The Black Ice (hb-2)

to do business. Now, that doesn’t mean it isn’t Mexicans givin’ it to them. It also doesn’t mean it ain’t South-Central gangs givin’ it. So the arrests we’ve made probably wouldn’t help you any.”
    He banged his empty beer mug on the bar until the bartender looked up and was signaled for another round. Moore seemed to be getting morose and Bosch hadn’t gotten much help from him.
    “I need to go further up the ladder. Can you get me anything? I don’t have shit on this and it’s three weeks old. I’ve got to come up with something or drop it and move on.”
    Moore was looking straight ahead at the bottles that lined the rear wall of the bar.
    “Look, I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But you gotta remember, we don’t spend time on black ice. Coke and dust, some reefer, that’s what we deal in day in and day out. Not the exotics. We’re a numbers squad, man. But I’ve got a connection at DEA. I’ll talk to him.”
    Bosch looked at his watch. It was near midnight and he wanted to go. He watched Moore light a cigarette though he still had one burning in the crowded ashtray. Harry still had a full beer and shot in front of him but stood up and began digging in his pockets for money.
    “Thanks, man,” he said. “See what you can do and let me know.”
    “Sure,” Moore said. After a beat he said, “Hey, Bosch?”
    “What?”
    “I know about you. You know,… what’s been said around the station. I know you’ve been in the bucket. I wonder, did you ever come up against an IAD suit name of Chastain?”
    Bosch thought a moment. John Chastain was one of the best. In IAD, complaints were classified at the end as sustained, unsustained or unfounded. He was known as “Sustained” Chastain.
    “I’ve heard of him,” he said. “He’s a three, runs one of the tables.”
    “Yeah, I know he’s a detective third grade. Shit, everybody knows that. What I mean is, did he… is he one of them that came after you?”
    “No, it was always somebody else.”
    Moore nodded. He reached over and took the shot that had been in front of Bosch. He emptied it, then said, “Chastain, from what you’ve heard, do you think he is good at what he does? Or is he just another suit with a shine on his ass?”
    “I guess it depends on what you mean by good. But, no, I don’t think any of them are good. Job like that, they can’t be. But give ’em the chance, any one of them will burn you down and bag your ashes.”
    Bosch was torn between wanting to ask what was going on and not wanting to step into it. Moore said nothing. He was giving Bosch the choice. Harry decided to keep out of it.
    He said, “If they’ve got a hard-on for you, there isn’t much you can do. Call the union and get a lawyer. Do what he says and don’t give the suits anything you don’t have to.”
    Moore nodded silently once more. Harry put down two twenty-dollar bills that he hoped would cover the tab and still leave something for the bartender. Then he walked out.
    He never saw Moore again.

    * * *

    Bosch connected with the Antelope Valley Freeway and headed northeast. On the Sand Canyon overpass he looked across the freeway and saw a white TV van heading south. There was a large
9
painted on its side. It meant Moore’s wife would already know by the time Bosch arrived. And Bosch felt a slight twinge of guilt at that, mixed with relief that he would not be the one breaking the news.
    The thought made him realize that he did not know the widow’s name. Irving had given him only an address, apparently assuming Bosch knew her name. As he turned off the freeway onto the Sierra Highway, he tried to recall the newspaper stories he had read during the week. They had carried her name.
    But it didn’t come to him. He remembered that she was a teacher-an English teacher, he thought-at a high school in the Valley. He remembered that the reports said they had no children. And he remembered that she had been separated a few months from her husband. But the name, her name, eluded him.
    He turned on to Del Prado, watched the numbers painted on the curbs and then finally pulled to a stop in front of the house that had once been Cal Moore’s home.
    It was a common ranch-style home, the kind minted by the hundreds in the planned communities that fed the freeways to overflow each morning. It looked large, like maybe four bedrooms, and Bosch thought that was odd for a childless couple. Maybe there had been plans at one time.
    The light