"What about the federal base?" he asked. "What if some guy worked for a president and got the kind of clearance you need to go visit the White House, would those prints be in that base?"

"Yes, they'd be in twice. In the federal employees base and in the FBI's. They keep prints on record of everyone they do background investigations on, if that's what you mean. But remember, just because somebody visits the president, it doesn't mean they get printed."

Well, Mittel isn't a scratch but it's close, Bosch thought.

"So what you're saying," Bosch said, "is that whether or not we have complete data files going back to 1961, whoever belongs to those prints I gave you hasn't been printed since then?"

"That's not one hundred percent but it's close. The person who left these prints probably hasn't been printed-at least by any contributor to the data banks. We can only reach so far with this. One way or another we can pull prints on one out of about every fifty or so people in the country. But I just didn't get anything this time. Sorry."

"That's okay, Hirsch, you tried."

"Well, I guess I'll be getting back to work now. What do you want me to do with the print card?"

Bosch thought a moment. He wondered if there was any other avenue to chase down.

"Tell you what, can you just hold on to it? I'll come by the lab and pick it up when I can. Probably be by later today."

"Okay, I'll put it in an envelope for you in case I'm not here. Good-bye."

"Hey, Hirsch?"

"Yeah?"

"It feels good, don't it?"

"What's that?"

"You did the right thing. You didn't get a match but you did the right thing."

"Yeah, I guess."

He was acting like he didn't understand because he was embarra.s.sed, but he understood.

"Yeah, I'll see you Hirsch."

After hanging up, Bosch sat on the side of the bed, lit a cigarette and thought about what he was going to do with the day. The news from Hirsch was not good but it wasn't daunting. It certainly didn't clear Arno Conklin. It might not even have cleared Gordon Mittel. Bosch wasn't sure whether Mittel's work for presidents and senators would have required a fingerprint check. He decided his investigation was still intact. He wasn't changing any plans.

He thought about the night before and the wild-a.s.s chance he had taken confronting Mittel the way he had. He smiled at his own recklessness and thought about what Hinojos might make of it. He knew she'd say it was a symptom of his problem. She wouldn't see it as a tactful way of flushing the bird from the bush.

He got up and started the coffee and then showered, shaved and got ready for the day. He took his coffee and the box of cereal from the refrigerator out to the deck, leaving the sliding door open so he could hear the stereo. He had KFWB news on.

It was cool and crisp outside but he could tell it would get warmer later. Blue jays were swooping in and out of the arroyo below the deck and he could see black bees the size of quarters working in the yellow flowers of the primrose jasmine.

There was a story on the radio about a building contractor making a fourteen-million-dollar bonus for completing the rebuilding of the 10 freeway three months ahead of schedule. The officials who gathered to announce the engineering feat likened the fallen freeway to the city itself. Now that it was back upright, so, too, was the city. The city was on the move again. They had a lot to learn, Bosch thought.

Afterward, he went in and got out the yellow pages and started working the phone in the kitchen. He called the major airlines, shopped around and made arrangements to fly to Florida. But flying on one day's notice, the best deal he could get was still seven hundred dollars, a shocking amount to him. He put it on a credit card so that he could pay it off over time. He also reserved a rental car at Tampa International Airport.

When he had that finished he went back out to the deck and thought about the next project he had to tackle: He needed a badge.

For a long time he sat on the deck chair and contemplated whether he needed it for his own sense of security or because it was a bona fide necessity to his mission. He knew how naked and vulnerable he had felt this week without the gun and the badge, extremities he had carried on his body for more than twenty years. But he had avoided the temptation to carry the back-up gun that he knew was in the closet next to the front door. That he could do, he knew. But the badge was different. More so than the gun, the badge was the symbol of what he was. It opened doors better than any key, it gave him more authority than any words, than any weapon. He decided the badge was a necessity. If he was going to Florida and was going to scam McKittrick, he had to look legit. He had to have a badge.

He knew his badge was probably in a desk drawer in a.s.sistant Chief Irving S. Irving's office. There was no way he could get to it and not be discovered. But he knew where there was another one that would work just as well.

Bosch looked at his watch. Nine-fifteen. It was forty-five minutes until the daily command meeting at Hollywood Station. He had plenty of time.

Chapter Twenty.

BOSCH PULLED INTO the rear parking lot of the station at five minutes after ten. He was sure that Pounds, who was punctual about everything he did, would already have gone down the front hall to the captain's office with the overnight logs. The meeting was held every morning and included the station's CO, patrol captain, watch lieutenant and detective commander, who was Pounds. They were routine affairs and never lasted longer than twenty minutes. The members of the station's command staff simply drank coffee and went through the overnight reports and ongoing problems, complaints or investigations of particular note. the rear parking lot of the station at five minutes after ten. He was sure that Pounds, who was punctual about everything he did, would already have gone down the front hall to the captain's office with the overnight logs. The meeting was held every morning and included the station's CO, patrol captain, watch lieutenant and detective commander, who was Pounds. They were routine affairs and never lasted longer than twenty minutes. The members of the station's command staff simply drank coffee and went through the overnight reports and ongoing problems, complaints or investigations of particular note.

Bosch went in the back door by the drunk tank and then up the hallway to the detective bureau. It had been a busy morning. There were already four men handcuffed to benches in the hallway. One of them, a drug hype Bosch had seen in the station before and used as an unreliable informant on occasion, asked Bosch for a smoke. It was illegal to smoke in any city-owned building. Bosch lit a cigarette anyway and put it in the man's mouth because both his needle-scarred arms were cuffed behind his back.

"What is it this time, Harley?" Bosch asked.

"s.h.i.t, a guy leaves his g'rage open, he's asking me to come in. Isn't that right?"

"Tell that one to the judge."

As Bosch walked away one of the other lockdowns yelled at him from down the hallway.

"What about me, man? I need a smoke."

"I'm out," Bosch said.

"f.u.c.k you, man."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

He came into the detective bureau through the rear door. The first thing he did was confirm that Pounds's gla.s.s office was empty. He was at the command meeting. Then he checked the coatrack up at the front and saw he was in business. As he walked down the aisle formed by the separation of the investigation tables, he exchanged nods with a few of the other detectives.

Edgar was at the homicide table sitting across from his new partner, who was in Bosch's old chair. Edgar heard one of the "Hi, Harry" greetings and turned around.

"Harry, wa.s.sup?"

"Hey, man, just came in to get a couple things. Hang on a sec, it's hot outside."

Bosch walked to the front of the bureau, where old Henry of the Nod Squad sat at the desk behind the counter. He was working on a crossword puzzle and Bosch could see several erasure marks had turned the grid gray.

"Henry, howzit hanging? You getting anywhere with that?"

"Detective Bosch."

Bosch slipped his sport coat off and hung it on a hook on the rack next to a jacket with a gray cross-hatch pattern. It was on a hanger and Bosch knew it belonged to Pounds. As he put his coat on the hook with his back to Henry and the rest of the bureau, he snaked his left hand inside the other coat, felt for the interior pocket and then pulled out Pounds's badge wallet. He knew it would be there. Pounds was a creature of habit and Bosch had seen the badge wallet in the suit coat once before. He put the wallet into his pants pocket and turned around as Henry continued talking. Bosch had only a momentary tinge of hesitation at the seriousness of what he was doing. Taking another cop's badge was a crime, but Bosch looked at Pounds as being the reason he did not have his own badge. In the inventory of his morality, what Pounds had done to him was equally wrong.

"If you want to see the lieutenant, he's down the hall at a meeting," Henry said.

"No, I don't want to see the lieutenant, Henry. In fact, don't even tell him I was here. I don't want his blood pressure to go up, you know. I'm just going to get a few things and get out of here, okay?"

"That's a deal. I don't want him cranky, either."

Bosch didn't have to worry about anyone else in the bureau telling Pounds he had been in. He gave Henry a friendly clasp on the shoulder as he walked behind him, sealing the agreement. He went back to the homicide table and as he approached, Burns began to rise from Bosch's old spot.

"You need to get in here, Harry?" he asked.

Bosch thought he could detect nervous energy in the other man's voice. He understood his predicament and wasn't going to make it a difficult time for him.

"Yeah, if you don't mind," he said. "I figured I'd get my personal stuff out of there so you can move in the right way."

Bosch came around and opened the drawer at the table. There were two boxes of Junior Mints on top of old paperwork that had been shoved in long ago.

"Oh, those are mine, sorry," Burns said.

He reached in for the two boxes of candy and stood next to the table, holding them like a big kid in a suit while Bosch went through the paperwork.

It was all a show. Bosch took some of the paperwork and dumped it in a manila file and then pointed with his hand, signaling to Burns he could put his candy back.

"Be careful, Bob."

"It's Bill. Careful of what?"

"Ants."

Bosch went to the bank of file cabinets that ran along the wall to the side of the table and opened one of the drawers with his business card taped to it. It was three up from the bottom, waist-high, and it was one he knew was almost empty. With his back to the table again, he pulled the badge wallet out of his pocket and put it in the drawer.

Then, with his hands in the drawer and out of sight, he opened the wallet and took out the gold badge. He then put it in one pocket and the wallet back in the other. For good measure, he pulled a file out of the drawer and closed it.

He turned around and looked at Jerry Edgar.

"Okay, that's it. Just some personal stuff I might need. Anything going on?"

"Nah, quiet."

Back at the coatrack, Bosch turned his back on the bureau again and used one hand to reach for his coat while using the other to take the badge wallet from his pocket and slip it back into Pounds's coat. He then put his coat on, said good-bye to Henry and went back to the homicide table.

"I'm outta here," he said to Edgar and Burns while picking up the two files he had pulled. "I don't want Ninety-eight to see me and throw a fit. Good luck, boys."

On the way out, Bosch stopped and gave the hype another cigarette. The lockdown who had complained before was no longer on the bench or Bosch would have given him one, too.

Back in the Mustang, he dumped the files on the backseat and took his empty badge wallet out of his briefcase. He slipped Pounds's badge into place next to his own ID card. It would work, he decided, as long as no one looked too closely at it. The badge said LIEUTENANT across it. Bosch's ID card identified him as a detective. It was a minor discrepancy and Bosch was happy with it. Best of all, he thought, there was a good chance Pounds would not notice that the badge was missing for some time. He rarely left the station to go to crime scenes and so rarely had to open the wallet or show his badge. There was a good chance its disappearance would go unnoticed. All he had to do was get it back into place when he was done with it.

Chapter Twenty-one.

BOSCH ENDED UP outside the door of Carmen Hinojos's office early for his afternoon session. He waited until exactly three-thirty and knocked. She smiled as he entered her office and he noticed that the late-afternoon sun came through the window and splashed light directly across her desk. He moved toward the chair he usually took but then stopped himself and sat on the chair to the left of the desk. She noticed this and frowned at him as if he were a schoolboy. outside the door of Carmen Hinojos's office early for his afternoon session. He waited until exactly three-thirty and knocked. She smiled as he entered her office and he noticed that the late-afternoon sun came through the window and splashed light directly across her desk. He moved toward the chair he usually took but then stopped himself and sat on the chair to the left of the desk. She noticed this and frowned at him as if he were a schoolboy.

"If you think I care which chair you sit in, you are wrong."

"Am I? Okay."

He got up and moved to the other chair. He liked being near the window.

"I might not be here for Monday's session," he said after settling in.

She frowned again, this time more seriously.

"Why not?"

"I'm going away. I'll try to be back."

"Away? What happened to your investigation?"

"It's part of it. I'm going to Florida to track down one of the original investigators. One's dead, the other one's in Florida. So I've got to go to him."

"Couldn't you just call?"

"I don't want to call. I don't want to give him the chance to put me off."

She nodded.

"When do you leave?"

"Tonight. I'm taking a red-eye to Tampa."

"Harry, look at you. You practically look like the walking dead. Can't you get some sleep and take a plane in the morning?"

"No, I've gotta get out there before the mail arrives."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing. It's a long story. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. I need your help."

She contemplated this for several seconds, apparently weighing how far she wanted to go into the pool without knowing how deep it was.

"What is it you want?"

"Do you ever do any forensic work for the department?"

She narrowed her eyes, not seeing where this was going.