The Black Echo

ring-around-the-rosy.
    “Assaulting a fellow officer, two counts,” Lewis said. “Conduct unbecoming. We can get you for a half-dozen other things now, Bosch.” He coughed violently, spittle hitting Clarke’s suit coat. “Unhook us and maybe we can forget this.”
    “No way. We aren’t forgetting a fucking thing,” Clarke said to his partner. “He’s going down like a flaming asshole.”
    Bosch took the listening device out of his pocket and held it out on his palm for them to see. “Who’s going down?” he asked.
    Lewis looked at the bug, recognizing what it was, and said, “We don’t know anything about that.”
    “Course not,” Bosch said. He took the recorder out of his other pocket and held that out, too. “Sound-sensitive Nagras, that’s what you guys use on all your jobs, legal or not, isn’t it? Found it in my phone. Same time I notice that you two dummies have been following me all over the city. Don’t suppose you guys also dropped the bug on me so you could listen as well as watch?”
    Neither Lewis nor Clarke answered and Bosch didn’t expect them to. He noticed a small drop of blood poised at the edge of one of Clarke’s nostrils. A car driving on Woodrow Wilson slowed and Bosch pulled his badge and held it up. The car kept going. The two IAD detectives did not call for help, which made Bosch begin to feel he was safe. This would be his play. The department had taken such bad publicity for illegally bugging officers, civil rights leaders, even movie stars in the past, that these two were not going to make an issue of this. Saving their own hides came before skinning Bosch.
    “You got a warrant saying you can drop a bug on me?”
    “Listen to me, Bosch,” Lewis said. “I told you, we-”
    “I didn’t think so. Have to have evidence of a crime to get a warrant. Least that’s what I always heard. But Internal Affairs doesn’t usually bother with details like that. You know what your assault case looks like, Clarke? While you two are taking me to the Board of Rights and getting me fired for dragging you out of the car and getting grass stains on your shiny asses, I’m going to be taking you two, your boss Irving, IAD, the police chief and the whole fucking city to federal court on a Fourth Amendment case. Illegal search and seizure. I’ll throw in the mayor, too. How’s that?”
    Clarke spit on the grass at Bosch’s feet. A drop of blood from his nose fell onto his white shirt. He said, “You can’t prove that came from us, ’cause it didn’t.”
    “Bosch, what do you want?” Lewis blurted out, his rage turning his face a darker red than it had been when his tie had been tightened like a noose around his neck. Bosch started walking in a slow circle around them, so they had to constantly turn their heads or bend around the palm trunk to watch him.
    “What do I want? Well, as much as I despise you two, I don’t really want to have to drag your asses into court. Dragging them across the sidewalk was enough. What I want-”
    “Bosch, you ought to get your fuckin’ head examined,” Clarke burst out.
    “Shut up, Clarke,” Lewis said.
    “You shut up,” Clarke said back.
    “Matter of fact, I have had it examined,” Bosch said. “And I still would rather have mine than yours. You’d need a proctologist to check yours out.”
    He said this as he circled close behind Clarke. Then he moved out a few steps and continued to make the rounds. “I’ll tell you what, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones on this. All you have to do is answer a few questions and we’re square on this little mix-up. I’ll cut you loose. After all, we’re all part of the Family, right?”
    “What questions, Bosch?” Lewis said. “What are you talking about?”
    “When’d you start the tail?”
    “Tuesday morning, we picked you up when you left the FBI,” Lewis said.
    “Don’t tell him shit, man,” Clarke said to his partner.
    “He already knows.”
    Clarke looked at Lewis and shook his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
    “When’d you drop the bug in my phone?”
    “Didn’t,” Lewis said.
    “Bullshit. But never mind. You saw me interview the kid down in Boytown.” It was a statement, not a question. Bosch wanted them to think he knew most of it and just needed the gaps filled in.
    “Yeah,” Lewis said. “That was our first day on it. So you made us. So fucking what?”
    Harry saw Lewis pull his hand toward his coat pocket. He quickly moved in and