Lost Light

went. His alibi for after midnight checked out, too.”
    “Anything else from the video? I didn’t see anything in the file.”
    “Nah, the video was worthless. Other than the fact it shows her and it was the last time she was ever seen.”
    He looked out the window. Three years later and Lindell was still hooked in deeply on this one. I had to remember that. I had to filter everything he said and did through that prism.
    “What are the chances of me getting a look at the whole investigative file?”
    “I’d say somewhere between zero and none.”
    “The ninth floor?”
    He nodded.
    “They came up and popped the drawer out and took it. I won’t see that stuff again. I probably won’t even get the goddamn drawer back.”
    “Why didn’t they put the freeze on me? Why you?”
    “Because I knew you. But mostly because you’re not supposed to even know about them.”
    I nodded as I turned onto Wilshire, the federal building in sight up ahead.
    “Look, Roy, I don’t know if the two things are connected, know what I mean? I’m talking about Martha Gessler and the thing in Hollywood. Angella Benton. Martha made a call on it but it doesn’t mean that they are connected. I’ve got other things I’ll be chasing down. This is just one of them. Okay?”
    He looked out the window again and mumbled something I couldn’t hear.
    “What?”
    “I said nobody ever called her Martha until she disappeared. Then it was in the papers and on TV that way. She hated that name, Martha.”
    I just nodded because there was nothing else to do. I turned into the federal parking lot and drove up to the plaza to drop him off.
    “That phone number in the file, it’s okay to call you on that?”
    “Yeah, anytime. Make sure your own phones are safe before you do.”
    I thought about that until I brought the Benz to a stop at the curb in front of the plaza. Lindell looked out the window and surveyed the plaza as if he was judging whether it was safe to get out.
    “You get back to Vegas much?” I asked him.
    He answered without looking back at me. He kept his eyes on the plaza and the windows of the building looming above.
    “Whenever I get the chance. Have to go in disguise. A lot of people over there don’t like me.”
    “I can imagine.”
    His undercover work coupled with my team’s homicide investigation had toppled a major underworld figure and most of his minions.
    “I saw your wife over there about a month ago,” he said. “Playing cards. I think it was at the Bellagio. She had a nice stack of chips in front of her.”
    He knew Eleanor Wish from that first case in Vegas. That was when and where I had married her.
    “Ex-wife,” I said. “But that wasn’t why I was asking.”
    “Sure, I know.”
    Seemingly satisfied with the view he opened the door and got out. He looked back in at me and waited for me to say something. I nodded.
    “I’ll take your case, Roy.”
    He nodded back.
    “Then call me anytime. And watch yourself out there, podjo.”
    He gave me the rogue’s got-you-last smile and closed the door before I could say anything.

14
    Around the detective squad rooms of the LAPD’s numerous stations the state of Idaho is called Blue Heaven. It’s the goal line, the final destination for a good number of the detectives who go the distance, put in their twenty-five years and then cash out. I hear there are whole neighborhoods up there full of ex-cops from L.A. living side by side by side. Realtors from Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint run business-card-size ads in the police union newsletter. In every issue.
    Of course some cops turn in the badge and set out for Nevada to bake in the desert and pick up part-time work in the casinos. Some disappear into northern California -there are more retired cops in the backwoods of Humboldt County than there are marijuana growers, only the growers don’t know it. And some head south to Mexico, where there are still spots where an air-conditioned ranch house with an ocean view is affordable on an LAPD pension.
    The point is, few stick around. They spend their adult lives trying to make sense of this place, trying to bring a small measure of order to it, and then can’t stand to stay here once their job is done. The work does that to you. It robs you of the ability to enjoy your accomplishment. There is no reward for making it through.
    One of the few men I knew who turned in the badge but not the city was named Burnett Biggar. He gave the city its twenty-five