The Black Ice (hb-2) by Michael Connelly Page B

come to throw a shadow across everything on his own plate. He looked at his watch and saw it would soon be time to get going to meet Teresa Corazon. But, finally, all the movement in his mind could not distract him from the thought that was pushing through: Frankie Sheehan at RHD should have the information in the Zorrillo file. Bosch had worked with Sheehan at RHD. He was a good man and a good investigator. If he was conducting a legitimate investigation, he should have the file. If he wasn’t, then it didn’t matter.
    He got out of the car and headed back to the diner. This time he walked in through the kitchen door on the alley. The BANG crew was still there, the four young narcs sitting as quietly as if they were in the back room at a funeral home. Bosch’s chair was still there, too. He sat down again.
    “What’s up?” Rickard said.
    “You read this, right? Tell me about the Dance bust.”
    “What’s to tell?” Rickard said. “We kick ass, the DA kicks the case. What’s new? It’s a different drug, man, but it’s the same old thing.”
    “What made you set up on Dance? How’d you know he was making deliveries there?”
    “Heard it around.”
    “Look, it’s important. It involves Moore.”
    “How?”
    “I can’t tell you now. You have to trust me until I put a few things together. Just tell me who got the tip. That’s what it was, right?”
    Rickard seemed to weigh the choices he had.
    “Yeah, it was a tip. It was my snitch.”
    “Who was it?”
    “Look, man, I can’t-”
    “Jimmy Kapps. It was Jimmy Kapps, wasn’t it?”
    Rickard hesitated again and that confirmed it for Bosch. It angered him that he was finding this out almost by accident and only after a cop’s death. But the picture was clearing. Kapps snitches off Dance as a means of knocking out some of the competition. Then he flies back to Hawaii, picks up a bellyful of balloons and comes back. But Dance isn’t in lockup anymore and Jimmy Kapps gets taken down before he can sell even one of his balloons.
    “Why the fuck didn’t you come talk to me when you heard Kapps got put down? I’ve been trying to get a line on this and all the-”
    “What’re you talking about, Bosch? Moore met you that night on the Kapps thing. He…”
    It became apparent to everybody at the table that Moore had not told Bosch everything he knew that night at the Catalina. The silence fell heavy on them. If they hadn’t known it before, they knew it now: Moore had been up to something. Bosch finally spoke.
    “Did Moore know your snitch was Kapps?”
    Rickard hesitated once more, but then nodded.
    Bosch stood up and slid the file across the table to a spot in front of Rickard.
    “I don’t want this. You call Frank Sheehan at RHD and tell him you just found it. It’s up to you but I wouldn’t say that you let me look at it first. And I won’t, either.”
    Harry made a move to step away from the table but then stopped.
    “One other thing. This guy Dance, any of you seen him around?”
    “Not since the bust,” Fedaredo said.
    The other three shook their heads.
    “If you can dig him up, let me know. You got my number.”
    Outside the diner’s kitchen door Bosch looked again at the spot in the alley where Moore had found Juan Doe #67. Supposedly. He didn’t know what to believe about Moore anymore. But he couldn’t help but wonder what the connection was between the Juan Doe and Dance and Kapps, if there was a connection at all. He knew the key was to find out who the man with the worker’s hands and muscles had been. Then he would find the killer.

Chapter 8
    At Parker Center, Harry walked past the memorial sculpture in front and into the lobby where he had to badge the officer at the front counter to get in. The department was too big and impersonal. The cops at the counter would recognize no one below the rank of commander.
    The lobby was crowded with people coming and going. Some were in uniform, some in suits, some withVISITOR stickers on