He picked up the phone and called the department’s personnel office. He gave his own name and badge number and said he needed to get an ID off a badge. He was transferred to a mid-level bureaucrat who looked it up on the computer and gave Bosch the name, rank and assignment.
“Robert Mason, P-three, Hollywood.”
As in Bobby Mason. George Irving’s longtime friend—until recently.
Bosch thanked her and hung up. He wrote down the information he had just assembled and then studied it. He could not dismiss as happenstance the fact that Mason had made three DUI arrests of B&W drivers at a time he was apparently still friends with a man representing a rival to B&W’s Hollywood franchise.
He circled Mason’s name in his notes. The patrol officer was definitely someone Bosch wanted to talk to. But not yet. Bosch needed to know far more than he knew now before he could make the approach.
He moved on and next studied the arrest summaries, which contained the probable cause for detaining the drivers. In each case the driver had been observed driving erratically. In one of the cases, the summary noted that a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey had been found under the driver’s seat of the taxi.
Bosch noted that the report did not mention the size of the bottle and for a moment he mused over the choice of the words half empty over half full and the different interpretations the descriptions might bring. But then Chu rolled his chair over and leaned against his desk.
“Harry, it sounds like you have something going.”
“Yeah, maybe. You want to take a ride?”
18
Black & White Taxi was located on Gower south of Sunset. It was an industrial neighborhood full of businesses that catered to the movie industry. Costume warehouses, camera houses, prop houses. B&W was in one of two side-by-side sound-stages that looked old and worn-out. The cab company operated out of one, and the other was a storage and rental facility for movie cars. Bosch had been in the car storage facility before on a case. He had taken his time walking through. It was like a museum with every car that had ever caught his eye as a teenager.
The two hangar doors of B&W were wide open. Bosch and Chu walked in. In the moment of blindness when their eyes adjusted from the transition of sunlight to shadows, they were almost hit by a taxi heading out to the street. They jumped back and let the black-and-white-checked Impala go between them.
“Asshole,” Chu said.
There were cars sitting dormant and cars up on jacks being worked on by mechanics in greasy coveralls. At the far end of the large space, two picnic tables sat next to a couple of snack and beverage machines. A handful of drivers were hanging out there, waiting for their chariots to pass muster with the mechanics.
To their right was a small office with windows that were so dirty they were opaque. But behind them Harry could see shapes and movement. He led Chu that way.
Bosch knocked once on the door and went in without waiting for a response. They stepped into an office with three desks pushed up against three of the walls and overflowing with paperwork. Two of them were occupied by men who had not turned to see who had entered. Both of them were wearing headsets. The man on the right was dispatching a car to a pickup at the Roosevelt Hotel. Bosch waited for him to finish.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Both men turned to look at the intruders. Bosch was ready with his badge out.
“I need to ask a couple questions.”
“Well, we’re running a business here and don’t—”
A phone rang and the man on the left punched a button on his desk to activate his headset.
“Black and White. . . . Yes, ma’am, that will be five to ten minutes. Would you like us to call upon arrival?”
He wrote something down on a yellow Post-it, then tore it off the pad and handed it to the dispatcher so he could send a car to the address.
“Car’s on the way, ma’am,” he said, then punched the desk button to disconnect the call.
He swiveled in his seat to face Bosch and Chu.
“You see?” he said. “We don’t have any time for your bullshit.”
“What bullshit is that?”
“I don’t know, whatever you’re spinning today. We know what you’re doing.”
Another call came in, and the info was taken and moved to the dispatcher. Bosch stepped into the space between the two desks. If the call taker wanted to pass a Post-it to the dispatcher now, he’d have to go through Bosch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bosch said.
“Good, then neither do I,” the call taker said. “We can just never mind this whole thing. Have a good day.”
“Except I still need to ask a couple questions.”