The Black Box

He’s a local, too.”
    Bosch felt proud of himself.
    “Right and wrong. He’s from here, but he’s been New York–based for a while now. Saw him with Harrell at the Standard when I was last back there visiting Lili.”
    Holodnak’s daughter was a writer living in New York. He went there often and made many jazz discoveries in the clubs he haunted at night when his daughter kicked him out of her apartment so she could write.
    “Grissett’s been putting out his own stuff,” he continued. “I recommend a disc called Form . It’s not his latest, but it’s worth a listen. Neo-bop stuff. He’s got a great tenor on there you’d like. Seamus Blake. Check the solo on ‘Let’s Face the Music and Dance.’ It’s tight.”
    “All right, I’ll check it out,” Bosch said. “And I’ll see you at ten.”
    “Wait a minute. Not so fast there, buddy boy,” Holodnak threw right back at him. “Your turn. Give me something.”
    That was the rule. Bosch had to give after receiving. He had to give back something that hopefully wasn’t already on Holodnak’s jazz radar. He thought hard. He had disappeared into the Pepper discs Maddie had given him, but before receiving the birthday bounty, he had been attempting to expand his jazz horizons a bit and also to get his daughter interested by going young.
    “Grace Kelly,” he said. “Not the princess.”
    Holodnak laughed at the ease of the challenge.
    “Not the princess, the kid. Young alto sensation. She’s teamed with Woods and Konitz on records. I think the Konitz is better. Next?”
    The challenge seemed hopeless to Bosch.
    “Okay, one more. How about . . . Gary Smulyan?”
    “ Hidden Treasures,” Holodnak answered quickly, naming the very disc Bosch was thinking of. “Smulyan on the bari and then just bass and drums in rhythm. Good stuff, Harry. But I got you.”
    “Well, someday I’ll get you.”
    “Not on my watch. See you at ten.”
    Bosch disconnected and checked the clock on the phone.He could let his daughter sleep for another hour, wake her with the smell of a fresh pot of coffee, and cut down on the chances of her being grumpy about being wakened at what she would consider such an early hour on a Sunday. He knew that, grumpy or not, she’d eventually come around and like the plan he had for the day.
    He went back inside to write down the name Danny Grissett.
    The Force Options Simulator was a training device housed at the academy that consisted of a wall-size screen on which varying interactive shoot/don’t shoot scenarios were projected. The images were not computer generated. Real actors were filmed in multiple high-definition sequences that would play out according to the actions taken by the officer in the training session. The officer was given a handgun that fired a laser instead of bullets and was electronically wedded to the action on the screen. If the laser hit one of the players on the screen—good or bad—that person went down. Each scenario played out until the officer took action or decided that no action was the correct response.
    There was a blowback option, which involved a paintball gun located above the screen and that fired at the trainee at the same moment a figure in the simulation fired.
    On the ride to the academy, Bosch explained what they were doing, and his daughter grew excited. She had become a top shooter in her age group in local competitions, but those were tests of marksmanship against paper targets. She had read about shoot/don’t shoot situations in a book by Malcolm Gladwell, but this would be the first time she facedthe split-second life-and-death decisions with a gun in her hand.
    The front lot at the academy was almost empty. There were no classes or scheduled activities on a Sunday morning. Besides that, the citywide hiring freeze made the cadet classes lean and the activity level low, as the department could hire only to replace retiring officers.
    They entered the gym and crossed the basketball court to where the FO Simulator had been set up in an old storage room. Holodnak, an affable man with a gray-white mane, was there waiting for them. Bosch introduced his daughter as Madeline, and the trainer handed them both handguns, each equipped with a laser and linked by an electronic tether to the simulator’s computer.
    After explaining the procedures, Holodnak took his place behind a computer in the back of the room. He dimmed the lights and started the first scenario. It began with a view through