“Do you have documentary evidence of this?”
“Right now it’s just a story, Kiz, and it’s just you and me here. Let me tell it and then you can ask your questions when I’m done.”
“Go ahead, then.”
The door on Third opened and a uniformed officer walked in, took off his sunglasses and looked around, blindly at first and then focusing on Bosch and Rider and correctly sizing them up as cops.
“Is this where the BORs are heard?” he asked.
“Third floor,” Rider said.
“Thank you.”
“Good luck.”
“Yeah.”
Bosch waited until the cop left the vestibule and rounded the corner into the main lobby where the elevators were located.
“Okay. So George sells influence with the council and by extension with all the different boards the council appoints. In some cases he can do even more than that. He can tilt the game.”
“I don’t get it. How so?”
“Do you know how taxi franchises are awarded in this city?”
“Not a clue.”
“By geographic zones and on two-year contracts. You come up for review every two years.”
“All right.”
“So I don’t know if George goes to them or they come to George, but there’s a franchise holder in South L.A. called Regent Taxi and they hire George to help them get a more lucrative franchise up in Hollywood, where there are highline hotels and tourists on the streets and lots more money to be made. The current franchise holder is Black and White Taxi.”
“I think I know where this is going. But wouldn’t Councilman Irving have to be transparent on this? He’d have a conflict of interest voting for any company repped by his son.”
“Of course he would. But the first vote is with the Taxi Franchise Board, and who puts the people on that board? The council. And when it next comes before the council for ratification, sure, Irving nobly cites conflict of interest and steps out on the vote and it all looks completely aboveboard. But what about the backroom trade-offs? ‘You vote for me when I step out and next time I’ll vote for you.’ You know what goes on, Kiz. But what George offers is even more of a sure thing. He offers a fuller service, shall we say. Regent says, yes, we’ll take the full package, and a month after he’s hired by Regent, things start going sideways for the current holder of the franchise, B and W.”
“What do you mean ‘sideways’?”
“I’m trying to tell you. Less than a month after George Irving is hired by Regent, B and W drivers start getting popped on deuce raps and traffic citations and suddenly the company’s not looking so good.”
“How many arrests?”
“Three, the first coming a month after Irving signed on. And then there’s an auto accident where the B and W driver is held at fault. There are several traffic violations—all moving violations that give the appearance of reckless driving. Speeding, running traffic lights and stop signs.”
“I think the Times wrote about this. The DUIs, anyway.”
“Yeah, I have the story and I’m pretty sure George Irving’s the one who tipped them to it. It was all part of an organized plan to get the Hollywood taxi franchise.”
“So you’re saying that the son went to the father and said put some pressure on B and W? The father then in turn reached into the department?”
“I am not exactly sure how it worked yet. But both of them—father and son—still have connections in the department. The councilman has sympathizers and his son was a cop for five years. A guy who was a close friend of his works patrol in Hollywood. I have all the B and W arrest reports and the traffic citations. The same cop—George Irving’s friend—made all three DUI arrests and wrote two of the moving violations. A guy named Robert Mason. What are the chances of that? That he’d get all three deuces.”
“It could happen. You make one arrest and then you know what to look for after that.”
“Sure, Kiz, whatever you say. One of these guys wasn’t even pulled over. He was parked at a cab stand on La Brea when Mason rolled up on him.”
“Well, were these legit busts or not? Did they blow?”
“They blew and the busts were legit as far as I know. But three busts starting a month after Irving was hired. The DUIs, the moving violations and the accident report then become the centerpiece of Regent’s application to the franchise board to take Hollywood away from B and W. He had it completely greased and it just doesn’t smell right, Kiz.”
She finally nodded, a tacit agreement with Bosch’s point of view.
“Okay, even if I agree with you, there’s still the question: How does all of this get George Irving killed? And why?”