“Okay. And on this snitch, you going to take backup?”
“Rick Davenport in Gangs is setting it up. He’ll be there.”
“Okay, what about the Midnight Men and the new case?”
“We have all three victims filling out Lambkin surveys and tomorrow I expect the whole sex crimes team will start cross-referencing and seeing where that gets us. We’re now looking at victim acquisition differently, based on the new case.”
We. Ballard was annoyed with herself for continuing to cover for Lisa Moore.
“Okay,” Robinson-Reynolds said. “I’ll get into it with Neumayer tomorrow morning.”
Matthew Neumayer was the detective in charge of the division’s three-person sex crimes unit and Lisa Moore’s immediate supervisor.
“Then I guess I’ll get back to it,” Ballard said.
“Sure,” Robinson-Reynolds said. “I’ll be in early tomorrow, maybe catch you before you clock out.”
Ballard disconnected and immediately called Davenport.
“Ballard.”
“So, are we going to do this tonight or not?”
“Don’t get so pissy. We’re going to do it. I will get her and bring her to meet you. What time? She doesn’t want you anywhere near where she lives.”
Ballard felt a charge go through her. She was going to get to LP3.
“How about in an hour?”
“An hour’s good.”
“Where?”
“The beach lot at the end of Sunset.”
Ballard knew it well from her many mornings surfing there after work. But it was a trek to get all the way out there.
“I’m on duty and that pulls me forty minutes out of the division. If I get a call, I’m fucked.”
“Do you want to talk to her or not? Her life’s over there now and she’s not coming back to Hollywood.”
Ballard felt she had no choice.
“Okay, one hour. I’ll be there.”
“And Ballard, no names. Don’t even ask her.”
“Fine.”
She knew she could get the name later if she needed to for court reasons. Then the powers that be would come down on Davenport and make him give her up. Right now, Ballard was only interested in whether LP3 could get her closer to the man with the Walther P-22.
After ending the call with Davenport, she drove back to the station and informed the watch lieutenant that she would be off radar and out of the division for the next two hours. It was Rivera on duty for the last night of the holiday weekend and he didn’t seem to care much as long as Ballard had a rover with her, in case, as he said, all hell broke loose.
Afterward, she went to the squad room to print out a photo of Javier Raffa, put fresh batteries in her mini-recorder, and grab a fully charged rover out of the dock before heading back out to the car.
Traffic on Sunset dropped off quickly once she made it through the Strip and into Beverly Hills. Even with all the clubs and restaurants closed down for nearly a year, the crawl of people cruising slowed things down. Ballard felt the temperature drop as she drove west. It was a clear and crisp night. She knew she’d have to put on the down jacket she kept in the trunk for long nights at crime scenes. The wind off the Pacific would chill the parking lot where she was going to meet the informant, and she didn’t know if they would talk in the open or be in a car.
It was said that anyone who wanted to know Los Angeles needed to drive Sunset Boulevard from Beginning to Beach. It was the route by which a traveler would come to know everything that is L.A.: its culture and glories as well as its many fissures and failings. Starting in downtown, where several blocks were renamed Cesar E. Chavez Avenue thirty years ago to honor the union and civil rights leader, the route took its travelers through Chinatown, Echo Park, Silver Lake, and Los Feliz before turning west and traversing Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and the Palisades, then finally hitting the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, its four lanes moved through poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods, by homeless camps and mansions, passing iconic institutions of entertainment and education, cult food and cult religion. It was the street of a hundred cities and yet it was all one city.
Thinking about it made Ballard think of Bosch. She pulled her phone and called him, putting it on speaker.
“I’m going to meet LP-three.”
“Now? By yourself?”
“No, my GED contact, Davenport, will be there. He set it up. He’s getting her and bringing her to the meet.”
“Where?”
“Sunset Beach. The parking lot.”