Lost Light

up and ask about Marty Gessler and tell Nunez it has something to do with the movie money case. He comes to me and I tell him to have you come in. Meantime, I start doing some checking. Turns out, we’ve got the movie money caper listed on our computer. With a REACT flag on it. So I call down to the ninth and say, ‘What’s up, fellas?’ and two seconds later I get crapped on pretty good.”
    “You were told to find out what I know, then shut me down and send me on my way. Oh, and to tape it so they could listen and make sure you were a good little agent and did what you were told to do.”
    “Yeah, something like that.”
    “So why’d you let me read the file? And take it? Why are we driving around talking?”
    Lindell took his time before responding. We had made the curve onto Ocean Boulevard in Santa Monica. I pulled off the road again next to the cliffs that look down to the beach and the Pacific. The horizon was blurred white by the marine layer. The Ferris wheel on the Pacific Park pier stood still, and without its neon blazing.
    “I did it because Marty Gessler was a friend of mine.”
    “Yeah, I could sort of tell from the file. Close friends?”
    My meaning was obvious.
    “Close,” he said.
    “Wasn’t that sort of a conflict, you leading the case?”
    “Let’s just say my relationship with her was not known until we were down the road a ways on the investigation. I then cashed in every chip I had to stay on it. Not that it did a hell of a lot of good. Here we are three-plus years later and I still have no idea what happened to her. Then you call up and tell me something that was brand-fucking-new to me.”
    “So you were being square. There was no record of her talking to Dorsey about the currency number?”
    “Nothing we found. But she kept a lot of stuff on her computer and that’s gone, man. There had to be stuff she hadn’t backed up on the office box. You know, the rule is back everything up every night before going home, but nobody does that. Nobody has the time.”
    I nodded and thought about things. I was gathering a lot of information but had little time to process it. I tried to think about what else I needed to ask Lindell while I was with him.
    “I’m still not tracking something,” I finally said. “Why was it one way up in the interrogation room and another way out here? Why are you talking to me, Roy? Why let me see the file?”
    “REACT is a BAM squad, Bosch. By Any Means. There are no rules with these guys. The rules went out the window September eleventh, two thousand one. The world changed, so did the bureau. The country sat back and let it happen. They were watching the war over there in Afghanistan when they were changing all the rules here. Homeland security is what it’s all about now and everything else can take a back-fucking-seat. Including Marty Gessler. You think the ninth floor took over this case because an agent is missing? They couldn’t care less. There is something else and whether or not they find out what happened to her doesn’t matter. To them, that is. It’s not the same for me.”
    Lindell stared straight ahead as he spoke. I understood a little better what was happening now. The bureau told him to cease and desist. It could keep him in check but I was a free agent. Lindell would help me when and if he could.
    “So you’ve got no idea what their interest is in this case.”
    “Not a clue.”
    “But you want me to keep going.”
    “If you ever repeat it I’ll deny it. But the answer is yes. I want to be your client, podjo.”
    I put the Benz in drive and pulled back onto the roadway. I headed back toward Westwood.
    “I can’t pay you, of course,” Lindell said. “And I probably can’t contact you after today, either.”
    “Tell you what. Stop calling me podjo and we’ll call it even.”
    Lindell nodded as though I had been serious and to say that he had agreed to the deal. We drove in silence while I dropped down the California Incline to the coast highway and took it up to Santa Monica Canyon and then back up to San Vicente.
    “So what did you think about what you read up there?” Lindell finally asked.
    “Looked like you made all the right moves to me. What about the gas station guy who saw her that night? He checked out?”
    “Yeah, we came down on him six ways till Sunday. He was clean. The place was busy and he was there till midnight. We have him on the security video. And he never left the booth after she came and