The Black Ice (hb-2)

turned around to look back toward the gathering. Lieutenant Harvey Pounds, also in dress uniform, was walking toward them, probably wanting to find out how many cases he could close from Bosch’s investigation. But Irving held up a hand like a traffic cop and Pounds abruptly stopped, turned and walked away.
    “The point I am trying to make with you, Detective Bosch, is that it appears we are about to bury and eulogize a Mexican drug lord while a corrupt police officer is running around loose. Do you have any idea what embarrass-Damn it! I can’t believe I just spoke those words out loud. I cannot believe I spoke those words to you.”
    “Don’t trust me much, do you, Chief?”
    “In matters like these, I do not trust anyone.”
    “Well, don’t worry about it.”
    “I am not worried about who I can and cannot trust.”
    “I mean about burying a drug lord while a corrupt cop is running around loose. Don’t worry about it.”
    Irving studied him, his eyes narrowing, as if he might be able to peer through Bosch’s own eyes, into his thoughts.
    “Are you kidding me? Don’t worry about it? This is a potential embarrassment to this city and this department of unimaginable proportions. This could-”
    “Look, man, I am telling you to forget about it. Understand? I am trying to help you out here.”
    Irving studied him again for a long moment. He shifted his weight to the other foot. The vein on his scalp pulsed with new life. Bosch knew it would not sit well with him, to have someone like Harry Bosch keeping such a secret. Teresa Corazon he could deal with because they both played on the same field. But Bosch was different. Harry rather enjoyed the moment, though the long silence was getting old.
    “I checked with the DEA on that fiasco down there. They said this man they believe to be Zorrillo escaped. They don’t know where he is.”
    It was a half-assed effort to get Bosch to open up. It didn’t work.
    “They never will know.”
    Irving said nothing to this but Bosch knew better than to interrupt his silence. He was working up to something. Harry let him work, watching as the assistant chief’s massive jaw muscles bunched into hard pads.
    “Bosch, I want to know right now if there is a problem on this. Even a potential problem. Because I have to know in the next three minutes whether to walk over there in front of the chief and the mayor and all of those cameras and put a stop to this.”
    “What’s the DEA doing now?”
    “What can they do? They are watching the airports, contacting local authorities. Putting his photo and description out. There is not a lot they can do. He is gone. At least, they say. I want to know if he is going to stay gone.”
    Bosch nodded and said, “They’re never going to find the man they are looking for, Chief.”
    “Convince me, Bosch.”
    “Can’t do that.”
    “And why not?”
    “Trust goes two ways. So does the lack of trust.”
    Irving seemed to consider this and Bosch thought he saw an almost imperceptible nod.
    Bosch said, “The man they are looking for, who they believe to be Zorrillo, is in the wind and he isn’t coming back. That’s all you need to know.”
    Bosch thought of the body on the bed at Castillo de los Ojos. The face was already gone. Another two weeks and the flesh would go. No fingerprints. No identification, other than the bogus credentials in the wallet. The tattoo would stay intact for a while. But there were plenty who had that tattoo, including the fugitive Zorrillo.
    He had left the money there, too. An added precaution, enough there maybe to convince the first finder not to bother calling the authorities. Just take the money and run.
    Using a handkerchief, he had wiped the shotgun of his prints and left it. He locked the house, wrapped the chain through the black bars of the gate and closed the hasp on the lock, careful to wipe each surface. Then he had headed home to L.A.
    “The DEA, are they putting a nice spin on things yet?” he asked Irving.
    “They’re working on it,” Irving said. “I am told the smuggling network has been closed down. They have ascertained that the drug called black ice was manufactured on the ranch, taken through tunnels to two nearby businesses, then moved across the border. The shipment would make a detour, probably in Calexico, where it would be removed and the delivery van would go on. Both businesses have been seized. One of them, a contractor with the state to provide sterile medflies, will