The Dark Hours (17 page)

Davenport didn’t come back for nearly forty minutes. Ballard was leaning against the side of her car with her arms crossed as she watched his car come across the lot to her. He held his arm out the car window, the key to Ballard’s car dangling from his hand. He wasn’t staying. He kept his eyes cast forward through the windshield as he spoke.

“Had to do it, Ballard.”

Ballard grabbed the key out of his hand.

“Why?”

“Because we’re sinking, Ballard. All we need is to drag another cop into another scandal. Don’t you get that?”

“No, Davenport, I don’t get it. Who’s the cop you’re protecting?”

Now he turned his face to her.

“I don’t know and I didn’t ask her, because I don’t want to know. It’s the department I’m protecting, Ballard, not the cop. That’s why if you beef me and I beef you, you’re going to lose. The department always comes first. The department always wins. Think about that.”

He hit the gas and his car took off. Ballard didn’t flinch or move. She tracked the wide turn he made to go back to the gate, then pulled her phone and called Bosch.

“Harry, you got her?”

“She’s in a house up here on PCH. On the water just past the light at Topanga Canyon. What happened? Did he bring back your key?”

“I have it. Give me the address and I’ll come to you.”

Fifteen minutes later, Ballard pulled to the side of Pacific Coast Highway behind Bosch’s Jeep. She got out, walked up, and got into the passenger seat next to him.

“It’s that one with the portholes,” Bosch said.

He pointed across the street. The road was lined with houses cantilevered over the rocks, sand, and water. They were jammed next to each other like teeth in a mouth, so close that it was impossible to tell they were on the ocean save for the sound of the waves echoing from behind them. The house Bosch pointed at was a two-story with a single-slot carport. It was gray wood with white trim and two round windows on the second level. Ballard knew the view would be on the other side. There would be big glass looking out over the ocean.

“They pulled up,” Bosch said. “He walked her in, stayed two or three minutes, and then left. What’s going on, Renée?”

“She was about to name the money man,” Ballard said. “She called him the street banker and said he was a cop. Then Davenport jumped in and shut it down. He acted all noble like he was trying to protect the department. But I don’t buy it. I think she was about to reveal something he knew about.”

“He’s dirty?”

“Where’s the line on dirty? I think he at least knows something about the department that could damage it. His decision is to cover it up rather than clean it up. If that’s dirty, then, yeah, he’s dirty. But whatever it is, he didn’t know she was going to spill it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have set up the meeting.”

“Makes sense. So, what do you want to do?”

“I want the street banker’s name.”

“Then let’s go get it.”

It was a Sunday night and Malibu had emptied out at the end of the holiday weekend. There was little traffic and no threat to Ballard and Bosch as they crossed four lanes of PCH in the dark. The front door to the house where the informant apparently lived was off the carport near the driver’s side of the Porsche Panamera parked there. Ballard banged hard with the side of her fist so it would be heard over the sound of the waves crashing behind the house.

The door was opened before she had to hit it again. A man stood there. He was in his sixties, white, with the cliché attempts to look younger on full display: earring, bracelets, dyed hair and chin beard, fraying blue jeans, and a gray hoodie. It all went with the Porsche.

“Yes?” he asked.

Ballard badged him.

“We’re here to see the woman dropped off a half hour ago,” Ballard said. “I believe she may be your wife.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “It’s midnight and this is out — ”

He was interrupted by the informant walking up behind him to see who was at the door.

“You,” she said. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want,” Ballard said. “I want the name.”

Ballard stepped forward and her intimidating bearing made the man step back, even as he protested.

“Wait a minute here,” he said. “You can’t just — ”

“Is this your wife, sir?” Ballard asked.

“That’s right,” he said.

“Well, step back unless you want this conversation to take place in a police station,” Ballard said.

She then looked directly at the informant.

“You wouldn’t want that, would you?” she said. “Going back to the old neighborhood. You never know who from Las Palmas might be on the lockdown bench when we go in the back door at the station.”

“Gene,” the informant said. “Let them in. The sooner I deal with them, the sooner they leave. Go out on the deck.”

“Smart girl,” Ballard said.

“It’s cold out there,” Gene said.

“Just go,” the informant commanded. “This won’t take long.”

“Jesus,” Gene protested. “You said this sort of shit was over.”

He sauntered toward a set of sliding doors leading to the deck. Beyond the deck, the blue-black waves were beautifully lit by spotlights anchored under the house. The informant waited to speak until Gene was out on the deck and had closed the slider to muffle the sound of the ocean.

“I don’t like this,” she said. “Davenport told me not to speak to you anymore. And who the fuck are you?”

This last part was directed at Bosch.

“He’s with me,” Ballard said. “That’s all you need to know. And I don’t care what Davenport told you or whether you like this. You’re going to tell me about the banker or you’re going to be in the kind of trouble that Gene’s money can’t help you with.”

“I haven’t broken any laws,” the informant said.

“There are state laws, and there are gang laws,” Ballard said. “You think Humberto Viera up in Pelican Bay thinks you’re innocent? You think he doesn’t want to know where you’ve been these last ten years?”

Ballard could see the threat pierce the informant’s armor. Ballard had put things together correctly. Viera was the philandering fiancé and he now had the rest of his life in maximum security to consider who had wronged him.

“Sit down over there,” Bosch said, pointing to a couch. “Now.”

He had read the situation as well. The informant had just gone from tough ex-gang girl to kept woman, scared that her carefully ordered life with a wealthy older man could suddenly change.

She did as she was told and went to the couch. Ballard took a swivel chair across a bamboo coffee table from her, turning it from a view through the sliders to a view of the informant. Bosch walked over to the sliders and stayed standing with his back to Gene, who was trying to watch through the glass.

“What’s your name?” Ballard asked.

“I’m not giving my name,” the informant said.

Resentment was written all over her face.

“I need something to call you by,” Ballard insisted.

“Then call me Darla,” the woman said. “I always liked that name.”

“Okay, Darla, tell me about the street banker. Who was he?”

“All I know is that he was a cop and his name was Bonner. That’s it. I never saw him. I don’t know what he looks like. Please leave now.”

“What kind of cop?”

“I don’t know.”

“LAPD? Sheriff ’s?”

“I said I don’t know.”

“What was his first name?”

“I don’t know that either, or I would have told you.”

“How do you know he was a cop? How did you know his last name?”

“From Berto. He talked about the guy.”

“He said he was a street banker?”

“He said he was the guy who could get money for Raffa. He told him. I was there.”

“Where?”

“We drove to Raffa’s father’s place. Where they fixed cars up front and chopped ’em up in the back. Raffa came to the car and Berto told him. He gave him a number to call. And he also warned El Chopo that Bonner was a cop. He said he had to be careful about dealing with him because he was a cop and he was serious people.”

“What does that mean, ‘serious people’?”

“You know, like don’t cross him. There are consequences for shit like that.”

“Did that mean he was a killer?”

“I don’t know. It meant he was serious.”

“Okay. Were there other times Bonner was mentioned?”

“Yeah, when Raffa brought the money to Humberto. He said Bonner got it for him from a doctor and he had to sign papers and all of that.”

“What kind of doctor?”

“I didn’t hear that part or they didn’t talk about it. Just a doctor is what I remember.”

“How come you never told this to your handler at the LAPD — about the banker being a cop?”

“Because I’m not a fool.”

“What’s that mean?”

“For one thing, if something happened, Berto would know it came from me because he told me about Bonner in the first place. And the other thing is that you don’t rat out cops to cops. That’s just stupid. Next thing you know, somebody rats you out to your man. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I do. How do you think Berto met Bonner in the first place?”

“I don’t know that. They just got together somehow. They knew each other before I was in the picture.”

Ballard knew that was a key connection to make.

“When was that?” she asked. “When you entered the picture?”

“Me and Berto got together when I was seventeen,” Darla said. “That was ’04. And we were together for six years.”

Ballard had some respect for Darla and her path. To come out of East Hollywood and end up on the beach was an unlikely journey. She could see that Darla carried a certain pride in it, despite the choices of men she used to get there.

“Do you know if there were other transactions between Berto and Bonner?” Ballard asked. “I mean besides the deal with Raffa.”

“Yeah, they had business,” Darla said. “Like when someone needed big money, they would, like, talk and shit. I think there were other deals.”

Ballard looked at Bosch to see if he had any questions she had not covered. He nodded.

“How did Berto and Bonner communicate?” he asked.

“By phone mostly,” Darla said. “Sometimes they would meet up.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Darla looked away when she answered. It was the first time in the conversation that Ballard had seen a tell indicating untruthfulness. Ballard glanced at Bosch and he nodded slightly. He had seen it too.

“You sure?” Ballard asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Darla said. “You think I asked Berto about his business all the time? That would get me killed.”

Darla looked away again while making her protest. Ballard knew she was hiding something. She thought about how to pull it free and considered what Darla would be self-conscious about discussing. Then she hit on what it probably was.

“Come on, Darla, tell us.”

“I already told you. I don’t know.”

“You did see Bonner, didn’t you?”

“I told you, no.”

“You followed him. Humberto. You followed him because you thought he was going to see a girl, but it was Bonner. You saw them together.”

Darla rocked back on the couch as though shocked by Ballard’s jump.

“Where’d they meet?” Ballard pressed. “It’s important, Darla.” Darla flipped a hand in the air as if to say
Why not? You’ve gotten everything else
.

“They went up to that place on Franklin where the chicken’s so good.”

Ballard glanced at Bosch.

“Birds?” she asked.

The place that gave cops a discount.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Darla said. “I saw them and then I turned around and left.”

“What did Bonner look like?” Ballard asked.

“I don’t know, white. He was a white guy.”

“What color hair?”

“He had a shaved head. Fucker thought he was Vin Diesel.”

Ballard thought about the description Gabriel Raffa had given of the man in the hoodie.

“Was Bonner in uniform?” she asked.

Darla laughed.

“Yeah, OG Berto Viera having lunch with a cop in uniform.”

“Okay, no uniform. What else do you remember, Darla?”

“That’s it. No more.”

“You sure. That’s the only time you ever saw them?”

“Only time.”

Ballard nodded. She had enough for the time being. And she knew where she could find Darla if she needed to. She looked
at Bosch and he nodded. He was finished as well. To punctuate the finality of the interview, Gene knocked on the glass from the deck and held his hands wide.

He was cold and wanted to come in.

Ballard waved him in and then looked at Darla.

“Thank you … Darla,” she said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“You going to pay me?” Darla said. “The gang guys always did.”

“We do that and we have to open a new snitch jacket on you. I don’t think you want that.”

Darla looked at Gene as he came through the glass doors, the booming sound of a crashing wave coming in with him.

“No, I guess not,” Darla said.

Ballard thanked the happy couple and exited with Bosch. There was no traffic and they crossed PCH at a steady walk.

“That was a nice jump you made with her,” Bosch said. “About her following him to check if he was seeing a girl.”

“Thanks,” Ballard said. “It just suddenly hit me.”

They stood between their cars.

“Now what?” Bosch asked.

“I’m going to run down Bonner,” Ballard said. “See where it goes from there. Her description matches the one the victim’s son gave me of a white guy at the New Year’s party. A bald guy in a hoodie.”

“There’s something that doesn’t fit in her story.”

“What?”

“If the banker — Bonner — was a cop, why didn’t Humberto use that to deal his way out of a life sentence?”

Ballard nodded. It was a good point.

“Maybe he tried to and there were no takers,” she said. “Or maybe this Bonner is so ‘serious’ that he was afraid to. Maybe
he thought Bonner being a cop meant he could get to him in County.”

“A lot of maybes.”

“There always are.”

“Let me know what you get. I’ll be around if you need me.”

“Thanks, Harry. And thanks for being there tonight. We wouldn’t be to this point if you hadn’t thought Davenport was bent in some way.”