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“I am now. I need help, Harry. And I think you’re the only one I can trust.”
“Is this about Maddie?”
“No, nothing to do with Maddie.”
“Come in.”
He stepped back and Ballard entered.
WEDNESDAY, 11:15 A.M.
15
THE BADGE BUYERwas fifteen minutes late. Ballard was getting anxious. She checked on Bosch through her binoculars once again. She could see him in the Cherokee, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He was anxious too. If the badge buyer didn’t show, they had no plan B.
The Cherokee was parked in an open area in the vast beach lot off Ocean Park in Santa Monica. On an overcast Wednesday morning, the spot drew only a handful of beach enthusiasts. The parking lot was so empty that a local roller-hockey club was able to set up their nets, delineate boundaries with orange cones, and play a game at the far end of the lot.
Ballard saw the door of the Cherokee open. Bosch climbed out and was careful not to glance in her direction. She was parked up on Ocean Boulevard with a down-angle view on the beach lot. They had chosen the meeting spot for this vantage point and because there was only one entrance and exit to the lot.
Bosch was holding the burner cell they had used to contact the unnamed badge buyer. Lionel Boden had provided the number after deciding his best move was to cooperate. Bosch leaned back against his car, hiked one leg up, and put his heel against the front wheel. Hestarted typing on the phone. Ballard understood that he had gotten out of the car so she would see what he was doing: texting the badge buyer, probably to ask where the hell he was.
But before Bosch finished typing the message, Ballard saw a white Ford panel van cruise across the white lines on the empty asphalt and directly toward Bosch. It had not entered the lot just now—it had been there, parked near the scattering of vehicles belonging to the roller-hockey players. Ballard had thought it was the group’s equipment van, but now it was in the open and heading toward Bosch’s position.
Ballard kept the binoculars up and watched as the van made a circle around Bosch’s car and stopped in front of him. There were no markings on the van’s panels and she had gotten only a fleeting glance at its license plate. She noted the plate was bright yellow with a red design or lettering on it. But her view of it disappeared quickly when the van made the loop around Bosch and his car. New Mexico was the only state she could recall with bright yellow plates.
The visors on the van were down and Ballard could see only the driver’s bearded jaw from her angle. He stayed in the van and spoke to Bosch through an open window.
Bosch responded to the driver by opening his army-green field jacket to show his T-shirt—which advertised an organization engaged in preventing veteran suicides. He had chosen it based on a guess that the badge buyer was a veteran experienced with weapons. Bosch then pulled the shirt up, exposing his torso to show he was not wired or carrying a weapon. Through the binoculars, Ballard could see Bosch’s ribs and realized how much weight he had lost during his cancer treatment. She felt an immediate pang of guilt for drawing him into her problem.
The conversation in the parking lot continued briefly before Bosch pushed himself off his car and took a step toward the van.
“Don’t get in the van, Harry,” Ballard said out loud.
Bosch held his phone up to the van’s driver, and Ballard let out her breath. He was only showing the photos of machine guns they had downloaded to the phone for what they believed would be the play with the badge buyer. Bosch even offered the phone to the van driver so he could swipe through the photos. It was a move to possibly get fingerprints, but the driver was either too smart for that or had seen enough photos. He demurred.
The conversation soon ended. Through the binoculars, Ballard saw Bosch nod to the driver. It was the signal to Ballard that they were going to make a deal.
The van drove off with Bosch standing there. He turned back to his Cherokee. Ballard pushed the ignition button and put the Defender in drive. She was ready to follow the van once it left through the parking lot’s exit. Bosch would be on the move as well but he would hang far back, since the van’s driver had already seen his thirty-year-old car.
Ballard had a Bluetooth earbud in and wore her hair down, covering it. When Bosch called, she answered without taking her eyes off the van.
“How’d it go?” she asked.
“He said he wants to deal,” Bosch said. “He wants four. But he could have been just bullshitting. Said he’d set up a meet for tomorrow for the exchange.”
“Did you get a look inside the van? Was he alone?”
“I didn’t want to be obvious. But I think he was alone.”
“I saw you tried to get his prints.”
“Yeah, that didn’t work.”
The white van exited the parking lot and turned left on Ocean. Ballard waited for traffic to clear and then pulled away from the curb, made a U-turn, and followed.
“So, what was he like?” Ballard asked. “I mean, formidable? Is he a player?”
“Uh… maybe,” Bosch said. “Forty, forty-five, white, thick beard. He seemed fit, no paunch, but he could’ve had a wheelchair in the back of the van for all I could see. He stayed behind the wheel.”
