The Night Fire (Harry Bosch #22) - Michael Connelly Page 0,67
like one of them cold case things, you know?”
“Who told her about me?”
“I ’on’t know. She just got up in my shit and asked about you.”
“How’d you get this number?”
“I ain’t had no number. I had to call a couple OGs to get it. That’s why it took me a couple days to get to you.”
“Which OG?”
“Marcel. He had a number for—”
“Okay, dog, don’t call me no more. I’m outta the game.”
“I know that, but I still thought you’d—”
The call was disconnected by Kidd.
Ballard immediately got up from her seat and started pacing. “Holy shit,” she said. “Dorsey just did what I was going to drive out there and do tomorrow.”
“But Kidd didn’t give anything up,” Bosch cautioned. “He was careful.”
“True, but he asked a lot of questions. We got the right guy. It’s him and we were fucking lucky the wire got set up already. But now what? Do I still go out there tomorrow?”
“No way. He’ll be ready for you and you don’t want that.” Ballard nodded while she paced the living room. “Can you play it again?” Bosch asked.
Ballard came back to the table and replayed the call. Bosch listened closely for anything that might sound like a code passed between the two old gangbangers. But he concluded that Kidd had taken the call out of the blue and there had been no secret message or code imparted. As Dorsey had said, he was simply passing on a warning about a potentially threatening situation.
“What do you think?” Ballard asked.
Bosch thought a moment.
“I think we wait and see if Kidd makes a move,” he said.
“But now that he knows about the investigation he may go offline,” Ballard said. “He’ll go buy a burner. I would if I were him.”
“I could go out and watch him tonight.”
“I’m going with you.”
“That won’t work. It’s two hours out there easy with rush hour and you have your shift you said you can’t miss. You’d have to turn around almost as soon as we got there. I’ll go and you monitor the wire, just in case he’s stupid.”
The text-message tone sounded from Ballard’s laptop. “Speaking of which,” she said.
She pulled up the message. It was outgoing from Kidd’s phone.
Need to meet. Dulan’s at 1 tomoro. Important!!!!
They both stared at the screen, waiting for a reply.
“You think it’s the Marcel that Dorsey mentioned?” Ballard asked.
“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Probably.”
A short reply came through.
I’ll be there.
Bosch got up from the table to loosen his knee again.
“I guess if we figure out who Dulan is, we could set up on him tomorrow,” he said.
“Dulan’s is a soul food kitchen,” Ballard said. “Good stuff. But there’s at least three of them that I know of in South L.A.”
Bosch nodded, impressed by her knowledge.
“Any of them in Rolling 60s turf?” he asked.
“There’s one on Crenshaw in the fifties,” Ballard said.
“That’s probably it. You eat there? Will we stand out if we’re in there?”
“You will. But I can pass for high yellow.”
It was true. Ballard was mixed race—part Polynesian for sure, though Bosch had never asked about her ancestry.
“So, you inside and me outside,” he said. “Not sure I like that.”
“They’re not going to make a move in a crowded restaurant,” Ballard said. “At one o’clock that place will be hopping.”
“Then how would you even get close to them to hear anything?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“You gotta dress down.”
“What? Why?”
“Because of what D-squared told him on the call—that you were a looker.”
“Not exactly what he said. But I take the point. I’ll go get a couple hours on the beach after work and I’ll come dressed down. Don’t worry.”
“Maybe we should call in the troops. Go to your lieutenant, tell him what you’ve been doing, get more bodies on this.”
“I go in with a homicide and it will be taken off me faster than a pickpocket takes a wallet on the Venice boardwalk.”
Bosch nodded. He knew she was right. He pointed to her laptop.
“At work tonight, can you trace that number he texted to, find out who it is?”
“I can try but it’s probably a burner.”
“I don’t know. Kidd’s been out of the game. He used his own cell to text—that was a mistake. Out of the game might mean he’s got no burner. And people still in the game have burners and change them all the time. But this is a number Kidd had—that he knew. It might be a legit phone.”
Ballard nodded.
“Maybe,” she said. “I’ll see if I can run it down.”