The Brass Verdict

palm on the steering wheel. Morris hadn’t waited. He’d gone ahead and taken Lanie to jail.
    “What?” Bosch repeated.
    “She’s not here,” I said. “And neither is the cop. He took her to jail.”
    I would now have to figure out which station Lanie had been transported to and probably spend the rest of the night arranging bail and getting her home. I’d be wrecked in court the next day.
    I put the car in park and got out and looked around. The lights of the Valley spread out below the precipice for miles and miles.
    “Bosch, I gotta go. I have to try to find-”
    I saw movement in my peripheral vision to the left. I turned and saw a crouching figure coming out of the tall brush next to the parking clearing. At first I thought coyote but then I saw that it was a man. He was dressed in black and a ski mask was pulled down over his face. As he straightened from the crouch, I saw that he was raising a gun at me.
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “What is-”
    “Drop the fucking phone!”
    I dropped the phone and raised my hands.
    “Okay, okay, what is this? Are you with Bosch?”
    The man moved quickly toward me and shoved me backwards. I stumbled to the ground and then felt him grab the back of my jacket’s collar.
    “Get up!”
    “What is-?”
    “Get up! Now!”
    He started pulling me up.
    “Okay, okay. I’m getting up.”
    The moment I was on my feet I was shoved forward and crossed through the lights at the front of my car.
    “Where are we going? What is-?”
    I was shoved again.
    “Who are you? Why are you-?”
    “You ask too many questions, lawyer.”
    He grabbed the back of my collar and shoved me toward the precipice. I knew it was almost a sheer drop-off at the edge. I was going to end up in somebody’s backyard hot tub – after a three-hundred-foot high dive.
    I tried to dig my heels in and slow my forward momentum but that resulted in an even harder shove. I had velocity now and the man in the mask was going to run me off the edge into the blackness of the abyss.
    “You can’t-”
    Suddenly there was a shot. Not from behind me. But from the right and from a distance. Almost simultaneously, there was a metal snapping sound from behind me and the man in the mask yelped and fell into the brush to the left.
    Then came voices and shouting.
    “Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon!”
    “Get on the ground! Get down on the ground!”
    I dove facedown to the dirt at the edge of the precipice and put my hands over my head for protection. I heard more yelling and the sound of running. I heard engines roaring and vehicles crunching across the gravel. When I opened my eyes, I saw blue lights flashing in repeated patterns off the dirt and brush. Blue lights meant cops. It meant I was safe.
    “Counselor,” a voice said from above me. “You can get up now.”
    I craned my neck to look up. It was Bosch, his shadowed face silhouetted by the stars above him.
    “You cut that one pretty close,” he said.

Fifty-two
    The man in the black mask groaned in pain as they cuffed his hands behind his back.
    “My hand! Jesus, you assholes, my hand is broken!”
    I climbed to my feet and saw several men in black windbreakers moving about like ants on a hill. Some of the plastic raid jackets said LAPD on them but most had FBI printed across the back. Soon a helicopter came overhead and lit the entire parking clearing with a spotlight.
    Bosch stepped over to the FBI agents huddling over the man in the mask.
    “Was he hit?” he asked.
    “There is no wound,” an agent said. “The round must have hit the gun, but that still hurts like a son of a bitch.”
    “Where is the gun?”
    “We’re still looking,” the agent said.
    “It may have gone over the side,” another agent said.
    “If we don’t find it tonight, we find it in daylight,” said a third.
    They pulled the man up into a standing position. Two of the FBI agents stood on either side of him, holding him at the elbows.
    “Let’s see who we’ve got,” Bosch said.
    The ski mask was unceremoniously yanked off and a flashlight was aimed point-blank at the man’s face. Bosch turned and looked back at me.
    “Juror number seven,” I said.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Juror number seven from the trial. He didn’t show up today and the Sheriff’s Department was looking for him.”
    Bosch turned back to the man I knew was named David McSweeney.
    “Hold him right there.”
    He then turned and signaled to me to follow him. He walked out