The Drop

of the PAB and over to Spring Street, where he crossed and entered the Los Angeles Times Building.
    The Times had a full cafeteria on the bottom floor. The PAB had snack machines and that was it. In what was billed as a gesture of neighborliness when the new police headquarters was opened a couple years earlier, the Times had offered use of its cafeteria to all PAB officers and workers. Bosch had always thought it was a hollow gesture, primarily motivated by the financially beleaguered newspaper’s hope to make at least the cafeteria profitable while no other department in the once powerful institution was.
    After badging his way past the security desk, he entered the cafeteria that had been put in the cavernous space where the old printing presses had turned for decades. It was a long room with a buffet line on one side and rows of tables on the other. He quickly scanned the room, hoping to see Chu before his partner saw him.
    Chu was sitting on the far side of the room at a table with his back turned to Bosch. He was with a woman who looked like she was of Latin descent. She was writing in a notebook. Bosch walked up to their table, pulled out a chair and sat down. Both Chu and the woman looked like they were being joined at the table by Charles Manson.
    “I changed my mind about the coffee,” Bosch said.
    “Harry,” Chu blurted out. “I was just—”
    “Telling Emily here about our case.”
    Bosch looked directly at Gomez-Gonzmart.
    “Isn’t that right, Emily?” he said. “Or can I call you GoGo?”
    “Look, Harry, it’s not what you think,” Chu said.
    “Really? It’s not? Because it looks to me like you’re laying out our case for the Times right here on their home court.”
    He quickly reached out and grabbed the notebook off the table.
    “Hey!” Gomez-Gonzmart cried. “That’s mine.”
    Bosch read the notes on the exposed page. The notes were in some sort of shorthand but he saw repeated notations about McQ and the phrase watch match = key . It was enough to confirm his suspicions. He handed her the notebook.
    “I’m going,” she said as she snatched the notebook out of his hands.
    “Not quite yet,” Bosch said. “Because you two are going to sit here and work out a new arrangement.”
    “You don’t tell me what to do!” she snapped.
    She pushed back her chair so hard it fell over as she stood up.
    “You’re right, I don’t,” Bosch said. “But I do have your boyfriend’s future and career in my hands here. So if any of that means anything to you, then you’ll sit down and hear me out.”
    He waited and watched her. She pulled her purse strap over her shoulder, ready to walk off.
    “Emily?” Chu said.
    “Look, I’m sorry,” she said. “I have a story to write.”
    She walked away, leaving Chu’s face drained of blood. He stared into the distance until Bosch snapped him out of it.
    “Chu, what the fuck did you think you were doing?”
    “I thought . . .”
    “Whatever it was, you got burned. You fucked up and you better start thinking of a way to back her off. What exactly did you just tell her?”
    “I . . . I told her we brought McQuillen in and that we were going to try to turn him in the room. I told her it wouldn’t matter if he confessed or not if the watch matched the wound.”
    Bosch was so angry, he had to hold back from swinging at Chu and smacking the back of his head.
    “When did you start talking to her?”
    “The day we got the case. I knew her from before. She did a story a few years ago and we had a few dates. I always liked her.”
    “So she calls up this week and starts leading you by the dick right into my case.”
    Chu turned and looked at him for the first time.
    “Yeah, you got it, Harry. Your case. Not our case. Your case.”
    “But why, David? Why would you do this?”
    “You did this. And don’t start calling me David. I’m surprised you even know my first name.”
    “What? I did this? Are you—”
    “Yeah, you. You cut me out, Harry. You wouldn’t tell me shit and you cut me out, made me chase down the other case while you ran this one. And this wasn’t the first time. More like every time. You don’t do that to a partner. If you had treated me right, I never would have done it!”
    Bosch composed himself and calmed his voice. He sensed they had drawn the attention of people sitting at nearby tables. Newspaper people.
    “We’re not partners anymore,” Bosch said. “We finish out these two cases and then you put in for