Angels Flight

and was given the dead man’s home address as well as his age, driving record and the plate numbers of the Porsche and Volvo registered in his and his wife’s names. Elias had been forty-six. His driving record was clean. Bosch thought that the lawyer was probably the most cautious driver in the city. The last thing Elias probably ever wanted to do was draw the attention of an LAPD patrol cop. It made driving a Porsche seem almost a waste.
    “Baldwin Hills,” he said after closing the phone. “Her name is Millie.”
    Chastain started the engine, then plugged the flashing emergency light – the bubble – into the lighter and put it on the dashboard. He drove the car quickly down the deserted streets toward the 10 Freeway.
    Bosch was silent at first, not sure how to break the ice with Chastain. The two men were natural enemies. Chastain had investigated Bosch on two different occasions. Both times Bosch was grudgingly cleared of any wrongdoing, but only after Chastain was forced to back off. It seemed to Bosch that Chastain had a hard-on for him that felt close to a vendetta. The IAD detective seemed to take no joy in clearing a fellow cop. All he wanted was a scalp.
    “I know what you are doing, Bosch,” Chastain said once they got onto the freeway and started west.
    Bosch looked over at him. For the first time he considered how physically similar they were. Dark hair going gray, full mustache beneath dark brown-black eyes, a lean, almost wiry build. Almost mirror images, yet Bosch had never considered Chastain to be the kind of physical threat that Bosch knew he projected himself. Chastain carried himself differently. Bosch had always carried himself like a man afraid of being cornered, like a man who wouldn’t allow himself to be cornered.
    “What? What am I doing?”
    “You’re thinning us out. That way you have better control.”
    He waited for Bosch to reply but only got silence.
    “But eventually, if we’re going to do this thing right, you are going to have to trust us.”
    After a pause, Bosch said, “I know that.”
    Elias lived on Beck Street in Baldwin Hills, a small section of upper-middle-class homes south of the 10 Freeway and near La Cienega Boulevard. It was an area known as the black Beverly Hills – a neighborhood where affluent blacks moved when they did not wish to have their wealth take them out of their community. As Bosch considered this he thought that if there was anything that he could like about Elias, it was the fact that he didn’t take his money and move to Brentwood or Westwood or the real Beverly Hills. He stayed in the community from which he had risen.
    With little middle-of-the-night traffic and Chastain cruising on the freeway at ninety, they got to Beck Street in less than fifteen minutes. The house was a large brick colonial with four white columns holding up a two-story portico. It had the feeling of a Southern plantation and Bosch wondered if it was some kind of statement being made by Elias.
    Bosch saw no lights from behind any of the windows and the hanging light in the portico was dark as well. This didn’t sit right with him. If this was Elias’s home, why wasn’t a light left on for him?
    There was a car in the circular driveway that was neither a Porsche nor a Volvo. It was an old Camaro with fresh paint and chromed wheels. To the right of the house there was a detached two-car garage but its door was closed. Chastain pulled into the drive and stopped behind the Camaro.
    “Nice car,” Chastain said. “Tell you what, I wouldn’t leave a car like that out overnight. Even in a neighborhood like this. Too close to the jungle.”
    He turned the car off and reached to open his door.
    “Let’s wait a second here,” Bosch said.
    He opened his briefcase, got out the phone and called dispatch again. He asked for a double check on the address for Elias. They had the right place. He then asked the dispatcher to run the plate on the Camaro. It came back registered to a Martin Luther King Elias, age eighteen. Bosch thanked the dispatcher and clicked off.
    “We got the right place?” Chastain asked.
    “Looks like it. The Camaro must be his son’s. But it doesn’t look like anyone was expecting dad to come home tonight.”
    Bosch opened his door and got out, Chastain doing the same. As they approached the door Bosch saw the dull glow of a bell button. He pushed it and heard the sharp ringing of a chime inside the quiet house.
    They waited and pushed the