Lost Light

looked out the window and glanced up and down Wilshire.
    “You have your people out there, Agent Peoples? Are they waiting for me?”
    “I came alone as instructed by your attorney.”
    “Well, just so you’re clear. If your people grab me again or make any move against my attorney, then the consequences are that the surveillance recording you were e-mailed will go to the media and out across the Internet. There are people who will know if I disappear. They’ll put it out, no hesitation.”
    Peoples shook his head.
    “You keep saying that. ‘Disappear.’ This isn’t South America, Bosch. And we’re not Nazis.”
    I nodded in agreement.
    “Sitting in this nice restaurant it sure doesn’t seem so. But when I was sitting in that cube on the ninth floor and nobody knew I was there, that was a different story. Mouse Aziz and those other guys you’ve got up there probably don’t know the difference between California and Chile right now either.”
    “And you are defending them now, is that it? The men who would like to see this country burn to the ground.”
    “I’m not de-”
    I stopped when the waitress came to the booth. She said her name was Kathy and asked if we were ready to order. Peoples ordered coffee and I ordered coffee and an ice cream sundae with no whipped cream. After Kathy left, Peoples looked at me funny.
    “I’m retired. I can have a sundae.”
    “Some retirement.”
    “They make good sundaes here and they’re open late. That’s a good combination.”
    “I’ll remember that.”
    “Did you ever see the movie Heat? This is the place where Pacino the cop meets De Niro the burglar. It’s where they both tell each other they won’t hesitate to put the other down if it comes to that.”
    Peoples nodded and we held each other’s eyes for a long moment. Message delivered. I decided to get down to the business at hand.
    “So what did you think of my clock camera?”
    The façade dropped and Peoples suddenly looked wounded. He looked as though he had been thrown to the lions. He knew what the future held for him if that recording got out. Milton worked for him; therefore he’d take the fall, too. The Rodney King tape cut a swath through the LAPD that went all the way to the top. Peoples was smart enough to know he would get trampled if he didn’t contain this problem.
    “I was disgusted by what I saw. First off, I apologize to you and my plan is to go out to see that man, Lawton Cross, and apologize as well.”
    “That’s nice of you.”
    “Don’t think for a moment that that is how we operate. That it is the status quo. That I condone it. Agent Milton is gone. He’s out. I knew that the moment I saw the recording. I’m not promising you he will be prosecuted, but he won’t be carrying a badge for very long. Not an FBI badge. I’ll see to that.”
    I nodded.
    “Right, you’ll see to that.”
    I said it with high-octane sarcasm and I could see it put some color in his cheeks. The color of anger.
    “You called the meeting, Bosch. What do you want?”
    There it was. The question I was waiting for.
    “You know what I want. I want you people off my back. I want my files and my notes back. I want Lawton Cross’s file back. I want a copy of the LAPD murder book-which I know you must have-and I want access to Aziz and what you have on him.”
    “What we have on him is classified. It’s a national security matter. We can’t -”
    “Declassify it. I want to know how strong the connection is to my movie heist. I want to know what you have on his whereabouts on two nights. All that federal intelligence has got to be good for something and I want it. And then I want to talk to him.”
    “Who? Aziz? That’s not going to happen.”
    I leaned across the table.
    “Yes, it is. Because the alternative to that is that everybody who has a TV or America Online is going to see what your boy Milton did to a helpless man in a wheelchair. Make that a highly decorated retired cop who had the use of his limbs and fucking life taken from him while in the line of duty. You think the Rodney King tape did some damage to the LAPD? You wait and see what happens with this one. I guarantee you that Milton and you and your whole little ninth-floor BAM squad will be cut loose by the bureau and the attorney general and everybody else faster than you can say civil rights indictment. You understand, Special Agent Peoples?”
    I gave him a moment to respond but he didn’t. His eyes were fixed and