Echo Park

viewable from the angle they had. He dropped his focus down to the garage. It had a pedestrian entrance door and double garage doors that had been painted pink a long time before. The paint, what was left of it, was gray now and the wood was splintering in many places from direct exposure to the afternoon sun. One garage door looked as though it had closed at an uneven angle to the pavement. It didn’t look operational anymore. The pedestrian entrance door had a window, but a shade was pulled down behind it. Across the top panel of each of the garage doors was a row of small square windows, but they were being hit with direct sunlight and the dazzling reflection prevented Bosch from seeing in.
    Bosch heard the elevator ding and put the binoculars down for the first time. He checked behind him and saw Jason Edgar carrying two chairs toward them.
    “Perfect,” Bosch said.
    He took one of the chairs and positioned it near the glass so he could sit on it backwards and prop his elbows on the seat back—classic surveillance form. Rachel positioned her chair so she could sit normally in it.
    “Did you get a chance to check with records, Jason?” she asked.
    “I did,” Edgar said. “Services to that address are billed to a Janet Saxon and have been for twenty-one years.”
    “Thank you.”
    “No problem. I take it that’s all you need from me right now?”
    Bosch looked up at Edgar.
    “Jerry, you—I mean, Jason—you’ve been a great help. We appreciate it. We’ll probably stick around a little bit and then split. You want us to let you know or drop these chairs off somewhere?”
    “Uh, just tell the guy in the lobby on your way out. He’ll get a message to me. And leave the chairs. I can take care of that.”
    “Will do. Thanks.”
    “Good luck. Hope you get your man.”
    Everybody shook hands and Edgar returned to the elevator. Bosch and Walling went back to watching the house on Figueroa Lane. Bosch asked Rachel if she would prefer taking shifts and she said no. He asked if she would rather use the binoculars and she said she would stick with the camera. Its long lens actually allowed her a closer focus than the binoculars did.
    Twenty minutes went by and no movement at the house was seen. Bosch had spent the time moving back and forth between the house and the garage but was now training his focus on the heavy brush on the ridgeline up above, looking for another possible observation position that would put them closer. Walling spoke excitedly.
    “Harry, the garage.”
    Bosch lowered his focus and picked up the garage. The sun had moved behind a cloud and the glare had dropped off the line of windows across the top panel of each garage door. Bosch saw Rachel’s discovery. Through the windows of the garage door that appeared to still be functional he could see the back of a white van.
    “I heard that a white van was used in the abduction last night,” Walling said.
    “That’s what I heard, too. It’s part of the BOLO .”
    He was excited. A white van in a house where Raynard Waits had lived.
    “That’s it!” he called out. “He has to be in there with the girl. Rachel, we gotta go!”
    They got up and hurried to the elevator.

28

    THEY DEBATED BACKUP as they sped out of the DWP garage. Walling was for it. Bosch was against.
    “Look, all we have is a white van,” he said. “She might be in that house, but he might not be. If we storm in there with the troops, we could lose him. So all I want to do is check it out up close. We can call for backup when we get there.
If
we need it.”
    He believed his view was certainly reasonable, but so was hers.
    “And what if he is in there?” she asked. “The two of us could be walking into an ambush. We need at least one team of backup, Harry, to do this correctly and safely.”
    “We’ll call them when we get there.”
    “That will be too late. I know what you’re doing. You want this guy for yourself and you’re willing to risk that girl—and us—to get it.”
    “You want me to drop you off, Rachel?”
    “No, I don’t want you to drop me off, Harry.”
    “Good. I want you to be there.”
    Decision made, they ended the discussion. Figueroa Street ran behind the DWP Building. Bosch took it east under the 101 Freeway, crossed Sunset and then followed it as it jogged north and under the 110 Freeway. Figueroa Street became Figueroa Terrace, and they drove to where it ended and Figueroa Lane curved up to the crest of the hillside. Bosch pulled