The Black Echo

Safe & Lock and briefly told Lewis what had been said during his two encounters with Bosch and Wish. Lewis listened without commenting, then opened the car door. “Wait here, please. I’ll be right back.”
    Lewis walked briskly up to Wilshire; he stood on the corner a few moments apparently looking for someone, then made an elaborate show of checking his watch. He came back to the car and slid in behind the wheel. On Wilshire, Clarke was waiting in the alcove of a store entrance and watching the vault. He caught sight of Lewis’s signal and strolled casually to the car.
    As Clarke climbed into the backseat, Lewis said, “Mr. Avery here says that Bosch told him to go to Darling’s and wait, said there may be people in the vault. Come up from underground.”
    “Did Bosch say what he would be doing?” Clarke asked.
    “Not a word,” Avery said.
    Everyone was silent, thinking. Lewis couldn’t figure it. If Bosch was dirty, what was he doing? He thought some more on this and realized that if Bosch was involved in ripping off the vault, he was in a perfect situation by being the man calling the shots on the outside. He could confuse the coverage on the burglary. He could send all the manpower to the wrong place while his people in the vault went safely the opposite way.
    “He’s got everybody by the short hairs,” Lewis said, more to himself than to the other two men in the car.
    “Who, Bosch?” Clarke asked.
    “He is running the caper. Nothing we can do but watch. We can’t get in that vault. We can’t go underground without knowing where we are going. He’s already got the bureau’s SWAT team tied up down by the freeway. They’re waiting for burglars that aren’t coming, goddammit.”
    “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Avery said. “The vault. You can get in it.”
    Lewis turned fully around in his seat to look at Avery. The vault owner told them that federal banking regulations didn’t apply to Beverly Hills Safe & Lock because it wasn’t a bank, and how he had the computer code that would open the vault.
    “Did you tell this to Bosch?” Lewis asked.
    “Yesterday and today.”
    “Did he already know?”
    “No. He seemed surprised. He asked detailed questions on how long it would take to open the vault, what I had to do, things like that. Then today, when we had the alarm, I asked him if we should open it. He said no. Just said to get out of there.”
    “Damn,” Lewis said excitedly. “I better call Irving.”
    He leapt from the car and trotted to the pay phones in front of Darling’s. He dialed Irving at home and got no answer. He dialed the office and only got the duty officer. He had the officer page Irving with the pay phone number. He then waited for five minutes, pacing in front of the phone and worrying about the time going by. The phone never rang. He used the one next to it to call the duty officer back to make sure Irving had been paged. He had. Lewis decided he couldn’t wait. He would have to make this call himself and it would be he who would become the hero. He left the bank of phones and went back to the car.
    “What’d he say?” Clarke asked.
    “We go in,” Lewis said. He started the car.

    ***

    The police radio keyed twice and then Hanlon’s voice came on.
    “Hey, Broadway, we have visitors over here on First.”
    Bosch grabbed up the radio.
    “What have you got, First? Nothing showing on Broadway.”
    “We’ve got three white males going in on our side. Using a key. Looks like one is the man that was here earlier with you. Old guy. Plaid pants.”
    Avery. Bosch held the microphone up to his mouth and hesitated, not sure what to say. “Now what?” he said to Eleanor. Like Bosch, she was staring down the street at the vault room, but there was no sign of the visitors. She said nothing.
    “Uh, First,” Bosch said into the mike. “Did you see any vehicle?”
    “None seen,” Hanlon’s voice came back. “They just walked out of the alley on our side. Must have parked there. Want us to take a look?”
    “No, hold there a minute.”
    “They are now inside, no longer in visual contact. Advise, please.”
    He turned to Wish and raised his eyebrows. Who could it be?
    “Ask for descriptions of the two with Avery,” she said.
    He did.
    “White males,” Hanlon began. “Number one and two in suits, worn and wrinkled. White shirts. Both early thirties. One with red hair, stocky build, five-eight, one-eighty. The other, dark-brown hair, thinner. I don’t