The Black Ice (hb-2)

for this facility?”
    Bosch expected Ely to burst in any moment.
    “I am the inspector but I am only interested in the finished product. I inspect samples directly from the travel cases. Then I seal the cases. This is done in the shipping room. You have to remember, this is a private facility and consequently I do not have free reign of the breeding or sterilization labs. Therefore, I do not interface with the workers.”
    “You just said, ‘samples.’ So that means you don’t look in all of the boxes.”
    “Wrong. I don’t look in all of the larvae cylinders in each of the transport cases, but I do inspect and seal the cases. I don’t see what this has to do with this man. He didn’t-”
    “I don’t see it, either. Never mind. You’re in the clear.”
    Dinsmore’s small eyes widened slightly. Bosch winked at him to further confuse him. He wondered if Dinsmore was part of what was going on here or whether, like a mole, he was in the dark. He told him to go back to his burrito and then he and Aguila stepped back into the hall. Just at that moment the door at the end of the hall opened and through it stepped Ely. He pulled a breathing mask and goggles off his face and charged down the hall, coffee slopping over the sides of the Styrofoam cup.
    “I want you two out of here unless you have a court order.”
    He was right up to Bosch now and anger was etching red lines on his face. It was the act he might have used to intimidate others but Bosch was not impressed. He looked down into the shorter man’s coffee cup and smiled as a small piece of the puzzle slipped into place. The stomach contents of Juan Doe #67 had included coffee. That was how he had swallowed the medfly which had brought Bosch here. Ely followed his eyes down and saw the medfly floating on the surface of the hot liquid.
    “Fuckin’ flies,” he said.
    “You know,” Bosch said, “I’ll probably get that court order.”
    He couldn’t think of anything else to say and didn’t want to leave Ely with the satisfaction of throwing him out. He and Aguila headed for the exit.
    “Don’t count on it,” Ely said. “This is Mexico. You aren’t jackshit here.”

Chapter 23
    Bosch stood at the window of his third-floor room in the Hotel Colorado on Calzado Justo Sierra and looked out at what he could see of Mexicali. To his left the view was obscured by the other wing of the hotel. But looking out to the right he saw the streets were clogged with cars and the colorful buses he had seen earlier. He could hear a mariachi band playing somewhere. There was the smell of frying grease in the air from a nearby restaurant. And the sky above the ramshackle city was purple and red in the day’s dying light. In the distance he could see the buildings of the justice center and, near them to the right, the rounded shape of a stadium. Plaza de los Toros.
    He had called Corvo in Los Angeles two hours earlier, left his number and location, and was waiting for a call back from his man in Mexicali, Ramos. He walked away from the window and looked at the phone. He knew it was time to make the rest of the calls but he hesitated. He grabbed a beer out of the tin ice bucket on the bureau and opened it. He drank a quarter of it and sat on the bed next to the phone.
    There were three messages on the phone tape at his home, all of them from Pounds saying the same thing: “Call me.”
    But he didn’t. Instead, he called the homicide table first. It was Saturday night but the chances were it would still be all hands on deck because of Porter. Jerry Edgar answered.
    “What’s the situation?”
    “Shit, man, you gotta come in.” He was speaking in a very low voice. “Everybody’s looking for you. RHD’s got the lead on this thing so I don’t know exactly what’s happening. I’m just one of the gofers. But, I think uh,… I don’t know, man.”
    “What? Say it.”
    “It’s like they think you either did Porter or you might be next. It’s hard to gauge what the fuck they’re doing or thinking.”
    “Who’s there?”
    “Everybody. This is the command post. Irving’s in there in the box with Ninety-eight now.”
    Bosch knew he couldn’t let it go on much further. He had to call in. He might have already damaged himself beyond repair.
    “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to call them. I have to make one other call first. Thanks.”
    Bosch hung up and dialed another number, hoping he had remembered it correctly and that she would be home. It was near