griffith Park?”