The Closers

connected to an old PDU investigation and I needed to get into Special Archives to look for a file. He sent Lieutenant Hohman with me. We went in, found the file and I had to look through it while Hohman sat across a table from me. You know what, Harry? There are a hell of a lot of files in Special Archives.”
    “Where all the bodies are buried…”
    Bosch wanted to say something more but wasn’t sure how to say it. Rider looked at him and read him.
    “What, Harry?”
    He didn’t say anything at first but she waited him out.
    “Kiz, you said the man on six trusts you. Do you trust him?”
    She looked him in the eye when she answered.
    “Like I trust you, Harry. Okay?”
    Bosch looked at her.
    “That’s good enough for me.”
    Rider made a move to turn down Arcadia but Bosch pointed toward the old pueblo, the place where the City of Angels was founded. He wanted to take the long way and walk through.
    “I haven’t been down here in a while. Let’s check this out.”
    They cut through the circular courtyard where the padres blessed the animals every Easter and then past the Instituto Cultural Mexicano. They followed the curving arcade of cheap souvenir booths and churro stands. Recorded mariachi music came from unseen speakers, but in counterpoint was the sound of a live guitar.
    They found the musician sitting on a bench in front of the Avila Adobe. They stopped and listened as the old man played a Mexican ballad Bosch thought he had heard before but could not identify.
    Bosch studied the mud-walled structure behind the musician and wondered if Don Francisco Avila had any idea what he was helping to set in motion when he staked his claim to the spot in 1818. A city would grow tall and wide from this place. A city as great as any other. And just as mean. A destination city, a city of invention and reinvention. A place where the dream seemed as easy to reach as the sign they put up on the hill, but a place where the reality was always something different. The road to that sign on the hill had a locked gate across it.
    It was a city full of haves and have-nots, movie stars and extras, drivers and the driven, predators and prey. The fat and the hungry and little room in between. A city that despite all of that still had them lining up and waiting every day behind the bomb barriers to get in and stay in.
    Bosch pulled the fold of money from his pocket and dropped a five in the old musician’s basket. He and Rider then cut through the old Cucamonga Winery, its cask rooms converted into galleries and artists’ stalls, and out to Alameda. They crossed the street to the train station, its clock tower rising in front of them. In the front walkway they passed a sundial with an inscription cut into its granite pedestal.

    Vision to See
    Faith to Believe
    Courage to Do

    Union Station was designed to mirror the city it served and the way in which it was supposed to work. It was a melting pot of architectural styles-Spanish Colonial, Mission, Streamline Moderne, Art Deco, Southwestern and Moorish design flourishes among them. But unlike the rest of the city, where the pot more often than not boiled over, the styles at the train station blended smoothly into something unique, something beautiful. Bosch loved it for that.
    Through the glass doors they came into the cavernous entry hall, and an archway three stories tall led to the immense waiting room beyond. As Bosch took it in he remembered that he used to walk over here not only for cigarettes, but also to renew himself a little bit. Going to Union Station was like paying a visit to church, a cathedral where the graceful lines of design and function and civic pride all intersected. In the central waiting room the voices of travelers rose into its high empty spaces and were transformed into a choir of languid whispers.
    “I love this place,” Rider said. “Did you ever see the movie
Blade Runner
?”
    Bosch nodded. He had seen it.
    “This was the police station, right?” he asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Did you ever see
True Confessions
?” he asked.
    “No, was it good?”
    “Yeah, you should see it. Another take on the Black Dahlia and LAPD conspiracy.”
    She groaned.
    “Thanks, but I don’t think that’s what I need right now.”
    They got cups of coffee at Union Bagel and then walked into the waiting room, where rows of brown leather seats were lined up like luxurious pews. Bosch looked up as he was always drawn to do. Six huge chandeliers hung forty feet