The Overlook

car.”
    “You’re jumping about five links in the chain, you know. Lieutenant Gandle is going to have our asses for this.”
    “He’ll have
my
ass. You stay in the car. It will be like you weren’t even there.”
    “Except what one partner does, the other always gets equal blame for. You know that. That’s how it works. That’s why they call them
partners
, Harry.”
    “Look, I’ll take care of it. There’s no time to go through proper channels. The chief should know what is what and I’m going to tell him. He’ll probably end up thanking us for the heads-up.”
    “Yeah, well, Lieutenant Gandle won’t be thanking us.”
    “Then I’ll deal with him, too.”
    The partners drove the rest of the way in silence.
    The Los Angeles Police Department was one of the most insular bureaucracies in the world. It had survived for more than a century by rarely looking outward for ideas, answers or leaders. A few years earlier, when the city council decided that after years of scandal and community upset it required leadership from outside the department, it was only the second time in the LAPD’s long history that the position of chief of police was not filled by promoting from within the ranks. Subsequently, the outsider who was brought in to run the show was viewed with tremendous curiosity, not to mention skepticism. His movements and habits were documented and the data was all dumped into an informal police pipeline that connected the department’s ten thousand officers like the blood vessels in a closed fist. The intelligence was passed around in roll calls and locker rooms, text messages to and from patrol car computers, e-mails and phone calls, at cop bars and backyard barbecues. It meant street officers in South L.A. knew what Hollywood premiere the new chief had attended the night before. Vice officers in the Valley knew where he took his dress uniforms to be pressed and the gang detail in Venice knew what supermarket his wife liked to shop at.
    It also meant that Detective Harry Bosch and his partner Ignacio Ferras knew what doughnut shop the chief stopped at for coffee every morning on his way into Parker Center.
    At 8 a.m. Bosch pulled into the parking lot of the Donut Hole but saw no sign of the chief’s unmarked car. The business was an aptly named establishment in the flats below the hillside neighborhoods of Los Feliz. Bosch killed the engine and looked over at his partner.
    “You staying?”
    Ferras was looking straight ahead through the windshield. He nodded without looking at Bosch.
    “Suit yourself,” Bosch said.
    “Listen, Harry, no offense but this isn’t working. You don’t want a partner. You want a gofer and somebody who doesn’t question anything you do. I think I’m going to talk to the lieutenant about hooking me up with someone else.”
    Bosch looked at him and composed his thoughts.
    “Ignacio, it’s our first case together. Don’t you think you should give it some time? That’s all Gandle’s going to tell you. He’s going to tell you that you don’t want to start out in RHD with a reputation as a guy who cuts and runs on his partner.”
    “I’m not cutting and running. It’s just not working right.”
    “Ignacio, you’re making a mistake.”
    “No, I think it would be best. For both of us.”
    Bosch stared at him for a long moment before turning to the door.
    “Like I said, suit yourself.”
    Bosch got out and headed toward the doughnut shop. He was disappointed in Ferras’s reaction and decisions but knew he should cut him some slack. The guy had a kid on the way and needed to play it safe. Bosch was not one to ever play it safe and it had lost him more than a partner in the past. He would take another shot at changing the young man’s mind once the case settled down.
    Inside the shop Bosch waited in line behind two people and then ordered a black coffee from the Asian man behind the counter.
    “No doughnut?”
    “No, just coffee.”
    “Cappuccino?”
    “No, black coffee.”
    Disappointed with the meager sale, the man turned to a brewer on the back wall and filled a cup. When he turned back around, Bosch had his badge out.
    “Has the chief been in yet?”
    The man hesitated. He had no idea about the intelligence pipeline and was unsure about responding. He knew he could lose a high-profile customer if he spoke out of turn.
    “It’s all right,” Bosch said. “I’m supposed to meet him here. I’m late.”
    Bosch tried to smile as though he was in