The Reversal

the evil they held. I lost my appetite then and pushed my plate away. I felt dread come inside me.
    Dread for Melissa Landy and all the other victims in the world.

Thirty-six
    Wednesday, April 7, 11:00 P.M .
    G ilbert and Sullivan were waiting for him in a car parked on Lankershim Boulevard near its northern terminus at San Fernando Road. It was a blighted area populated primarily with used-car lots and repair shops. In the midst of all of this low-rent industry was a run-down motel advertising rooms for fifty dollars a week. The motel had no name on display. Just the lighted sign that said MOTEL .
    Gilbert and Sullivan were Gilberto Reyes and John Sullivan, a pair of narcs assigned to the Valley Enforcement Team, a street-level drug unit. When Bosch was looking for Edward Roman he put the word out in all such units in the department. His assumption from Roman’s record was that he had never gotten away from the life as Sarah Gleason had. There had to be somebody in the department’s narco units with a line on him.
    It paid off with a call from Reyes. He and his partner didn’t have a bead on Roman but they knew him from past interactions on the street and knew where his current trick partner was holed up and apparently awaiting his return. Long-term drug addicts often partnered with a prostitute, offering her protection in exchange for a share of the drugs her earnings bought.
    Bosch pulled his car up behind the narcs’ UC car and parked. He got out and moved up to their car, getting in the back after checking the seat to make sure it was clean of vomit and any other detritus from the people they had transported lately.
    “Detective Bosch, I presume?” said the driver, whom Bosch guessed was Reyes.
    “Yeah, how are you guys?”
    He offered his fist over the seat and they both gave him a bump while identifying themselves. Bosch had it wrong. The one who looked to be of Latin origin was Sullivan and the one who looked like a bag of white bread was Reyes.
    “Gilbert and Sullivan, huh?”
    “That’s what they called us when we got partnered,” Sullivan said. “Kind of stuck.”
    Bosch nodded. That was enough for the meet-and-greet. Everybody had a nickname and a story to go with it. These guys together didn’t add up to how old Bosch was and they probably had no clue who Gilbert and Sullivan were, anyway.
    “So you know Eddie Roman?”
    “We’ve had the pleasure,” Reyes said. “Just another piece of human shit that floats around out here.”
    “But like I told you on the phone, we ain’t seen him in a month or so,” Sullivan added. “So we got you his next best thing. His onion. She’s over there in room three.”
    “What’s her name?”
    Sullivan laughed and Bosch didn’t get it.
    “Her name is Sonia Reyes,” said Reyes. “No relation.”
    “That he knows of,” Sullivan added.
    He burst into laughter, which Bosch ignored.
    “Spell it for me,” he said.
    He took out his notebook and wrote it down.
    “And you’re sure she’s in the room?”
    “We’re sure,” Reyes said.
    “Okay, anything else I should know before I go in?”
    “No,” Reyes said, “but we were planning on goin’ in with you. She might get squirrelly with you.”
    Bosch reached forward and clapped him on the shoulder.
    “No, I got this. I don’t want a crowd in the room.”
    Reyes nodded. Message delivered. Bosch did not want any witnesses to what he might need to do here.
    “But thanks for the help. It will be noted.”
    “An important case, huh?” Sullivan said.
    Bosch opened the door and got out.
    “They all are,” he said.
    He closed the door, slapped the roof twice and walked away.
    The hotel had an eight-foot security fence around it. Bosch had to press a buzzer and hold his badge up to a camera. He was buzzed into the compound but walked right by the office and down a breezeway leading to the rooms.
    “Hey!” a voice called from behind.
    Bosch turned and saw a man with an unbuttoned shirt leaning out the door of the motel’s office.
    “Where the fuck you goin’, dude?”
    “Go back inside and shut the door. This is police business.”
    “Don’t matter, man. I let you in but this is private property. You can’t just come through the—”
    Bosch started quickly moving back up the breezeway toward the man. The man took his measure and backed down without Bosch saying a word.
    “Never mind, man. You’re good.”
    He quickly stepped back inside and closed the door. Bosch turned back and