The Last Coyote

on a fresh shirt and the same suit as the day before.
    He headed downtown in his rented Mustang and spent the next two hours in a bureaucratic maze. He first went to the Personnel Office at Parker Center, told a clerk what he wanted and then waited half an hour for a supervisor to tell him all over again. The supervisor told him he had wasted his time and that the information he sought was at City Hall.
    He walked across the street to the City Hall annex, took the stairs up and then crossed on the tramway over Main Street into the white obelisk of City Hall. He took the elevator up to the Finance Department, on nine, showed his ID card to another counter clerk and told her that, in the interest of streamlining the process, maybe he should talk to a supervisor first.
    He waited on a plastic chair in a hallway for twenty minutes before he was ushered into a small office cramped with two desks, four file cabinets and several boxes on the floor. An obese woman with pale skin and black hair, sideburns and the slight hint of a mustache sat behind one of the desks. On her calendar blotter Bosch noticed a food stain from some prior mishap. There was also a reusable plastic quart soda container with a screw-on top and straw on her desk. A plastic name plate on the desk said Mona Tozzi.
    “I’m Carla’s supervisor. She said you are a police officer?”
    “Detective.”
    He pulled the chair away from the empty desk and sat down in front of the fat woman.
    “Excuse me, but Cassidy is probably going to need her chair when she gets back. That’s her desk.”
    “When’s she coming back?”
    “Anytime. She went up for coffee.”
    “Well, maybe if we hurry we’ll be done by then and I’ll be out of here.”
    She gave a short who-do-you-think-you-are laugh that sounded more like a snort. She said nothing.
    “I’ve spent the last hour and a half trying to get just a couple addresses from the city and all I get are a bunch of people who want to send me to someone else or make me wait out in the hall. And what’s funny about that is that I work for the city myself and I’m trying to do a job for the city and the city isn’t giving me the time of day. And, you know, my shrink tells me I’ve got this post-traumatic stress stuff and should take life easier. But, Mona, I gotta tell you, I’m getting pretty fucking frustrated with this.”
    She stared at him a moment, probably wondering if she could possibly make it out the door if he decided to go nuts on her. She then pursed her lips, which served to change her mustache from a hint to an announcement, and took a hard pull on the straw of her soda container. Bosch saw a liquid the color of blood go up through the straw into her mouth. She cleared her throat before talking in a comforting tone.
    “Tell you what, Detective, why don’t you tell me what it is you are trying to find?”
    Bosch put on his hopeful face.
    “Great. I knew there was somebody who cared. I need to get the addresses where pension checks for two different retired officers are sent each month.”
    Her eyebrows mated as she frowned.
    “I’m sorry, but those addresses are strictly confidential. Even within the city. I couldn’t give-”
    “Mona, let me explain something. I’m a homicide investigator. Like you, I work for the city. I have leads on an old unsolved murder that I am following up on. I need to confer with the original case detectives. We’re talking about a case more than thirty years old. A woman was killed, Mona. I can’t find the two detectives that originally worked the case and the police personnel people sent me over here. I need the pension addresses. Are you going to help me?”
    “Detective-is it Borsch?”
    “Bosch.”
    “Detective Bosch, let me explain something to you. Just because you work for the city does not give you access to confidential files. I work for the city but I don’t go over to Parker Center and say let me see this or let me see that. People have a right to privacy. Now, this is what I can do. And it is all I can do. If you give me the two names, I will send a letter to each person asking them to call you. That way, you get your information, I protect the files. Would that work for you? They’ll go out in the mail today. I promise.”
    She smiled but it was the phoniest smile Bosch had seen in days.
    “No, that wouldn’t work at all, Mona. You know, I’m really disappointed.”
    “I can’t help that.”
    “But you can, don’t you see?”
    “I