The Black Echo

out there trying to find the same people we are, I don’t know. But I’m telling you right now, you are out of it. So tell us where Tran is.”
    “I don’t know this man.”
    “We are your only hope. We have to get to Tran. The people that ripped you off, they are in the tunnels again. Right now. If we don’t get to Tran this weekend, there won’t be anything left for you or him.”
    Binh remained a stone, as Bosch expected. Eleanor stood up.
    “Think about it, Mr. Binh,” she said.
    “We’re running out of time, and so is your old partner,” Bosch said as they headed for the door.

    ***

    After walking through the showroom door Bosch looked both ways for traffic and ran across Vermont to the car. Eleanor walked it, anger making her strides stiff and jerky. Bosch got in and reached to the floor behind the front seat for the Nagra. He turned it on and set the recording speed at its fastest level. He didn’t think the wait would be long. He hoped all the electronic equipment in the store would not skew the reception. Eleanor got in the passenger side and started to complain.
    “That was magnificent,” she said. “We’ll never get anything out of that guy now. He’s just going to call up Tran and-what the hell is that?”
    “Something I picked up from the shooflies. They dropped a bug in my phone. Oldest trick in the IAD book.”
    “And you just put it in…” She pointed across the street and Bosch nodded.
    “Bosch, do you realize what could happen to us, what this means? I’m going back in there and getting-”
    She opened the car door but he reached across and pulled it closed.
    “You don’t want to do that. This is our only way to get to Tran. Binh wasn’t going to tell us, no matter how we handled the interview, and deep down behind those angry eyes you know it. So it’s this or nothing. Binh warns Tran and we never know where he is, or we use this to maybe find him. Maybe. We’ll probably know soon enough.”
    Eleanor looked straight forward and shook her head.
    “Bosch, this could mean our jobs. How could you do this without consulting me?”
    “For that reason. It could mean
my
job. You didn’t know.”
    “I’d never prove it. The whole thing looks like a setup. I keep him occupied while you do your little charade on the phone.”
    “It was a setup, only you didn’t know. Besides, Binh and Tran are not the targets of our investigation. We are not gathering evidence against them, just from them. This will never go in a report. And if he finds the bug, he can’t prove I put it there. There was no register number. I looked. The suits weren’t stupid enough to make it traceable. We’re clear. You’re clear. Don’t worry.”
    “Harry, that is hardly reassur-”
    The red light on the Nagra flicked on. Someone was using Binh’s phone. Bosch checked to make sure the tape was rolling.
    “Eleanor, you make the call,” Bosch said, holding the recorder up on the palm of his hand. “Turn it off if you want. Your choice.”
    She turned and looked at the recorder, then at Bosch. Just then the dialing stopped and it was silent in the car. A phone began to ring at the other end of Binh’s call. She turned away. Someone answered the phone. A few words were exchanged in Vietnamese and then more silence. Then a new voice was on the line and a conversation began, also in Vietnamese. Bosch could tell one of the voices belonged to Binh. The other sounded like a man about Binh’s age. It was Binh and Tran, together again. Eleanor shook her head and forced a short laugh.
    “Brilliant, Harry, now who do we get to translate? We aren’t letting anyone else know about this. We can’t risk it.”
    “I don’t want to translate it.” He turned the receiver off and rewound the tape. “Get out your little pad and pen.”
    Bosch adjusted the recorder to its slowest speed and hit the play button. When the dialing started, it was slow enough that Bosch could count the clicks. Bosch called the numbers out to Eleanor, who wrote them down. They had the number Binh had dialed.
    The phone number was a 714 area code. Orange County. Bosch switched the receiver on; the telephone conversation between Binh and the unknown man was continuing. He turned it off and picked up the radio microphone. He gave a dispatcher the phone number and asked for the name and address that went with it. It would take a few minutes while someone looked it up in a reverse directory. Meantime, Bosch started the car and headed