I started to go down I felt his arms and legs flailing for purchase. He then jumped off and started running down the hall. Peoples and the other agent were quickly down the hall after him. As I got up I saw them corner Aziz at a dead end. Peoples held back while the other agent moved in and roughly wrestled the smaller man to the ground.
Once Aziz was controlled Peoples turned and came back to me.
“Bosch, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
I stood up and made a show of straightening my clothes. I was embarrassed. I had been taken by surprise by Aziz and I knew it would probably be the talk of the squad room at the other end of the hall.
“I wasn’t ready for that. I guess being out of the life so long, I got rusty.”
“Yes. You never can turn your back on them.”
“My box. I forgot it.”
I went back into the interview room and got the photo off the table and the box. Just as I came back out Aziz was being walked by, his wrists cuffed behind his back.
I watched him go by and then Peoples and I followed at a safe distance.
“And so,” Peoples said, “all of this was for naught.”
“Probably.”
“And it all could have been avoided if . . .”
He didn’t finish so I did.
“Your agent hadn’t committed those crimes on camera. Yeah.”
Peoples stopped in the hallway and I did, too. He waited for the other agent and Aziz to go through the door.
“I’m not comfortable with this arrangement,” he said. “I have no guarantees. You could walk out of here and get hit by a truck. Does that mean those recordings will end up on the news?”
I thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Yeah, it does. You better hope that truck misses me.”
“I don’t want to live and work under the weight of that.”
“I don’t blame you. What are you going to do about Milton?”
“What I told you. He’s out. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Well, let me know when that happens. Then we can talk about the weight again.”
He looked like he was about to say something more but then thought better of it and started walking again. He led me through the security doors to the elevator. He used his card key to summon it and then to push the button for the lobby. He held his hand on the door’s bumper.
“I’m not going down with you,” he said. “I think we’ve said enough.”
I nodded and he stepped back through the door. He stood there and watched, maybe to make sure I didn’t sneak off the elevator and try to spring the incarcerated terrorists.
Just as the door started closing I hit the bumper with the side of my hand and it slowly reopened.
“Remember, Agent Peoples, my lawyer has taken steps to secure herself and the recordings. If something happens to her it’s the same as it happening to me.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Bosch. I will make no move against her or you.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about.”
The door closed as we were holding each other’s eyes in a pointed stare.
“I understand,” I heard him say through the doors.
29
My dance with the federales was not totally for naught as I had led Peoples to believe. Yes, my chasing down of the tiny terrorist may have been a false lead but in any case there are always false leads. It is part of the mission. At the end of the day what I had was the full record of the investigation and I was happy with that. I was playing with a full deck—the murder book—and it allowed me to write off in my mind all that had occurred in the two days leading up to the point I got it, including my hours in lockdown. For I knew that if I was to find Angella Benton’s killer, the answer, or at least the key that would turn the case, would likely be sitting somewhere in the middle of that black plastic binder.
I got home from the federal building and came into the house like a man who thinks he may have won the lottery but needs to check the numbers in the newspaper to be sure. I went directly to the dining room table with my cardboard box and spread out everything I carried in it. Front and center was the murder book. The Holy Grail. I sat down and started reading from page one. I didn’t get up for coffee, water or