A Darkness More Than Night

impressed by their suits that he confesses or something?”
    “I don’t know. Something like that. They were going to brace him. Get some stuff on the record and then go find the contradictions. You know, routine word trap.”
    “Harry Bosch is not routine. They’re wasting their time.”
    “I know. I told ’em. But you can’t tell an FBI agent anything, you know that.”
    He smiled.
    “Hey, if this goes the other way and we take down Tafero, I want the sheriff to pay for this ticket.”
    “Hey, you’re not working for me. You’re working for Bosch, remember? He pays parking tickets. The sheriff only pays for pancakes.”
    “All right. I’m gonna go.”
    “Call me.”
    He slid the phone into the pocket of his windbreaker and opened the glass door of Valentino Bonds.
    It was a small white room with a waiting couch and a counter. It reminded McCaleb of a motel office. There was a calendar on the wall depicting a beach scene from Puerto Vallarta. Behind the counter a man sat with his head down, filling in a crossword puzzle. Behind him was a closed door to what was probably a rear office. McCaleb put a smile on his face and started walking with purpose around the counter before the man there even looked up.
    “Rudy? Hey, Rudy, come on outta there!”
    The man looked up as McCaleb passed him and opened the door. He stepped into an office that was more than twice the size of the front room.
    “Rudy?”
    The man from the counter came in right behind him.
    “Hey, man, what are you doing?”
    McCaleb turned, scanning the room.
    “Looking for Rudy. Where is he?”
    “He’s not here. Now, if you would step -”
    “He told me he’d be here, that he didn’t have to be in court until later.”
    Scanning the office, he saw the rear wall was covered with framed photos. He took a step closer. Most of them were shots of Tafero with celebrities he had either bailed out or worked with as a security consultant. Some of the photos were clearly from his days working across the street at the cop shop.
    “Excuse me, just who are you?”
    McCaleb looked at the man as if insulted. He looked like he might be Tafero’s younger brother. The same dark hair and eyes with rough good looks.
    “I’m a friend. Terry. We used to work together when he was across the street.”
    McCaleb pointed to a group photo that was on the wall. It showed several men in suits and a few women standing in front of the brick facade of the Hollywood Division station. The detective squad. McCaleb saw both Harry Bosch and Rudy Tafero in the back row. Bosch’s face was turned slightly away from the camera. There was a cigarette in his mouth and smoke rising from it partially obscured his face.
    The man turned and started looking at the photo.
    McCaleb’s eyes took another swing around the office. The room was nicely appointed with a desk to the left and a sitting area to the right with two short couches and an oriental rug. He stepped closer to the desk to look at a file sitting at center on the blotter but the file, though an inch thick with documents, had nothing written on the tab.
    “What the fuck, you’re not on here.”
    “Yes, I am,” McCaleb said without turning from the desk. “I was smoking. You can’t see my face.”
    There was a file tray to the right of the blotter that was stacked with folders. McCaleb leaned his head at an angle to check the tabs. He saw an assortment of names, some of them recognizable as entertainers or actors but none of them correlating to his investigation.
    “Bullshit, man, that ain’t you. That’s Harry Bosch.”
    “Really? You know Harry?”
    The man didn’t answer. McCaleb turned around. The man was looking at him with angry, suspicious eyes. For the first time McCaleb saw that he held an old billyclub down at his side.
    “Let me see.”
    He walked over and looked at the framed photo. “You know, you’re right, that’s Harry. I must’ve been in the one they took the year before. I was working undercover when they took this one and couldn’t be in the picture.”
    McCaleb nonchalantly took a step toward the door. Inside he was bracing to get hit with the bat.
    “Just tell him I was here, okay? Tell him Terry stopped by.”
    He made it to the door but one last framed photo caught his eye. It showed Tafero and another man side by side, jointly holding a polished wood plaque in their hands. The picture was old, Tafero looked almost ten years younger. His eyes were brighter and his smile