Lost Light

Global Underwriters were in a six-story black box on Colorado about six blocks from the ocean. When I got there the secretary who guarded entrance to the office of Sandor Szatmari looked at me as though I had just ridden the elevator down from the moon.
    “Didn’t you get the message?”
    “What message?”
    “I left a message for you after getting your number from Mr. Scaggs’s office. Mr. Szatmari had to cancel your appointment this morning.”
    “What happened, somebody die?”
    She looked slightly insulted by my brashness. Her voice took on a tone of impatience.
    “No, in reviewing his schedule for the day he decided he did not have the time to fit you in.”
    “So he’s here?”
    “He cannot see you. I’m sorry you didn’t get the message. I thought there was something wrong with the number I got, but I did leave a message.”
    “Please tell him I’m here. Tell him I didn’t get the message because I was out of town. I flew in for this meeting. I’d still like to see him. It’s important.”
    Now she looked annoyed. She lifted the phone to make the call but then thought better of it and hung up. She got up and walked down a hallway off to the side of the waiting room so she could deliver the message in person. A few minutes later she came back and sat down. She took her time in delivering the news to me.
    “I talked to Mr. Szatmari,” she said. “He’ll try to get you in as soon as he can.”
    “Thank you. That’s nice of him and nice of you.”
    There was a couch and a coffee table with a spread of outdated magazines on it. I had brought the murder book with me, mostly as a prop, so I could impress Szatmari with it and the access it showed I had. I sat down on the couch and spent the time waiting by leafing through it and rereading some of the reports. Nothing new hit me but I was becoming well versed in the facts of the case. This was important because I knew it would help when I sifted through new information to not have to check the murder book every time.
    A half hour went by and then the secretary’s phone buzzed and she got the word to send me in.
    Szatmari was a solidly built man in his midfifties. He looked more like a salesman than an investigator but the walls of his office were hung with commendations and handshake photos testifying to his success as one. He pointed me to a chair in front of his cluttered desk and spoke as he wrote something down on a report.
    “I’m busy, Mr. Bosch. What can I do for you?”
    “Well, like I told you yesterday on the phone, I’m working one of your cases. I thought maybe we could share some information, see if one of us has gone down a road the other hasn’t.”
    “Why should I share with you?”
    Something was wrong. He was predisposed not to like me before I had even set foot in his office. I wondered if somehow Peoples had talked to him about me. Maybe Szatmari had called the LAPD or the bureau to check me out and got the word not to cooperate. Maybe that was why the appointment had been canceled.
    “I don’t get this,” I said. “Is something wrong? It’s called solving the case, that’s why maybe we should share information.”
    “And how about you? Would you share with me? How much of the reward do you give to me?”
    I nodded. Now I got it. The reward.
    “Mr. Szatmari, you have it wrong. You have me wrong.”
    “Sure. Have reward, will travel. I see your kind all the time. Come in here, wanting information, maybe make some big bucks.”
    His accent became more pronounced as he got worked up. I flipped open the murder book and found the black-and-white photocopies of the murder scene photos. I tore the page with Angella Benton’s hands on it out of the book and slapped it down on his desk.
    “That’s why I’m doing this. Not the money. Her. I was there that day. I was a cop. I’m retired now but I was on this case until they took me off it. That probably cuts me out of any reward, okay?”
    Szatmari studied the grainy copy of the photo. He then looked at the binder on my lap. He then finally looked at me.
    “I remember you now. Your name. You were the one who hit one of the robbers with a round.”
    I nodded.
    “I was there that day, but since we never found the robbers it’s not known for sure who hit who.”
    “Come on, eight rent-a-cops and an LAPD veteran. It was you.”
    “I think so.”
    “You know, I tried to talk to you back then. Interview you. But the department stonewalled me.”
    “How