Echo Park

million and the price is nonnegotiable. Anything less and it is not worth it for me to run. I’ll make a deal and take my chances.”
    “What about Bosch?” the old man asked. “You already said he won’t give up. Now that he knows Raynard Waits didn’t—”
    “I’ll take care of him before I split,” Pratt said, cutting him off. “I’ll throw that in for free.”
    He reached into his pocket and took out a piece of paper with numbers printed on it. He slid it across the bench to the old man.
    “There’s the bank account and wiring code. Same as before.”
    Pratt stood up.
    “Tell you what, talk amongst yourselves. I’m going over to the boathouse to take a leak. When I come back I’ll need an answer.”
    Pratt walked past Anthony, coming close, each man holding the other’s eyes in a hard stare of hatred.

37

    HARRY BOSCH STUDIED THE MONITORS in the surveillance van. The FBI had worked through the night setting cameras in eight locations at the park. One whole side of the interior of the van was covered with an array of digital screens that showed a multitude of visual angles on the bench where T. Rex Garland sat and his son stood waiting for Abel Pratt to return. The cameras were located on four of the park’s path lights, in two of its flower beds, in the mock lighthouse atop the boathouse and in the fake pigeon perched on top of the
Lady of the Lake
‘s head.
    Added to this, the bureau techs had set up microwave sound receivers triangulated on the bench. The sound sweep was aided by directional mikes located in the fake pigeon, a flower bed and the folded newspaper Pratt had placed in the nearby trash can. A bureau sound tech named Jerry Hooten sat in the van, wearing a huge set of earphones and manipulating the audio feeds in order to produce the cleanest sound. Bosch and the others had been able to watch Pratt and the Garlands and hear their conversation word for word.
    The others were Rachel Walling and Rick O’Shea. The prosecutor was sitting front and center, the video screens spread before him. This was his show. Walling and Bosch sat on either side of him.
    O’Shea pulled off his earphones.
    “What do we think?” he asked. “He’s going to call. What do I tell him?”
    Three of the screens showed Pratt about to enter the park’s restroom. According to the plan, he would wait until the room was clear and then call the surveillance van’s number on his cell phone.
    Rachel pulled her earphones down around her neck and so did Bosch.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s your call but we don’t have much of an admission from the son in regard to Gesto.”
    “That’s what I was thinking,” O’Shea responded.
    “I don’t know,” Bosch said. “When Pratt talked about him leading him through the woods to the body, Anthony didn’t deny it.”
    “But he didn’t admit it either,” Rachel said.
    “But if a guy was sitting there talking to you about finding a body you buried and you didn’t know what he was talking about, I think you’d say something.”
    “Well, that can be an argument for the jury,” O’Shea said. “I’m just saying that he hasn’t yet made anything I would call a statement of admission. We need more.”
    Bosch nodded, conceding the point. It had been decided on Saturday morning that Pratt’s word was not going to be good enough. His testimony that Anthony Garland had led him to Marie Gesto’s body and that he had taken a payoff from T. Rex Garland would not be sufficient to build a solid prosecution on. Pratt was a crooked cop and building a case on his testimony was too risky in an age when juries were highly suspicious of police integrity and behavior. They needed to get admissions from both of the Garlands for the case to move onto solid ground.
    “Look, all I’m saying is, I think it’s good but we’re not quite there yet,” O’Shea said. “We need to get a direct—”
    “What about the old man?” Bosch asked. “I think Pratt got him to shit all over himself.”
    “I agree,” Rachel said. “He’s toast. If you send him back, tell him to work on Anthony.”
    As if on cue there was a low-level buzzing sound that indicated an incoming call. O’Shea, unfamiliar with the equipment, raised a finger over the console and looked for the right button to push.
    “Here,” Hooten said.
    He punched a button that opened the cell line.
    “This is the van,” O’Shea said. “You’re on speaker.”
    “How’d I do?” Pratt