The Closers

Verloren.
    “After your daughter’s death you lost the restaurant?”
    “That’s right. It was the best thing that could have happened. I needed that to happen for me to find out who I really was. And to make my way here.”
    Bosch knew that such emotional defenses were fragile. Following Verloren’s logic it could be said that his daughter’s death was the best thing that could have happened because it led to the loss of the restaurant, which triggered all the wonderful personal discoveries he had made. It was bullshit and both men at the table knew it; one just couldn’t admit it.
    “Mr. Verloren, talk to me,” Bosch said. “Leave all the self-help lessons for your meetings and the ragged people in line. Tell me how you tripped. Tell me how you fell into that black hole.”
    “I just did.”
    “Not everybody who loses a child falls so far into the hole. You’re not the only one this has happened to, Mr. Verloren. Some people end up on TV, some run for Congress. What happened to you? Why are you different? And don’t tell me it is because you loved your kid more. We all love our kids.”
    Verloren was quiet a moment. He pressed his lips tightly together as he composed. Bosch could tell he had made him angry. But that was okay. He needed to push things.
    “All right,” Verloren finally said. “All right.”
    But that was all. Bosch could see the muscles of his jaw working. The pain of the last seventeen years had set in his face. Bosch could read it like a menu. Appetizers, entrees, desserts. Frustration, anger, irredeemable loss.
    “All right what, Mr. Verloren?”
    Verloren nodded. He removed the final barricade.
    “I could blame you people but I must blame myself. I abandoned my daughter in death, Detective. And then the only place I could hide from the betrayal was in the bottle. The bottle opens up the black hole. Do you understand?”
    Bosch nodded.
    “I am trying to. Tell me what you mean about blaming
you people.
Do you mean cops? Do you mean white people?”
    “I mean all of it.”
    Verloren turned in his seat so that his back was against the tile wall next to the table. He looked toward the door to the alley. He wasn’t looking at Bosch. Bosch wanted the eye contact, but he was willing to let things ride as long as Verloren kept talking.
    “Let’s start with the cops, then,” Bosch said. “Why do you blame the cops? What did the cops do?”
    “You expect me to talk to you about what
you
people did?”
    Bosch thought carefully before responding. He felt this was the make-or-break point of the interview and he sensed that this man had something important to give up.
    “We start with the fact that you loved your daughter, right?” Bosch said.
    “Of course.”
    “Well, Mr. Verloren, what happened to her should never have happened. I can’t do anything about it. But I can try to speak for her. That’s why I am here. What the cops did seventeen years ago is not what I am going to do. Most of them are dead now anyway. If you still love your daughter, if you love the memory of her, then you will tell me the story. You will help me speak for her. It’s your only way of making up for what you did back then.”
    Verloren started nodding halfway through Bosch’s plea. Bosch knew he had him, that he would open up. It was about redemption. It didn’t matter how many years had gone by. Redemption was always the brass ring.
    A single tear rolled down Verloren’s left cheek, almost imperceptible against the dark skin. A man in dirty kitchen whites came into the break area with a clipboard in hand but Bosch quickly waved him away from Verloren. Bosch waited and finally Verloren spoke.
    “I chose myself over her and in the end I lost myself anyway,” he said.
    “How did that happen?”
    Verloren covered his mouth with his hand, as if to try to keep the secrets from being dispelled. Finally he dropped it and spoke.
    “I read one day in the newspaper that my daughter had been killed with a gun that came from a burglary. Green and Garcia, they hadn’t told me that. So I asked Detective Green about it and he told me the man with the gun had it because he was afraid. He was a Jewish man and there had been threats against him. I thought…”
    He stopped there and Bosch had to prompt him.
    “You thought that maybe Rebecca had been targeted because of her mixed races? Because her father was black?”
    Verloren nodded.
    “I thought, yes, because from time to time there would be a comment or