Roy.”
He nodded back.
“Then call me anytime. And watch yourself out there, podjo.”
He gave me the rogue’s got-you-last smile and closed the door before I could say anything.
14
Around the detective squad rooms of the LAPD’s numerous stations the state of Idaho is called Blue Heaven. It’s the goal line, the final destination for a good number of the detectives who go the distance, put in their twenty-five years and then cash out. I hear there are whole neighborhoods up there full of ex-cops from L.A. living side by side by side. Realtors from Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint run business-card-size ads in the police union newsletter. In every issue.
Of course some cops turn in the badge and set out for Nevada to bake in the desert and pick up part-time work in the casinos. Some disappear into northern California—there are more retired cops in the backwoods of Humboldt County than there are marijuana growers, only the growers don’t know it. And some head south to Mexico, where there are still spots where an air-conditioned ranch house with an ocean view is affordable on an LAPD pension.
The point is, few stick around. They spend their adult lives trying to make sense of this place, trying to bring a small measure of order to it, and then can’t stand to stay here once their job is done. The work does that to you. It robs you of the ability to enjoy your accomplishment. There is no reward for making it through.
One of the few men I knew who turned in the badge but not the city was named Burnett Biggar. He gave the city its twenty-five years—the last half of it in South Bureau homicide—and then retired to open up a small business with his son near the airport. Biggar & Biggar Professional Security was on Sepulveda near La Tijera. The building was nondescript, the offices unpretentious. Biggar’s business was primarily geared toward providing security systems and patrols to the warehouse industries around the airport. The last time I had spoken to him—which was probably two years earlier—he had told me he had more than fifty employees and business was going good.
But out of the other side of his mouth he confided that he missed what he called the real work. The vital work, the work that made a difference. Protecting a warehouse full of blue jeans made in Taiwan could be profitable. But it didn’t even begin to touch what you got out of putting a stone killer on the floor and the cuffs on his wrists. It wasn’t even close, and that was what Biggar missed. It was because of that I thought I could approach him for help with what I wanted to do for Lawton Cross.
There was a small waiting room with a coffee machine but I wasn’t there that long. Burnett Biggar came down a hallway and invited me back to his office. As befitting his name, he was a large man. I had to follow him down the hallway rather than walk next to him. His head was shaved, which was a new look for him as far as I knew.
“So Big, I see you traded the Julius for the Jordan, huh?”
He rubbed a hand over his polished scalp.
“Had to do it, Harry. It’s the style. And I’m getting gray.”
“Aren’t we all.”
He led me into his office. It wasn’t small and it wasn’t big. It was basic, with wood paneling and framed commendations, news clips and photos from his days with the department. It was probably all very impressive to the clients.
Biggar swung around behind a cluttered desk and pointed me to a chair in front of it. As I sat down I noticed a framed slogan on the wall behind him. It said “Biggar & Biggar is getting Better & Better.”
Biggar leaned forward and folded his arms on his desk.
“So, Harry Bosch, I don’t think I was expecting to see you maybe ever again. It’s funny seeing you in that chair.”
“Funny seeing you, too. I don’t think I was expecting it either.”
“You come here for a job? I heard you quit last year. You were the last guy I ever thought about quitting.”
“Nobody goes the distance, Big. And I appreciate the offer but I already have a job. I’m just looking for a little help.”
Biggar smiled, the skin pulling tight around his eyes. He was intrigued. He knew I wasn’t ever going to be the corporate or industrial security type.
“I never heard you ask for help on