the Flamingo. He was getting two pensions and took good care of Olive.”

“Speaking of which, who’s signing those pension checks these days?”

Bosch looked at Olive Eno to make his point. The other woman was silent a long moment, then went on the offense.

“Look, I could get power of attorney. Look at her. It wouldn’t be a problem. I take care of her, mister.”

“Yeah, you feed her applesauce.”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“You want somebody to make sure or do you want to let it end right here? I don’t really care what you’re doing, lady. I don’t really care if you’re even her sister or not. If I was betting, I’d say you’re not. But I don’t really care right now. I’m busy. I just want to look through Eno’s things.”

He stopped there and let her think about it. He looked at his watch.

“No warrant then, right?”

“I don’t have a warrant. I’ve got a cab waiting. You make me get a warrant and I’m going to stop being such a nice guy.”

Her eyes went up and down his body as if to measure how nice and how not nice he could be.

“The office is this way.”

She said the words as if they were bites out of wood planks. She swiftly led him down the hall again and then off to the left into a study. There was an old steel desk as the room’s centerpiece, a couple of four-drawer file cabinets, an extra chair and not much else.

“After he died, Olive and I moved everything into those file cabinets and haven’t looked at it since.”

“They’re all full?”

“All eight. Have at it.”

Bosch reached his hand into his pocket and took out another twenty-dollar bill. He tore it in half and gave one side to Shivone.

“Take that out to the cab driver. Tell her I’m going to be a little longer than I thought.”

She exhaled loudly, snatched the half and left the room. After she was gone Bosch went to the desk and opened each of the drawers. The first two he tried were empty. The next contained stationery and office supplies. The fourth drawer contained a checkbook that he quickly leafed through and saw it was an account covering household expenses. There was also a file containing recent receipts and other records. The last drawer in the desk was locked.

He started with the bottom file drawers and worked his way up. Nothing in the first few seemed even remotely connected with what Bosch was working on. There were files labeled with the names of different casinos and gaming organizations. The files in another drawer were labeled by people’s names. Bosch looked through a few of these and determined they were files on known casino cheats. Eno had built a library of home intelligence files. By this time, Shivone had come back from her errand and had taken the seat opposite the desk. She was watching Bosch and he threw a few idle questions at her while he looked.

“So what did Claude do for the casinos?”

“He was a bird dog.”

“What’s that?”

“Kind’ve an undercover thing. He mingled in the casinos, gambled with house chips, watched people. He was good at picking out the cheats and how they did it.”

“Guess it takes one to know one, right?”

“What’s that crack supposed to mean? He did a good job.”

“I’m sure he did. Is that how he met you?”

“I’m not answering any of your questions.”

“Okay by me.”

He had only the two top drawers left. He opened one and found it contained no files at all. Just an old, dust-covered Rolodex and other items that had probably sat on the top of the desk at one point. There was an ashtray, a clock and a pen holder made of carved wood that had Eno’s name carved on it. Bosch took the Rolodex out and put it on top of the cabinet. He blew the dust off it and then began turning it until he came to the C’s. He looked through the cards but found no listing for Arno Conklin. He met with similar failure when he tried to find a listing for Gordon Mittel.

“You’re not going to look through that whole thing, are you?” Shivone asked in exasperation.

“No, I’m just going to take it with me.”

“Oh, no you don’t. You can’t just come in here and—”

“I’m taking it. If you want to make a complaint about it, be my guest. Then I’ll make a complaint about you.”

She went quiet after that. Bosch went on to the next drawer