in his car. Chu had the four-to-eight sleep shift but Bosch hadn’t heard from him yet.
“You awake? Chang’s making a move.”
Chu still had sleep in his voice.
“Yeah, what move? You were supposed to call me at eight.”
“He put a suitcase in his car. He’s running. I think he was tipped.”
“To us?”
“No, to buying shares of Microsoft. Don’t play stupid.”
“Harry, who would tip him?”
Chang got into the car and started backing out of his space in the apartment complex parking lot.
“That’s a good goddamn question,” Bosch said. “But if anybody has the answer it’s you.”
“Are you suggesting I tipped off the subject of a major investigation?”
Chu’s voice carried the requisite outrage of the accused.
“I don’t know what you did,” Bosch said. “But you put our business out all over Monterey Park, so now it’s who knows who could’ve tipped this guy. All I know right now is that it looks like he’s splitting town.”
“All over Monterey Park? Are you just making this shit up?”
Bosch followed the Mustang north out of the parking lot, staying a block back.
“You told me the other night that the third guy you showed Chang’s photo to over there made the ID. Okay, so that’s three guys and they all have partners and they all have roll calls and they all talk.”
“Well, maybe this wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t tell Tao and Herrera to back off like we didn’t trust them.”
Bosch checked his mirror for Chu. He was trying not to let his anger distract him from the tail. They couldn’t lose Chang now.
“Move up. We’re heading to the ten. After he gets on, I want you to switch off with me and take the lead.”
“Got it.”
Chu’s voice still held anger. Bosch didn’t care. If Chang had been tipped to the investigation, then Harry would find out who had made the call and he would burn them to the ground, even if it was Chu.
Chang got on the westbound 10 Freeway and soon Chu passed Bosch to take the lead. Bosch glanced over and saw Chu flip him the bird.
Bosch moved over a lane, dropped back and made a call to Lieutenant Gandle.
“Harry, what’s up?”
“We’ve got problems.”
“Tell me.”
“The first one is that our guy put a suitcase in his trunk this morning and is on the ten heading toward the airport.”
“Shit, what else”
“It looks to me like he was tipped, maybe told to get out of town.”
“Or maybe he was told all along to split after he clipped Li. Don’t go off the deep end on that, Harry. Not until you know something for sure.”
It annoyed Bosch that his own lieutenant wasn’t backing him, but he could deal with it. If Chang had been tipped and somewhere along the line the cancer of corruption was in the investigation, Harry would find it. He was sure of that. He let it go for now and concentrated on the choices that involved Chang.
“Do we take Chang down?” he asked.
“You sure he’s flying? Maybe he’s making a delivery or something. How big’s the suitcase?”
“Big. The kind you pack when you’re not coming back.”
Gandle sighed as he put on his plate yet another dilemma and decision to be made.
“Okay, let me talk to some people and I’ll get back to you.”
Bosch assumed that would be Captain Dodds and possibly someone in the district attorney’s office.
“There is some good news, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Holy shit, imagine that,” Gandle exclaimed. “What good news?”
“Yesterday afternoon we tailed Chang to the other store. The one our victim’s son runs in the Valley. He extorted him, told the kid he had to start paying now that his old man was gone.”
“What, this is great! Why didn’t you tell me this?”
“I just did.”
“That gives us probable cause to arrest.”
“To arrest but probably not prosecute. The kid is a reluctant witness. He would have to come in to make the case and I don’t know if he’ll hold up. And either way, it’s not a murder charge. That’s what we want.”
“Well, at the very least, we could stop this guy from getting on a plane.”
Bosch nodded as the beginning of a plan started to form.
“It’s Friday. If we hold on to him and book him late in the day, he wouldn’t get a hearing till Monday afternoon. That would give us at least seventy-two hours to pull a case together.”
“With the extortion being the fallback position.”
“Right.”
Bosch was getting another call beeping in his ear and he assumed it was Chu. He asked Gandle to get back to him