“Yup.”

“Can I get a set?”

“Sure can, but you’re going to have to wait about twenty minutes or so till I’m done with this.”

“Come on, Artie, it’s probably just sitting in a file cabinet or something. It’ll take you thirty seconds.”

“Would you leave me alone?” Donovan said with exasperation. “I’m serious, Harry. Yes, it’s sitting in a file and it would only take me half a minute to get it for you. But if I leave what I’m doing here, I could get crucified when I testify in this case. I can see it now, some shyster all righteous and angry and saying, ‘You are telling this jury that while in the middle of handling evidence from this case you got up and handled evidence from another?’ And you don’t have to be F. Lee Bailey anymore to make it sound good to a jury. Now leave me alone. Come back in a half hour.”

“Fine, Artie, I’ll leave you alone.”

“And buzz me when you come back. Don’t just come in. We gotta get that combination changed.”

The last line he said more to himself than to Bosch.

Bosch left the way he had come in and took the elevator down to go outside and have a smoke. He had to walk out to the curb and light up because it was now against departmental rules to stand outside the front door of Parker Center and smoke. So many cops working there were addicted to cigarettes that there had often been a crowd outside the building’s main doors and a permanent haze of blue smoke had begun to hang over the entrance. The chief thought this was unsightly and instituted the rule that if you left the building to smoke, you had to leave the property as well. Now the front sidewalk along Los Angeles Street often looked like the scene of a labor action, with cops, some even in uniform, pacing back and forth in front of the building. The only thing missing from the scene was picket signs. The word was that the police chief had consulted with the city attorney to see if he could outlaw smoking on the sidewalk as well, but he was told that the sidewalk was beyond the bounds of his control.

As Bosch was lighting a second cigarette off the first, he saw the huge figure of FBI agent Roy Lindell waltzing leisurely out of the glass doors of the police headquarters. When he got to the sidewalk, he turned right and headed toward the federal courthouse. He was coming directly toward Bosch. Lindell didn’t see Bosch until he was a few feet away. It startled him.

“What is this? Are you waiting for me?”

“No, I’m having a cigarette, Lindell. What are you doing?”

“None of your business.”

He made a move to pass but Bosch stopped him with the next line.

“Have a nice chat with Chastain?”

“Look, Bosch, I was asked to come over and give a statement and I obliged. I told the truth. Let the chips fall.”

“Trouble is you don’t know the truth.”

“I know you found that gun and I didn’t put it there. That’s the truth.”

“Part of it, at least.”

“Well, it’s the only part I know, and that’s what I told him. So have a good day.”

He passed by Bosch and Harry turned around to watch him go. Once again he stopped him.

“You people might be satisfied with only part of the truth. But I’m not.”

Lindell turned around and stepped back to Bosch.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out.”

“No, you tell me.”

“We were all used, Lindell. I’m going to find out by who. When I do, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Look, Bosch, you don’t have the case anymore. We’re working it and you better stay the fuck away from it.”

“Yeah, you guys are working the case, all right,” Bosch said sarcastically. “I’m sure you’re pounding the pavement on this one. Let me know when you figure it out.”

“Bosch, it’s not like that. We care about it.”

“Give me one answer, Lindell.”

“What?”

“In the time you were under, did Tony Aliso ever bring his wife over there to make a pickup?”

Lindell was quiet a moment while he decided whether to answer. He finally shook his head.

“Not once,” he said. “Tony always said she hated the place. Too many bad memories, I guess.”

Bosch tried to remain cool.

“Memories of Vegas?”

Lindell smiled.

“For somebody who supposedly has all the answers, you don’t know much, do you, Bosch? Tony met her in the club something like twenty years ago. Long before my time. She was a dancer and Tony was going to make her a movie star. Same story he was using on ’em to the end. Only, after her I guess he got wise and learned not to marry every one of them.”

“Did she know Joey Marks?”

“Your one question is now up to three, Bosch.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was her name back then?”

“That’s another one I don’t know. I’ll see you around, Bosch.”

He turned and walked away. Bosch threw his cigarette into the street and walked back toward the Glass House. A few minutes later, after being properly buzzed through the door into the SID offices, Bosch found Donovan at his desk again. The criminalist lifted a thin file from the desk and handed it to Harry.

“You got copies in there,” he said. “Same thing I sent the bureau. What I did was shoot a copy of the negative and then shot the new negative and printed it in black-and-white contrast for comparison purposes. I also blew it up to actual size.”

Bosch didn’t understand what Donovan had just said except for the last part. He opened the file. There were two pages of copy paper with the shoe prints in black. Both were partial prints of the same right shoe. But between the two partials almost all of the shoe was there. Donovan got up and looked at the open file. He pointed to a tread ridge on one of the copies. It was a curving line on the heel. But the line was broken.

“Now, if you find the shooter and he still has the shoes, this is where you’ll get him. See how that line is broken there? That does not appear to be a manufacturer’s design. This guy stepped on glass or something at some point and it cut the tread there. It’s either that or a flaw in manufacturing. But if you find the shoe, we’ll be able to make an ID match that should send the boy away.”

“Okay,” Bosch said, still looking at the copies. “Now, did you get anything even preliminary from the bureau on this?”

“Not really. I’ve got a guy I go to pretty regularly with this kind of stuff. I know him, seen him at a couple of the SID conventions. Anyway, he called just to let me know he got the package and he’d get on it as soon as he could. He said that off the top of his head he thought it was one of those lightweight boots that are popular now. You know, they’re like work boots but they’re comfortable and wear like a pair of Nikes.”

“Okay, Artie, thanks.”

Bosch drove over to the County-USC Medical Center and around to the parking lot by the railroad yard. The coroner’s office was located at the far end of the medical center property, and Bosch went in through the back door after showing his badge to a security guard.

He checked Dr. Salazar’s office first but it was empty. He then went down to the autopsy floor and looked in the first suite, where the lowered table that Salazar always used was located. Salazar was there, working on another body. Bosch stepped in and Salazar looked up from the open chest cavity of what looked like the remains of a young black man.

“Harry, what are you doing here? This is a South Bureau case.”

“I wanted to ask about the Aliso case.”

“Kind of got my hands full at the moment. And you shouldn’t be in here without a mask and gown.”

“I know. You think you could have your assistant dub off a copy of the protocol for me?”

“No problem. I heard the FBI took an interest in the case, Harry. Is that true?”

“That’s what I hear.”

“Funny thing, those agents didn’t bother talking to me. They just came in and got a copy of the protocol. The protocol only has conclusions, none of the ruminating we doctors like to do.”