Michael Connelly (93 page)

“I guess Zorrillo would have been very proud,” Bosch said, “if he had been here.”

It was true, Zorrillo had not come. Bosch had found himself checking the empty box Aguila had pointed out but it had remained
empty. Now, with one fight to go, it seemed unlikely that the man who bred the bulls for this day’s fights would arrive.

“Do you wish to leave, Harry?”

“No. I want to watch.”

“Good, then. This match will be the finest and most artful. Silvestri is Mexicali’s greatest matador. Another
cervesa?
”

“Yeah. I’ll get this one. What do you —”

“No. It is my duty, a small means of repaying.”

“Whatever,” Bosch said.

“Lock the door.”

He did. Then he looked at his ticket, on which the names of the bullfighters were printed. Cristobal Silvestri. Aguila had
said he was the most artful and bravest fighter he had ever seen. A cheer went up from the crowd as the bull, another huge
black monster, charged into the ring to confront his killers. The toreros began moving about him with green and blue capes
opening like flowers. Bosch was struck by the ritual and pageantry of the bullfights, even the sloppy ones. It was not a sport,
he was sure of this. But it was something. A test. A test of skills and, yes, bravery, resolve. He believed that if he had
the opportunity he would want to go often to this arena to be a witness.

There was a knock on the door and Bosch got up to let Aguila in. But when he opened the door there were two men waiting. One
he did not recognize. The other he did but it took him a few moments to place him. It was Grena, the captain of investigations.
From what little he could see past their two figures, there was no sign of Aguila.

“Señor Bosch, may we come in?”

Bosch stepped back but only Grena entered. The other man turned his back as if to guard the doorway. Grena closed and locked
it.

“So we won’t be disturbed, yes?” he said as he scanned the room. He did this at length, as if it were the size of a basketball
court and needed careful study in determining there was no one else present.

“It is my custom to come for the last fight, Señor Bosch. Particularly, you see, when Silvestri is in the ring. A great champion.
I hope you will enjoy this.”

Bosch nodded and casually looked out into the ring. The bull was still lively and moving about the ring while the toreros
sidestepped and waited for it to slow.

“Carlos Aguila? He has gone?”

“
Cervesa
. But you probably already know that, Captain. So why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

“What is ‘up’? How do you mean?”

“I mean what do you want, Captain. What are you doing here?”

“Ah,
si,
you want to watch our little pageant and do not wish to be bothered by business. Get to the point, is the way it is said,
I believe.”

“Yeah, that works.”

There was a cheer and both men looked out into the ring. Silvestri had entered and was stalking the bull. He wore a white-and-gold
suit of lights and he walked in a regal manner, his back straight and his head canted downward, as he sternly studied his
adversary. The bull was still game as it charged about the ring, whipping the blue and yellow banderillas stuck in its neck
from side to side.

Bosch pulled his attention back to Grena. The police captain was wearing a black jacket of soft leather, its right cuff barely
covering his Rolex.

“My point is I want to know what you are doing, Señor Bosch. You don’t come down here for bullfights. So why are you here?
I am told identification of Señor Gutierrez-Llosa has been made. Why do you stay? Why do you bother Carlos Aguila with your
time?”

Bosch was not going to tell this man anything but he did not want to endanger Aguila. Bosch would be leaving eventually, but
not Aguila.

“I am leaving in the morning. My work is completed.”

“Then you should leave tonight, eh? An early start?”

“Maybe.”

Grena nodded.

“You see, I have had an inquiry from a Lieutenant Pounds of the LAPD. He is very anxious at your return. He asked me to tell
you this personally. Why is that?”

Bosch looked at him and shook his head.

“I don’t know. You would have to ask him.”

There was a long silence during which Grena’s attention was drawn to the ring again. Bosch looked that way, too, just in time
to see Silvestri leading the charging bull past him with his cape.

Grena looked at him for a long time and then smiled, probably the way Ted Bundy had smiled at the girls on campus.

“You know the art of the cape?”

Bosch didn’t answer and the two just stared at each other. A thin smile continued to play across the captain’s dark face.

“
El arte de la muleta,
” Grena finally said. “It is deception. It is the art of survival. The matador uses the cape to fool death, to make death
go where he is not. But he must be brave. He must risk himself over the horns of death. The closer death comes, the braver
he becomes. Never for a moment can he show fear. Never show fear. To do so is to lose. It is to die. This is the art, my friend.”

He nodded and Bosch just stared at him.

Grena smiled broadly now and turned to the door. He opened it and the other man was still there. As he turned to reclose the
door he looked at Bosch and said, “Have a good trip, Detective Harry Bosch. Tonight, eh?”

Bosch said nothing and the door was closed. He sat there for a moment but his attention was drawn by the cheers to the ring.
Silvestri had dropped to one knee in the center of the ring and had lured the bull to a charge. He remained stoically fixed
in position until the beast was on him. He then moved the cape away from his body in a smooth flow. The bull rushed by within
inches and Silvestri was untouched. It was beautiful and the cheers rose from the stadium. The unlocked door to the box opened
and Aguila stepped in.

“Grena, what did he want?”

Bosch didn’t answer. He held the binoculars up and checked Zorrillo’s box. The pope wasn’t there but now Grena was, staring
back at him with the same thin smile on his lips.

Silvestri felled the bull with a single thrust of his sword, the blade diving deep between its shoulders and slicing through
the heart. Instant death. Bosch looked over at the man with the dagger and thought he saw a trace of disappointment on his
hardened face. His work wasn’t needed.

The cheering for Silvestri’s expert kill was deafening. And it did not let up as the matador made a circuit around the ring,
his arms up to receive the applause. Roses, pillows, women’s high-heeled shoes showered down into the ring. The bullfighter
beamed in the adulation. The noise was so loud that it was quite some time before Bosch realized that the pager on his belt
was sounding its call to him.

At nine o’clock Bosch and Aguila turned off Avenida Cristobal Colon onto a perimeter road that skirted Rodolfo Sanchez Taboada
Aeropuerto Internacional. The roadway passed several old quonset-hut hangars and then a larger grouping of newer structures.
On one of these was a sign that said Aero Carga. The huge bay doors had been spread a few feet and the opening was lit from
the inside. It was their destination, a DEA front. Bosch pulled into the lot in front and parked near several other cars.
He noticed that most of them had California plates.

As soon as he stepped out of the Caprice he was approached by four DEA types in blue plastic windbreakers. He showed his ID
and evidently passed muster after one of them consulted a clipboard.

“And you?” the clipboard man said to Aguila.

“He’s with me,” Bosch said.

“We have you down as a solo entry, Detective Bosch. Now we have a problem.”

“I guess I forgot to RSVP that I’d bring a date,” Bosch said.

“It’s not very funny, Detective Bosch.”

“Of course not. But he’s my partner. He stays with me.”

Clipboard had a distressed look on his face. He was an Anglo with a ruddy complexion and hair that had been bleached almost
white by the sun. He looked as though he had been watching the border a long time. He turned to look back at the hangar, as
if hoping for direction on how to handle this. On the back of his windbreaker Bosch saw the large yellow
DEA
letters.

“Better get Ramos,” Bosch said. “If my partner goes, I go. Then where’s the integrity of the operation’s security?”

He looked over at Aguila, who was standing stiffly with the three other agents around him like bouncers ready to toss somebody
out of a nightclub on the Sunset Strip.

“Think about it,” Bosch continued. “Anybody who’s come this far has to go the distance. Otherwise, you got someone outside
the circle. Out there and unaccounted for. Go ask Ramos.”

Clipboard hesitated again, then told everybody to stay cool and took a radio from the pocket of his jacket. He radioed to
someone called Staff Leader that there was a problem in the lot. Then everybody stood around for a few moments in silence.
Bosch looked over at Aguila and when their eyes met he winked. Then he saw Ramos and Corvo, the agent from L.A., walking briskly
toward them.

“What’s this shit, Bosch,” Ramos started before he got to the car. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve compromised the whole
fucking operation. I gave explicit instru —”

“He’s my partner on this, Ramos. He knows what I know. We are together on this. If he’s out, then so am I. And when we leave,
I go across the border. To L.A. I don’t know where he goes. How will that hold with your theory on who can be trusted?”

In the light from the hangar, Bosch could see the pulse beating in an artery on Ramos’s neck.

“See,” Bosch said, “if you let him leave, you are trusting him. So, if you trust him, you might as well let him stay.”

“Fuck you, Bosch.”

Corvo put his hand on Ramos’s arm and stepped forward.

“Bosch, if he fucks up or this operation in any way becomes compromised, I will make it known. You know what I mean? It’ll
be known in L.A. that you brought this guy in.”

He made a signal across the car to the others and they stepped away from Aguila. The moonlight reflected on Corvo’s face and
Bosch saw the scar that split his beard on the right side. He wondered how many times the DEA agent would be telling the story
of the knife fight tonight.

“And another thing,” Ramos threw in. “He goes in naked. We only have one more vest. That’s for your ass, Bosch. So if he gets
hit, it’s on you.”

“Right,” Bosch said. “I get it. No matter what goes wrong, it’s my ass. I got it. I also have a vest in my trunk. He can use
yours. I like my own.”

“Briefing’s at twenty-two hundred,” Ramos said as he walked back toward the hangar.

Corvo followed and Bosch and Aguila fell in behind him. The other agents brought up the rear. Inside the cavernous hangar
Bosch saw there were three black helicopters sitting side by side in the bay area. There were several men, most in black jumpsuits,
milling about and drinking coffee from white cups. Two of the helicopters were wide-bodied personnel transport craft. Bosch
recognized them. They were UH-1Ns. Hueys. The distinctive whopwhop of their rotors would forever be the sound of Vietnam to
him. The third craft was smaller and sleeker. It looked like a craft manufactured for commercial use, like a news or police
chopper, but it had been converted into a gunship. Bosch recognized the gun turret mounted on the right side of the copter’s
body. Beneath the cockpit another mount held an array of equipment, including a spotlight and night-vision sensor. The men
in the black jumpsuits were stripping the white numbers and letters off the tail sections of the craft. They were preparing
for a total blackout, a night assault.

Bosch noticed Corvo come up next to him.

“We call it the Lynx,” he said, nodding to the smallest of the three craft. “Mostly use ’em in Central and South America ops,
but we snagged this one on its way down. It’s for night work. You’ve got total night vision set up — infrared, heat-pattern
displays. It will be the in-air command post tonight.”

Bosch just nodded. He was not as impressed with the hardware as Corvo was. The DEA supervisor seemed more animated than during
their meeting at the Code 7. His dark eyes were darting around the hangar, taking it all in. Bosch realized that he probably
missed fieldwork. He was stuck in L.A. while guys like Ramos got to play the war games.

“And that’s where you’re going to be, you and your partner,” Corvo said, nodding at the Lynx. “With me. Nice and safe. Observers.”

“You in charge of this show, or is Ramos?”

“I’m in charge.”

“Hope so.” Then, looking at the war chopper, Bosch said, “Tell me something, Corvo, we want Zorrillo alive, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay, then, when we get him, what’s the plan? He’s a Mexican citizen. You can’t take him over the border. You just going
to give him to the Mexicans? He’ll be running the penitentiary they put him in within a month. That is, if they put him in
a pen.”

It was a problem every cop in southern California had come up against. Mexico refused to extradite its citizens to the United
States for crimes committed there. But it would prosecute them at home. The problem was that it was well known that the country’s
biggest drug dealers turned penitentiary stays into hotel visits. Women, drugs, alcohol and other comforts could be had as
long as the money was paid. One story was that a convicted drug lord had actually taken over the warden’s office and residence
at a prison in Juarez. He had paid the warden $100,000 for the privilege, about four times what the warden made in a year.
Now the warden was an inmate at the prison.