Scaggs realized he’d been cornered. How could he not let me speak to employees after that ringing endorsement of honesty and innocence on the bank’s behalf?

“The answer is yes and no,” he said. “Jocelyn is still with us. She’s an assistant branch manager now in West Hollywood. I don’t think there will be a problem talking to her.

“And Linus Simonson?”

“Linus never came back to us after that awful day. I guess you know he got shot up by those bastards. Him and Ray. Ray didn’t make it but Linus did. He was in the hospital and then he was on sick leave and then he didn’t want to come back at all and I can’t see as I blame him.”

“He quit?”

“That’s right.”

I had not seen mention of this in the murder book or even in Szatmari’s records. I knew the investigation was most intense in the days and weeks after the heist. This was probably when Simonson was still recovering and still technically an employee. The investigative records generated at this time would have no reason to mention his leaving employment at the bank.

“Do you know where he went from here?”

“I used to. I don’t now. But to lay it all out there for you, Linus went and got himself a lawyer who started making liability claims. You know, that the bank put Linus in harm’s way and all of this nonsense. None of the claims mentioned that he volunteered to be out there that day.”

“He wanted to be there?”

“Sure. He was a young guy. He grew up in town and probably had Hollywood aspirations at one time or another. Everybody does. He thought spending the day on the set, being the guy in charge of the money, would be a good deal. He volunteered and I said fine, go. I wanted somebody from my office there anyway. Besides Ray Vaughn, I mean.”

“So did Simonson actually sue the bank or just make noise with his lawyer?”

“He made noise. But he made enough noise that legal settled him out. They gave him a chunk of cash and he went away. I heard he used it to buy a nightclub.”

“How much they give him?”

“I don’t know. One time I asked our attorney, Jim Foreman, what the kid got and he wouldn’t tell me. He said terms of the settlement were confidential. But from what I understand, this club he bought, it was a nice one. One of those Hollywood-type places.”

I thought of the portrait I had looked at in the legal library while waiting to see Janis Langwiser.

“Your lawyer is James Foreman?”

“Not my lawyer. The bank’s lawyer. Outside counsel. They decided not to keep it in-house because of the possible conflict.”

I nodded.

“Do you know the name of the club he bought?”

“No, I don’t.”

I sat there looking past Scaggs at the smog through the window behind him. I was seeing but not seeing. I had gone inside where I was feeling the first stirrings of instinct and excitement, of the state of grace that comes with my religion.

“Mr. Bosch?” Scaggs said. “Don’t disappear on me. I’ve got an officers’ meeting in five minutes.”

I came out of it and looked at him.

“Sorry, sir. I’m done here. For now. But before your meeting can you call Jocelyn Jones and tell her I’m coming out to see her? I need to know where the branch is, too.”

“That will be no problem.”

On the way to the West Hollywood branch of BankLA to see Jocelyn Jones I had some time to kill so I drove west on Hollywood Boulevard. I had not been down there much since my retirement and I wanted to see the old beat. According to the newspaper it was changing and I wanted to see this for myself.

The asphalt on the boulevard still glittered in the sunlight but the storefronts and office buildings near Vine still slumbered beneath the patina of a half century of smog. No difference there. But once past Cahuenga and onto Highland I saw where the new Hollywood was springing to life. New hotels-and I’m not talking about the type with hourly rates-and theaters, people centers with popular up-style restaurant franchises anchoring them. The streets and sidewalks were crowded, the brass stars imbedded in the sidewalks were polished. It was safer and cleaner but less genuine. Still, the word that popped into my head was hope. There was a sense of hope and vigor. There was a definite vibe coming off the street and I guess I liked it. The idea, I knew, was that the vibe would spread from this core area and move down the boulevard like an earthquake wave, leaving renovation and reinvention in its wake. A few years ago I would have been first to say the plan had no chance. But maybe I was wrong.

Still feeling lucky from Vegas I decided to let the vibe ride and dropped down Fairfax to Third and pulled into the farmer’s market to grab something to eat.

The market was another remake job I had stayed away from. There was a new parking garage and open-air people center built next to the old clapboard market with its comforting combination of good, cheap food and kitsch. I think I liked it better when you could just pull into a parking space next to the newsstand but I had to admit they had done it right. It was the old and new sitting side by side and getting along. I walked through the new section, past the department stores and the biggest bookstore I had ever seen and into the old. Bob’s Donuts was still there and every other place that I remembered. It was crowded. People were happy. It was too late in the day for a doughnut so I picked up a BLT and change for a dollar at the Kokomo Café and ate the sandwich in one of the old-time phone booths that they had left in place next to the Dupar’s. I called Roy Lindell first and caught him eating at his desk.

“What do you have?”

“Tuna on rye with pickles.”

“That’s sick.”

“Yeah, what do you have?”

“BLT. Double-smoked bacon from Kokomo’s.”

“Well, that beats me all to hell. What do you want, Bosch? Last time I saw you, you wanted nothing to do with me. In fact, I thought you went to Vegas.”

“I did go but I’m back. And things are smoothing out now. You could say I’ve come to an understanding with your pals on the ninth floor. You want back in on this thing or you want to pout about it?”

“You got something?”

“Maybe. Not much more than a feeling at the moment.”

“What do you want from me?”

I shoved my sandwich wrapper off the murder book and opened it to get the information I needed.

“See what you can come up with on a guy named Linus Simonson. Thirty-one-year-old white male. He owns a club in town.”

“What’s it called?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“That’s great. You want me to pick up your dry cleaning while I’m at it?”

“Just run the name. You’ll get a hit or you won’t.”

I gave him Simonson’s birthdate and the address listed in the murder book, although I had a feeling it was old.

“Who is he?”

I told him about Simonson’s former work at BankLA and about him being shot during the movie set heist.

“The guy was a victim. You think he set it up and told his guys to shoot him in the ass?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what’s he got to do with Marty Gessler?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Probably nothing. But I just want to check him out. Something doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Okay, you keep having the hunches and I’ll do the legwork, Bosch. Anything else?”

“Look, if you don’t want to do it, just say so. I’ll get somebody else to -”

“Look, I said I’ll do it, and I will. Anything else?”

I hesitated but not for too long.

“Yeah, one other thing. Can you run a plate for me?”

“Give it to me.”

I gave him the number I had gotten off the car Eleanor had been driving. It was still in my memory and I figured it would stay there until I checked it out.

“Nevada?” Lindell asked, suspicion obvious in his voice. “This have to do with your trip to Vegas or this thing over here?”