Echo Park

owned a chunk of those fields, and his old man was trying to straighten him out, I guess. You know, make him work for a living even though they had all the money in the world. So he was working security up there and I was watching him one day. He came across these kids who were fooling around up in there, just trespassing and messing around. They were just kids, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Two boys from the nearby neighborhood.”
    “What did he do to them?”
    “He drew down on them, then handcuffed them to one of the pumps. Their backs were to each other and they were cuffed around this pole that was sort of like an anchor for the pump. And then he got back in his pickup and drove away.”
    “He just left them there?”
    “That’s what I thought he was doing but he was coming back. I was watching with binoculars from a ridge all the way across La Cienega and could see the whole oil field from up there. He had another guy with him and they drove over to this shack where I guess they kept samples of the oil they were pumping out of the ground. They went in there and came out with two buckets of this stuff, put ’em in the back of the pickup and drove back. They then dumped that shit all over the two kids.”
    Rachel got up on one elbow and looked at him.
    “And you just watched this happen?”
    “I told you, I was clear across La Cienega on the next ridge. Before they built houses up there. If he went any further I was going to try to intervene somehow, but then he let them go. Besides, I didn’t want him to know I was watching him. At that point he didn’t know I was thinking of him for Gesto.”
    She nodded like she understood and no longer questioned his lack of action.
    “He just let them go?” she asked.
    “He uncuffed them, kicked one of them in the butt and let them go. I could tell they were crying and scared.”
    Rachel shook her head in disgust.
    “What’s this guy’s name?”
    “Anthony Garland. His father is Thomas Rex Garland. You might have heard of him.”
    Rachel shook her head, not recognizing the name.
    “Well, Anthony might not have been Gesto’s killer but he sounds like a complete asshole.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “He is. You want to see him?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ve got a ‘greatest hits’ video. I’ve had him in an interview room three times in thirteen years. Each interview was on tape.”
    “You have the tape here?”
    Bosch nodded, knowing that she might find it strange or off-putting that he studied interrogation tapes at home.
    “I had them copied onto one tape. I brought it home to watch the last time I worked the case.”
    Rachel seemed to consider his answer before she responded.
    “Then pop it in. Let’s take a look at this guy.”
    Bosch got out of bed, slipped on his boxer shorts and turned on the lamp. He went out to the living room and looked in the cabinet beneath the television. He had several crime scene tapes from old cases, as well as various other tapes and DVDs. He finally located a VHS tape marked GARLAND on the box and took it back to the bedroom.
    He had a television with a built-in VCR on the bureau. He turned it on, slid in the tape and sat on the edge of the bed with the remote. He kept his boxers on now that he and Rachel were working. Rachel stayed under the covers and as the tape was cuing up she reached a foot toward him and tapped her toes on his back.
    “Is this what you do with all the girls you bring here? Show them your interrogation techniques?”
    Bosch glanced back at her and was almost serious with his response.
    “Rachel, I think you’re the only person in the world I could do this with.”
    She smiled.
    “I think I get you, Bosch.”
    He looked back at the screen. The tape was playing. He hit the mute with the remote.
    “This first one is March eleventh of ’ninety-four. It’s about six months after Gesto disappeared and we were grasping for anything. We didn’t have enough to arrest him—it wasn’t even close—but I was able to convince him to come into the station to give a statement. He didn’t know I had the bead on him. He thought he was just going to talk about the apartment where his ex-girlfriend had lived.”
    On the screen was a grainy color picture of a small room with a table at which two men sat. One was a much younger-looking Harry Bosch and the other was a man in his early twenties with wavy surfer-white hair. Anthony Garland. He was wearing a T-shirt that said
Lakers
across the chest. The