The Wrong Side of Goodbye(2)

“Mr. Bosch?”

He turned to see a woman standing in the middle of the waiting room. She wasn’t the receptionist.

“I’m Gloria. We spoke on the phone,” she said.

“Right, yes,” Bosch said. “Mr. Creighton’s assistant.”

“Yes, nice to meet you. You can come back now.”

“Good. Any longer and I was going to jump.”

She didn’t smile. She led Bosch through a door into a hallway with framed watercolors perfectly spaced on the walls.

“It’s impact-resistant glass,” she said. “It can take the force of a category-five hurricane.”

“Good to know,” Bosch said. “And I was only joking. Your boss had a history of keeping people waiting—back when he was a deputy chief with the police department.”

“Oh, really? I haven’t noticed it here.”

This made no sense to Bosch, since she had just fetched him from the waiting room fifteen minutes after the appointed meeting time.

“He must’ve read it in a management book back when he was climbing the ranks,” Bosch said. “You know, keep ’em waiting even if they’re on time. Gives you the upper hand when you finally bring them into the room, lets them know you are a busy man.”

“I’m not familiar with that business philosophy.”

“Probably more of a cop philosophy.”

They entered an office suite. In the outer office, there were two separate desk arrangements, one occupied by a man in his twenties wearing a suit, and the other empty and, he assumed, belonging to Gloria. They walked between the desks to a door and Gloria opened it and then stepped to the side.

“Go on in,” she said. “Can I bring you a bottle of water?”

“No, thanks,” Bosch said. “I’m fine.”

Bosch entered an even larger room, with a desk area to the left and an informal seating area to the right, where a couple of couches faced each other across a glass-topped coffee table. Creighton was sitting behind his desk, indicating Bosch’s appointment was going to be formal.

It had been more than a decade since Bosch had seen Creighton in person. He could not remember the occasion but assumed it was a squad meeting where Creighton had come in and made an announcement concerning the overtime budget or the department’s travel protocols. Back then Creighton was the head bean counter—in charge of budgeting for the department among his other management duties. He was known for instituting strict policies on overtime that required detailed explanations to be written on green slips that were subject to supervisor approval. Since that approval, or disapproval, usually came after the extra hours were already worked, the new system was viewed as an effort to dissuade cops from working overtime or, worse yet, get them to work overtime and then deny authorization or replace it with comp time. It was during this posting that Creighton became universally known as “Cretin” by the rank and file.

Though Creighton left the department for the private sector not long after that, the “greenies” were still in use. The mark he left on the department had not been a daring rescue or a gun battle or the takedown of an apex predator. It had been the green overtime slip.

“Harry, come in,” Creighton said. “Sit down.”

Bosch moved to the desk. Creighton was a few years older than Harry but in good shape. He stood behind the desk with his hand held forward. He wore a gray suit that was tailor-cut to his taut frame. He looked like money. Bosch shook his hand and then sat down in front of the desk. He hadn’t gotten dressed up for the appointment. He was in blue jeans, a blue denim shirt, and a charcoal corduroy jacket he’d had for at least twelve years. These days Bosch’s work suits from his days with the department were wrapped in plastic. He didn’t want to pull one of them out just for a meeting with Cretin.

“Chief, how are you?” he said.

“It’s not ‘chief’ anymore,” Creighton said with a laugh. “Those days are long ago. Call me John.”

“John, then.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting out there. I had a client on the phone and, well, the client always comes first. Am I right?”

“Sure, no problem. I enjoyed the view.”

The view through the window behind Creighton was in the opposite direction, stretching northeasterly across the Civic Center and to the snowcapped mountains in San Bernardino. But Bosch guessed that the mountains weren’t the reason Creighton picked this office. It was the Civic Center. From his desk Creighton looked down on the spire of City Hall, the Police Administration Building, and the Los Angeles Times Building. Creighton was above them all.

“It is truly spectacular seeing the world from this angle,” Creighton said.

Bosch nodded and got down to business.

“So,” he said. “What can I do for you…John?”

“Well, first of all, I appreciate you coming in without really knowing why I wished to see you. Gloria told me she had a difficult time persuading you to come.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry about that. But like I told her, if this is about a job, I’m not interested. I’ve got a job.”

“I heard. San Fernando. But that’s gotta be part-time, right?”

He said it with a slightly mocking tone and Bosch remembered a line from a movie he once saw: “If you’re not cop, you’re little people.” It also held that if you worked for a little department, you were still little people.