“It’s parts of about six books,” Bosch said. “But it isn’t Lee. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me. Why would I lie to you about this, Renée?”
“I don’t know. But stealing books is not cool.”
“I agree. That’s why I never did it.”
She walked over to the table and used a hand to spread the stack out over the table so she could see some of the documents. One of the documents had what looked like a surveillance photo attached to it. It showed a man getting into a car in what was clearly the parking lot of an In-N-Out restaurant. There was no time-and-date stamp, so it wasn’t an official stakeout shot.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“It’s not the Lee case,” Bosch insisted. “It’s something else entirely, okay?”
“I’m just asking. Who is it?”
“Finbar McShane.”
Ballard nodded. It explained the stack. Some cases spawn many murder books. Especially the unsolved cases.
“I thought so,” she said. “Can’t let it go, can you?”
“And what, you think I should?” Bosch asked. “He killed a whole family and got away with it. I should let it go?”
“I’m not saying that. I know it’s your white whale, Harry. We’ve talked about it.”
“Okay, then you know.”
Ballard wanted to switch the conversation back to her case.
“You said Lee wasn’t the kind of case you’d copy a whole book for,” she said. “What do you mean by that?”
“It didn’t get its hooks into me,” Bosch said.
“Why not?”
“Well, as you know, or as I guess you will come to know, some people are sort of the architects of their own demise. And others, they get hit by the bus. They’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time and they did nothing to bring on their fate. They’re innocent.”
Bosch gestured to the pile of documents spread out on his table.
“And they’re the ones who get their hooks in you,” he said.
Ballard nodded and was silent for a moment, as if giving all those who were innocent her respect.
“Hooks or no hooks, can you tell me what you remember about Lee?” she asked. “I’ve made a ballistic connection to the killing of a man in Hollywood last night.”
Bosch raised his eyebrows. He was finally intrigued.
“Last murder of the year, huh?” he said.
“Actually, the first,” Ballard said. “When the shooting started at midnight, somebody put one in my victim’s head.”
“Audio camouflage. Clever. Who’s the vic?”
“Harry, you’re not the one asking questions here. Tell me about Lee first, then we can talk about my case. Maybe.”
“Got it. You want to sit?”
He gestured toward the table instead of the more comfortable living room. He moved behind it, where his back would be to a wall of unkempt stacks of books, files, CDs, and LPs, and sat down. Ballard sat across from him.
As Bosch spoke, he pushed the files Ballard had spread out back into a squared-off pile.
“Albert Lee, black male, I think he was thirty-four when he died. Maybe thirty-three. He had a good idea. Rappers were becoming stars overnight, making their own tapes, coming right out of the ghetto and all of that. He borrowed money and opened a recording studio up in North Hollywood. It was nice, it was out of the gang territories of South Central, and people could come in, rent time in the studio, and lay down their raps. It was a great idea.”
“Until it wasn’t.”
“Right, until it wasn’t. I mentioned he borrowed the money. He had a monthly nut he had to pay, plus rent and other expenses. Plus some of these people who came up to his place to record — ”
“Were gangsters.”
“No. I mean, yeah, they were, but what I was going to say was they had no money for studio time, and Albert — he had a soft side — he’d let them record if they signed over a piece of whatever they made off the beats, you know?”
“Got it. Just try to collect on that down the line.”
“Exactly, and a few of these people hit it sort of big, but even then collecting was slow. He sued a couple of those guys and it got all tied up in the courts.”
“He was going out of business?”
“That would have been the case but he took on an investor. Do you know what factoring is?”
“Nope.”
“It’s a high-interest business loan that is sort of a bridge loan. It’s secured by your accounts receivable. Make sense?”