“Yes?” he asked.
Ballard badged him.
“We’re here to see the woman dropped off a half hour ago,” Ballard said. “I believe she may be your wife.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “It’s midnight and this is out — ”
He was interrupted by the informant walking up behind him to see who was at the door.
“You,” she said. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want,” Ballard said. “I want the name.”
Ballard stepped forward and her intimidating bearing made the man step back, even as he protested.
“Wait a minute here,” he said. “You can’t just — ”
“Is this your wife, sir?” Ballard asked.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Well, step back unless you want this conversation to take place in a police station,” Ballard said.
She then looked directly at the informant.
“You wouldn’t want that, would you?” she said. “Going back to the old neighborhood. You never know who from Las Palmas might be on the lockdown bench when we go in the back door at the station.”
“Gene,” the informant said. “Let them in. The sooner I deal with them, the sooner they leave. Go out on the deck.”
“Smart girl,” Ballard said.
“It’s cold out there,” Gene said.
“Just go,” the informant commanded. “This won’t take long.”
“Jesus,” Gene protested. “You said this sort of shit was over.”
He sauntered toward a set of sliding doors leading to the deck. Beyond the deck, the blue-black waves were beautifully lit by spotlights anchored under the house. The informant waited to speak until Gene was out on the deck and had closed the slider to muffle the sound of the ocean.
“I don’t like this,” she said. “Davenport told me not to speak to you anymore. And who the fuck are you?”
This last part was directed at Bosch.
“He’s with me,” Ballard said. “That’s all you need to know. And I don’t care what Davenport told you or whether you like this. You’re going to tell me about the banker or you’re going to be in the kind of trouble that Gene’s money can’t help you with.”
“I haven’t broken any laws,” the informant said.
“There are state laws, and there are gang laws,” Ballard said. “You think Humberto Viera up in Pelican Bay thinks you’re innocent? You think he doesn’t want to know where you’ve been these last ten years?”
Ballard could see the threat pierce the informant’s armor. Ballard had put things together correctly. Viera was the philandering fiancé and he now had the rest of his life in maximum security to consider who had wronged him.
“Sit down over there,” Bosch said, pointing to a couch. “Now.”
He had read the situation as well. The informant had just gone from tough ex-gang girl to kept woman, scared that her carefully ordered life with a wealthy older man could suddenly change.
She did as she was told and went to the couch. Ballard took a swivel chair across a bamboo coffee table from her, turning it from a view through the sliders to a view of the informant. Bosch walked over to the sliders and stayed standing with his back to Gene, who was trying to watch through the glass.
“What’s your name?” Ballard asked.
“I’m not giving my name,” the informant said.
Resentment was written all over her face.
“I need something to call you by,” Ballard insisted.
“Then call me Darla,” the woman said. “I always liked that name.”
“Okay, Darla, tell me about the street banker. Who was he?”
“All I know is that he was a cop and his name was Bonner. That’s it. I never saw him. I don’t know what he looks like. Please leave now.”
“What kind of cop?”
“I don’t know.”
“LAPD? Sheriff ’s?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“What was his first name?”
“I don’t know that either, or I would have told you.”
“How do you know he was a cop? How did you know his last name?”
“From Berto. He talked about the guy.”
“He said he was a street banker?”
“He said he was the guy who could get money for Raffa. He told him. I was there.”
“Where?”