The Overlook - Michael Connelly [37]
“By the local yokels.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure. I’ll see you at ten, Agent Brenner.”
Bosch closed his phone and started to get out. As he and Ferras crossed the lot to the restaurant’s doors, his partner barraged him with questions.
“Why did you lie to him about the wit, Harry? What’s going on? What are we doing here?”
Bosch held his hands up in a calming motion.
“Hold on, Ignacio. Just hold on. Let’s sit down and have some coffee and maybe something to eat and I’ll tell you what is going on.”
They almost had their pick of the place. Bosch went to a booth in a corner that would allow them a clear view of the front door. The waitress came over quickly. She was an old battle-ax with her steel-gray hair in a tight bun. Working graveyard at a Denny’s in Hollywood had leached the life out of her eyes.
“Harry, it’s been a long time,” she said.
“Hey, Peggy. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve had to chase a case through the night.”
“Well, welcome back. What can I get you and your much younger partner?”
Bosch ignored the dig. He ordered coffee, toast and eggs-over medium well. Ferras ordered an egg-white omelet and a latte. When the waitress smirked and told him that neither could be accomplished he settled for scrambled eggs and regular coffee. As soon as the waitress left them alone Bosch answered Ferras’s questions.
“We’re being cut out,” he said. “That’s what’s going on here.”
“Are you sure? How do you know?”
“Because they’ve already scooped up our victim’s wife and partner and I can guaran-damn-tee you they are not going to let us talk to them.”
“Harry, did they say that? Did they tell you that we couldn’t talk to them? There’s a lot at stake here and I think you’re being a little paranoid. You’re jumping to—”
“Am I? Well, wait and see, partner. Watch and learn.”
“We’re still going to the meeting at nine, aren’t we?”
“Supposedly. Except now it’s at ten. And it will probably be a dog and pony show just for us. They’re not going to tell us anything. They’re going to sweet-talk us and brush us aside. ‘Thanks a lot, fellas, we’ll take it from here.’ Well, fuck that. This is a homicide and nobody, not even the FBI, brushes me off a case.”
“Have a little faith, Harry.”
“I have faith in myself. That’s it. I’ve been on this road before. I know where it goes. On the one hand, who cares? Let them run with the case. But on the other hand, I care. I can’t trust them to do it right. They want the cesium. I want the bastards who terrorized Stanley Kent for two hours and then forced him down on his knees and put two slugs in the back of his head.”
“This is national security, Harry. This is different. There’s a greater good here. You know, the good of the order.”
It sounded to Bosch like Ferras was quoting from an academy textbook or the code of some sort of secret society. He didn’t care. He had his own code.
“The good of the order starts with that guy lying dead on the overlook. If we forget about him, then we can forget about everything else.”
Nervous about debating his partner, Ferras had picked up the salt shaker and was manipulating it in his hand, spilling salt on the table.
“Nobody’s forgetting, Harry. It’s about priorities. I am sure that when things shake out during the meeting, they will share any information relating to the homicide.”
Bosch grew frustrated. He was trying to teach the kid something but the kid wasn’t listening.
“Let me tell you something about sharing with the feds,” Bosch said. “When it comes to sharing information, the FBI eats like an elephant and shits like a mouse. I mean, don’t you get it? There will be no meeting. They put that out there so we would stay in line until nine and now ten, all the while thinking we’re still part of the team. But then we’ll show up there and they’ll delay it again and then they’ll delay it again until they finally trot out with some organizational chart that’s supposed to make us feel like we’re part of everything when the reality is