The Black Ice (hb-2)

probably prove embarrassing.”
    “EnviroBreed.”
    “Yes. By tomorrow they will finish comparisons between the bills of lading shown by drivers at the border and the receipt of cargo records at the eradication center here in Los Angeles. I am told these documents were altered or forged. In other words more sealed boxes passed through the border than were received at the center.”
    “Inside help.”
    “Most likely. The on-site inspector for the USDA was either dumb or corrupt. I don’t know which is worse.”
    Irving brushed some imaginary impurity off the shoulder of his uniform. It could not be hair or dandruff, since he had neither. He turned away from Bosch to face the coffin and the thick gathering of officers around it. The ceremony was about to begin. He squared his shoulders and without turning back, he said, “I don’t know what to think, Bosch. I don’t know whether you have me or not.”
    Bosch didn’t answer. That would be one Irving would have to worry about.
    “Just remember,” Irving said. “You have just as much to lose as the department. More. The department can always come back, always recover. It might take a good long time but it always comes back. The same can’t be said for the individual who gets tarred with the brush of scandal.”
    Bosch smiled in a sad way. Never leave a thing uncovered. That was Irving. His parting shot was a threat, a threat that if Bosch ever used his knowledge against the department, he, too, would go down. Irving would personally see to it.
    “Are you afraid?” Bosch asked.
    “Afraid of what, Detective?”
    “Of everything. Of me. Yourself. That it won’t hold together. That I might be wrong. Everything, man. Aren’t you afraid of everything?”
    “The only thing that I fear are people without a conscience. Who act without thinking their actions through. I don’t think you are like that.”
    Bosch just shook his head.
    “So let’s get down to it, Detective. I have to rejoin the chief and I see the mayor has arrived. What is it you want, provided it is within my authority to provide?”
    “I wouldn’t take anything from you,” Bosch said very quietly. “That’s what you just don’t seem to get.”
    Irving finally turned around to face him again.
    “You are right, Bosch. I really don’t understand you. Why risk everything for nothing? You see? It raises my concerns about you all over again. You don’t play for the team. You play for yourself.”
    Bosch looked steadily at Irving and didn’t smile, though he wanted to. Irving had paid him a fine compliment, though the assistant chief would never realize it.
    “What happened down there had nothing to do with the department,” he said. “If I did anything at all, I did it for somebody and something else.”
    Irving stared back blankly, his jaw flexing as he ground his teeth. There was a crooked smile below the gleaming skull. It was then that Bosch recognized the similarity to the tattoos on the arms of Moore and Zorrillo. The devil’s mask. He watched as Irving’s eyes lit on something and he nodded knowingly. He looked back at Sylvia and then returned his gaze to Bosch.
    “A noble man, is that it? All of this to insure a widow’s pension?”
    Bosch didn’t answer. He wondered if it was a guess or Irving knew something. He couldn’t tell.
    “How do you know she wasn’t part of it?” Irving said.
    “I know.”
    “But how can you be sure? How can you take the chance?”
    “The same way you’re sure. The letter.”
    “What about it?”
    Bosch had done nothing but think about Moore on his way back. He had had four hours of driving on the open road to put it together. He thought he had it.
    “Moore wrote the letter himself,” he began. “He informed on himself, you could say. He had this plan. The letter was the start. He wrote it.”
    He stopped to light a cigarette. Irving didn’t say a word. He just waited for the story.
    “For reasons that I guess go back to when he was a boy, Moore fucked up. He crossed and after he was already on the other side he realized there is no crossing back. But he couldn’t go on, he had to get out. Somehow.
    “His plan was to start the IAD investigation with that letter. He put just enough in the letter so Chastain would be convinced there was something to it, but not enough that Chastain would be able to find anything. The letter would just serve to cloud his name, put him under suspicion. He had been in the department long enough to know