The Drop

for movie cars. Bosch had been in the car storage facility before on a case. He had taken his time walking through. It was like a museum with every car that had ever caught his eye as a teenager.
    The two hangar doors of B&W were wide open. Bosch and Chu walked in. In the moment of blindness when their eyes adjusted from the transition of sunlight to shadows, they were almost hit by a taxi heading out to the street. They jumped back and let the black-and-white-checked Impala go between them.
    “Asshole,” Chu said.
    There were cars sitting dormant and cars up on jacks being worked on by mechanics in greasy coveralls. At the far end of the large space, two picnic tables sat next to a couple of snack and beverage machines. A handful of drivers were hanging out there, waiting for their chariots to pass muster with the mechanics.
    To their right was a small office with windows that were so dirty they were opaque. But behind them Harry could see shapes and movement. He led Chu that way.
    Bosch knocked once on the door and went in without waiting for a response. They stepped into an office with three desks pushed up against three of the walls and overflowing with paperwork. Two of them were occupied by men who had not turned to see who had entered. Both of them were wearing headsets. The man on the right was dispatching a car to a pickup at the Roosevelt Hotel. Bosch waited for him to finish.
    “Excuse me,” he said.
    Both men turned to look at the intruders. Bosch was ready with his badge out.
    “I need to ask a couple questions.”
    “Well, we’re running a business here and don’t—”
    A phone rang and the man on the left punched a button on his desk to activate his headset.
    “Black and White. . . . Yes, ma’am, that will be five to ten minutes. Would you like us to call upon arrival?”
    He wrote something down on a yellow Post-it, then tore it off the pad and handed it to the dispatcher so he could send a car to the address.
    “Car’s on the way, ma’am,” he said, then punched the desk button to disconnect the call.
    He swiveled in his seat to face Bosch and Chu.
    “You see?” he said. “We don’t have any time for your bullshit.”
    “What bullshit is that?”
    “I don’t know, whatever you’re spinning today. We know what you’re doing.”
    Another call came in, and the info was taken and moved to the dispatcher. Bosch stepped into the space between the two desks. If the call taker wanted to pass a Post-it to the dispatcher now, he’d have to go through Bosch.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bosch said.
    “Good, then neither do I,” the call taker said. “We can just never mind this whole thing. Have a good day.”
    “Except I still need to ask a couple questions.”
    The phone buzzed again but this time when the man reached for the desk button, Bosch was quicker. He pushed it once to connect the call, then again to disconnect it.
    “What the fuck you doing, man? This is our business here.”
    “It’s my business being here, too. They’ll just call somebody else. Maybe Regent Cab will get their business.”
    Bosch checked him for a reaction and saw his tight-lipped response.
    “Now, who is driver twenty-six?”
    “We don’t give drivers numbers. We give cars numbers.”
    His tone was meant to convey that he thought this was the dumbest pair of cops going.
    “Then tell me who was driving car twenty-six about nine thirty Sunday night.”
    The call taker leaned back so he could look around Bosch at the dispatcher and they exchanged a silent message.
    “You got a warrant for that?” the dispatcher asked. “We’re not just going to give you a guy’s name so you can go out and trump up another bullshit arrest on us.”
    “I don’t need a warrant,” Bosch said.
    “The hell you don’t!” cried the dispatcher.
    “What I need is your cooperation, and if I don’t get it, those deuces you’re worried about are going to be the least of your problems. And at the end of the day, I’m still going to get what I want. So decide right now how you want to play it.”
    The two B&W men looked at each other again. Bosch looked at Chu. If the bluff didn’t work, they might have to amp up the situation. Bosch checked Chu’s face for any sign of retreat. There was none.
    The dispatcher opened a binder that was to the side of his desk. From Bosch’s angle he could see it was some sort of schedule. He turned back three pages to Sunday.
    “All right, Hooch Rollins had