The Black Ice (hb-2)

anything about the man you said worked here.”
    “I didn’t tell you his name.”
    “It doesn’t matter. You understand now? You made a mistake. You played this game wrong.”
    Bosch took the morgue photo of Gutierrez-Llosa out of his pocket and slid it across the desk. Ely did not touch the photo but looked down at it. He showed no reaction that Bosch could see. Then Bosch put down the pay stubs. Same thing. No reaction.
    “Name is Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa,” Bosch said. “A day laborer. I need to know when he worked here last, what he was doing.”
    Ely retrieved his pen from the trash can and flicked the photo back toward Bosch with it.
    “Afraid I can’t help. Day laborers we don’t carry records on. We pay them with ‘pay to bearer’ checks at the end of each day. Different people all the time. I wouldn’t know this man from Adam. And I believe we already answered questions about this man. From the SJP. A Captain Grena. I guess I will have to call him now to see why that wasn’t sufficient.”
    Bosch wanted to ask whether he meant the payoff Ely had given Grena or the information wasn’t sufficient. But he held back because it would come back on Aguila. Instead he said, “You do that, Mr. Ely. Meantime, somebody else around here might remember this man. I am going to take a look around.”
    Ely became immediately agitated. “No, sir, you are not going to have free range of this facility. Portions of this building are used to irradiate material and are considered dangerous and off limits to all but certified personnel. Other areas are subject to USDA monitoring and quarantine and we cannot allow anyone access. Again, you have no authority here.”
    “Who owns EnviroBreed, Ely?” Bosch asked.
    Ely seemed startled by the change in subject.
    “Who?” he sputtered.
    “Who is the man, Ely?”
    “I don’t have to answer that. You have no-”
    “The man across the street? Is the pope the man?”
    Ely stood up and pointed at the door.
    “I don’t know what you are talking about but you’re leaving. And I will be contacting both the SJP and the American and Mexican authorities. We will see if this is how they want police from Los Angeles to operate on foreign soil.”
    Bosch and Aguila moved back into the hall and closed the door. Harry stood there for a moment and listened for the sound of a telephone or steps. He heard nothing and then turned to the door at the end of the hall. He tried it but it was locked.
    In front of the door marked USDA, he leaned his head forward and listened but heard nothing. He opened the door without knocking and a man with bureaucrat written all over him looked up from behind a small wooden desk. The room was about a quarter the size of Ely’s suite. The man wore a short-sleeved white shirt with a thin blue tie. He had close-cropped gray hair, a mustache that looked like the end of a toothbrush and small, dead eyes that looked out from behind bifocals that squeezed against his pudgy pink temples. The plastic ink guard in his pocket had his name printed on the flap: Jerry Dinsmore. He had a half-eaten bean burrito on his desk, sitting on oil-stained paper.
    “Can I help you?” he said with a mouthful.
    Bosch and Aguila moved into the room.
    Bosch showed him his ID and let him have a good look at it. Then he put the morgue photo on the desk, next to the burrito. Dinsmore looked at it and folded up the paper around his half-finished meal and put it in a drawer.
    “Recognize him?” Bosch said. “Just a routine check. Infectious disease alert. Guy took it with him up to L.A. and croaked. We are retracing him so we can get anybody who had contact inoculated. We still got plenty of time. We hope.”
    Dinsmore was chewing his food much slower now. He looked down at the Polaroid and then up over his glasses at Bosch.
    “Was he one of the men who worked around here?”
    “We think so. We are checking with all the regular employees. We thought you might recognize him. It depends on how close you got as far as whether you need to be quarantined.”
    “Well, I never get close to the laborers. I’m in the clear. But what is the disease that you are talking about? I don’t see why LAPD is-this man looks like he was beaten.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Dinsmore, that’s confidential until we determine if you are at risk. If you are, well, then we have to put our cards on the table. Now, how do you mean you never get close to the laborers? Are you not the inspection officer