Trunk Music - Michael Connelly [71]
“What decision?”
“Whether or not to whack him. If Joey thinks Lucky might flip, he’ll just take him out to the desert somewhere and we’ll never see him again. Nobody will.”
Bosch nodded.
“So you go make your call and I’ll call over to the prosecutor’s office, see if we can’t get an X hearing scheduled. I think the sooner the better. If you can get Lucky to L.A., he’s going to be even more likely to start thinking about cutting a deal. That is, if we don’t break him first.”
“It’d be nice to have the ballistics before the extradition hearing. If we get a ballistics match, it will seal it. But things don’t move so quickly in L.A., if you know what I mean. I doubt there’s even been an autopsy.”
“Well, make your call and then we’ll reconnoiter.”
Bosch used an empty desk next to Iverson’s to make his call. He got Billets at her desk and he could tell she was eating. He quickly updated her on his failed effort to scam Goshen into talking and the plans to have the prosecutor’s office in Las Vegas handle the extradition hearing.
“What do you want to do about the gun?” he asked when he was done.
“I want it back here as soon as possible. Edgar talked somebody over at the coroner’s office into doing the cut this afternoon. We should have the bullets by tonight. If we have the gun, we can take the whole thing over to ballistics tomorrow morning. Today’s Tuesday. I doubt there’d be an extradition hearing before Thursday. We’d have an answer from ballistics by then.”
“Okay, I’ll grab a plane.”
“Good.”
Bosch sensed something off about her tone. She was preoccupied by something other than ballistics and what she was eating.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “What’s up? Is there something I don’t know about?”
She hesitated a moment and Bosch waited her out.
“Actually, something’s come up.”
Bosch’s face flashed warm. He guessed that Felton had screwed him and told Billets about the Eleanor Wish situation.
“What is it?”
“I’ve made an ID on the guy who was in Tony Aliso’s office.”
“That’s great,” Bosch said, relieved but confused by her somber tone. “Who?”
“No, it’s not great. It was Dominic Carbone from OCID.”
Bosch was stunned into silence for a long moment.
“Carbone? What the…?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got some feelers out. I’d like you back here until we figure out what to do with this. Goshen will keep until the extradition hearing. He’s not going to be talking to anyone but his lawyer. If you can get back, I’d like us all to get together and hash this around. I haven’t talked to Kiz and Jerry yet today. They’re still working the financial trail.”
“How’d you make the ID on Carbone?”
“Pure luck. Things were kind of slow after I talked to you and the captain out there this morning. I took a drive downtown and stopped by Central. I’ve got a friend, she’s a lieutenant, too, up in OC. Lucinda Barnes, you know her?”
“No.”
“Anyway, I went up to see her. I wanted to kind of feel around, maybe get an idea why they took the pass on this one. And, lo and behold, we’re sitting there talking and this guy walks through the squad and I think I recognize him but I’m not sure from where. I ask who he is and she tells me that’s Carbone. And that’s when I remembered. He’s the guy on the tape. He had his suit jacket off and his sleeves rolled up. I even saw the tattoo. It’s him.”
“You tell all this to your friend?”
“Hell no. I just acted natural and got the hell out of there. I tell you, Harry, I don’t like this inside stuff. I don’t know what to do.”
“We’ll figure something. Look, I’m going to go. I’ll be there as soon as I can. What you might want to do in the meantime, Lieutenant, is try to use some juice with ballistics. Tell them we’ll be coming in with a code three in the morning.”
Billets said she would do what she could