The Black Ice (hb-2)

Lieutenant Pounds of the LAPD. He is very anxious at your return. He asked me to tell you this personally. Why is that?”
    Bosch looked at him and shook his head.
    “I don’t know. You would have to ask him.”
    There was a long silence during which Grena’s attention was drawn to the ring again. Bosch looked that way, too, just in time to see Silvestri leading the charging bull past him with his cape.
    Grena looked at him for a long time and then smiled, probably the way Ted Bundy had smiled at the girls on campus.
    “You know the art of the cape?”
    Bosch didn’t answer and the two just stared at each other. A thin smile continued to play across the captain’s dark face.
    “
El arte de la muleta,
” Grena finally said. “It is deception. It is the art of survival. The matador uses the cape to fool death, to make death go where he is not. But he must be brave. He must risk himself over the horns of death. The closer death comes, the braver he becomes. Never for a moment can he show fear. Never show fear. To do so is to lose. It is to die. This is the art, my friend.”
    He nodded and Bosch just stared at him.
    Grena smiled broadly now and turned to the door. He opened it and the other man was still there. As he turned to reclose the door he looked at Bosch and said, “Have a good trip, Detective Harry Bosch. Tonight, eh?”
    Bosch said nothing and the door was closed. He sat there for a moment but his attention was drawn by the cheers to the ring. Silvestri had dropped to one knee in the center of the ring and had lured the bull to a charge. He remained stoically fixed in position until the beast was on him. He then moved the cape away from his body in a smooth flow. The bull rushed by within inches and Silvestri was untouched. It was beautiful and the cheers rose from the stadium. The unlocked door to the box opened and Aguila stepped in.
    “Grena, what did he want?”
    Bosch didn’t answer. He held the binoculars up and checked Zorrillo’s box. The pope wasn’t there but now Grena was, staring back at him with the same thin smile on his lips.
    Silvestri felled the bull with a single thrust of his sword, the blade diving deep between its shoulders and slicing through the heart. Instant death. Bosch looked over at the man with the dagger and thought he saw a trace of disappointment on his hardened face. His work wasn’t needed.
    The cheering for Silvestri’s expert kill was deafening. And it did not let up as the matador made a circuit around the ring, his arms up to receive the applause. Roses, pillows, women’s high-heeled shoes showered down into the ring. The bullfighter beamed in the adulation. The noise was so loud that it was quite some time before Bosch realized that the pager on his belt was sounding its call to him.

Chapter 28
    At nine o’clock Bosch and Aguila turned off Avenida Cristobal Colon onto a perimeter road that skirted Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada Aeropuerto Internacional. The roadway passed several old quonset-hut hangars and then a larger grouping of newer structures. On one of these was a sign that said Aero Carga. The huge bay doors had been spread a few feet and the opening was lit from the inside. It was their destination, a DEA front. Bosch pulled into the lot in front and parked near several other cars. He noticed that most of them had California plates.
    As soon as he stepped out of the Caprice he was approached by four DEA types in blue plastic windbreakers. He showed his ID and evidently passed muster after one of them consulted a clipboard.
    “And you?” the clipboard man said to Aguila.
    “He’s with me,” Bosch said.
    “We have you down as a solo entry, Detective Bosch. Now we have a problem.”
    “I guess I forgot to RSVP that I’d bring a date,” Bosch said.
    “It’s not very funny, Detective Bosch.”
    “Of course not. But he’s my partner. He stays with me.”
    Clipboard had a distressed look on his face. He was an Anglo with a ruddy complexion and hair that had been bleached almost white by the sun. He looked as though he had been watching the border a long time. He turned to look back at the hangar, as if hoping for direction on how to handle this. On the back of his windbreaker Bosch saw the large yellow
DEA
letters.
    “Better get Ramos,” Bosch said. “If my partner goes, I go. Then where’s the integrity of the operation’s security?”
    He looked over at Aguila, who was standing stiffly with the three other agents around him like bouncers