The Night Fire (Renée Ballard, #3)(57)

“Well, sort of,” he said. “They haven’t gotten around to taking my badge because there’s still a couple cases I worked on that haven’t gotten to court. The prosecutors want me to have a badge and be a reserve when I have to testify. So, technically, yes, I’m a reserve officer but I’m not really doing—”

“Doesn’t matter. You have a badge, and a reserve is still a sworn officer. We’re good. You can do this.”

“Okay.”

“So, I’ll come by in the morning, leave this with you, and you just leave it on while you do your work. And when you hear any of the alarms just start listening and recording until you know what kind of call it is.”

“And you’ll call me as soon as you’re going in.”

“Yes.”

“And when you’re out. When you’re clear.”

“Roger that. You don’t have to worry.”

“Somebody does. What about using a couple Rialto PD uniforms for backup? To wait outside while you’re inside.”

“If you insist, I will do that.”

“I insist.”

“Okay, I’ll call on my way out there, see if they can spare a car.”

“Good.”

That made Bosch feel better about everything. He just had to make sure in the morning she did as she said she would.

Ballard was reaching for her laptop to close it, when one of the tones she had programmed sounded.

“Ooh, incoming call,” she said. “We get to see how this works.”

She moved her hand down to the touch screen and slid the cursor to the Record button. They heard a man’s voice answer.

“Hello?”





29


It was a collect call from the Men’s Central jail. A robot voice informed the recipient that the call was coming from “D-squared,” and that he needed to hit the number 1 button to accept the call and the number 2 button to decline it. The call had come in on Elvin Kidd’s cell. He accepted the call.

“Yo, E—that you, n____?”

“What you want, boy? I ain’t putting up no bail on you, man. I’m out. You know that.”

“No, no, no, my n____. I ain’t want nothin’—they got me on a parole hold anyway. I just givin’ you a heads-up, man.”

“About what?”

Ballard grabbed the pad Bosch had written the name Manley on, scribbled a note, and slid it in front of Bosch.

D-squared = Dennard Dorsey. Talked to him Tuesday

Bosch nodded. He understood now who was calling Kidd. Kidd and Dorsey couldn’t hear them if Ballard and Bosch talked, but they maintained silence because they wanted not to miss anything.

“It’s ’bout that thing in the alley way back when, man. Some cop come in here asking all about that thing that happened with that white boy.”

“Asking what?”

“Like was I there and what was going on.”

“What you tell ’em?”

“I didn’t say shit. I wudn’t even there. But I thought, you know, I should tell you they still interested, you know what I mean? Keep your head down, n_____.”

“When was this?”

“She came up in here Tuesday. They put me in a room with her.”

“She?”

“A lady cop. Kind I’d like to see on my bone, too.”

“She got a name?”

“Something like Ballet or something. I didn’t properly catch it at the start ’cause I was like, What you want with me, motherfucker? But she knew some shit, man. She knew me and V-Dog worked that alley back in the day. You remember him? He died up in Folsom or some shit. It’s like one of them cold case things, you know?”

“Who told her about me?”

“I ’on’t know. She just got up in my shit and asked about you.”

“How’d you get this number?”

“I ain’t had no number. I had to call a couple OGs to get it. That’s why it took me a couple days to get to you.”

“Which OG?”

“Marcel. He had a number for—”

“Okay, dog, don’t call me no more. I’m outta the game.”

“I know that, but I still thought you’d—”

The call was disconnected by Kidd.

Ballard immediately got up from her seat and started pacing. “Holy shit,” she said. “Dorsey just did what I was going to drive out there and do tomorrow.”

“But Kidd didn’t give anything up,” Bosch cautioned. “He was careful.”

“True, but he asked a lot of questions. We got the right guy. It’s him and we were fucking lucky the wire got set up already. But now what? Do I still go out there tomorrow?”

“No way. He’ll be ready for you and you don’t want that.” Ballard nodded while she paced the living room. “Can you play it again?” Bosch asked.

Ballard came back to the table and replayed the call. Bosch listened closely for anything that might sound like a code passed between the two old gangbangers. But he concluded that Kidd had taken the call out of the blue and there had been no secret message or code imparted. As Dorsey had said, he was simply passing on a warning about a potentially threatening situation.