The Burning Room

38



The Zeyas for Governor exploratory committee was in the process of opening new offices on Olvera Street near the Avila Adobe, the oldest standing residence in Los Angeles. They were going for the easy metaphor of starting the campaign at the very spot where the city was founded. Another new beginning—not only for Los Angeles but for all of California—was afoot. The storefront headquarters was a beehive of activity as desks were being positioned and phone banks installed. Volunteers working for the man who would be governor moved about the three-room suite at the direction of a team leader with a pencil behind her ear. Bosch walked into the main room and asked the lady with the pencil if Connor Spivak was around. She studied Bosch and the two men he was with for a moment, then decided not to ask them to state their business.

“Connor,” she called out. “Visitors.”

“I’m back here” came the chief of staff’s reply.

The team leader removed the pencil and pointed it at one of the side-by-side doors at the rear of the main room. Bosch headed that way and entered a smaller room with a desk already in place and Spivak sitting comfortably behind it. On the wall to his rear was a duplicate of the “Everybody Counts” poster Bosch had removed from the Beverly Hilton earlier in the week. The last man in after Bosch closed the door.

“Detective Bosch, what a surprise,” Spivak said.

“Is it?” Bosch said.

“Yes, but a pleasant one. Who have you brought with you? Two of L.A.’s finest?”

Bosch turned to his left and right to introduce Detectives Rodriguez and Rojas.

“You might remember them,” he said. “The original investigators on the Merced case.”

“Oh yes, I think I do,” Spivak said. “Do you gentlemen have an update on the case I can share with the mayor?”

Bosch nodded.

“The update is that he’s going to need to find some alternate funding for the campaign.”

Spivak looked confused.

“Really?” he said. “Why is that?”

“Because Charles Broussard has written his last check,” Bosch said.

The confusion turned to skepticism.

“I’m not sure what you mean by that but—”

“I mean he’s dead.”

Bosch paused for the reaction but Spivak was able to keep a blank face. Bosch then delivered the next bit of news that was guaranteed to change that.

“And besides alternate funding, the mayor’s going to need to find a new chief of staff. You’re under arrest, Spivak. Accessory to murder.”

Spivak burst out laughing and then abruptly stopped.

“That’s a good one, Detective,” he said.

Bosch wasn’t laughing.

“Stand up, please,” he said.

“What the fuck?” Spivak said. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly. Stand up.”

“I can’t be. You’re arresting me based on what?”

“Based on the fact that you were told ten years ago by an employee of Charles Broussard that she had overheard Broussard and a man named David Willman discussing the shooting of Orlando Merced, which Willman had carried out at Broussard’s request.”

Bosch gestured to the men standing on either side of him.

“Rather than pass this information on to the detectives investigating the Merced shooting, you kept this information to yourself and used it to coerce Broussard into donating heavily and repeatedly to Armando Zeyas’s campaigns.”

Spivak laughed out loud again, but this time there was a nervous twinge underlying it.

“That is fucking nuts,” he said. “It’s crazy. But even if it’s true, there is no accessory charge in there. I’m not a lawyer and even I know that. This will get laughed out of court.”

“Maybe,” Bosch said. “If I was referring to the Merced case. But I’m not. You had information that could have led to the arrest of Broussard and Willman. If that had occurred then, Willman would not have been free to kill a thirty-eight-year-old housewife in San Diego seven months after the Merced shooting. You helped facilitate that murder for hire, and for that you are under arrest for accessory to murder. Now, stand up. I’m not asking again.”

Bosch started moving around the desk from one direction while Rodriguez came from the other. Spivak quickly stood up and held his hands up as if he could push this problem away. Each detective grabbed an arm and roughly moved it down behind Spivak’s back. Bosch nodded to Rodriguez and he put his cuffs on the man’s wrists while Rojas pulled a rights card from his coat pocket and started reading Spivak the Miranda warning.

“Do you understand these rights as I have read them?” Rojas asked in conclusion.

Spivak didn’t answer. He seemed to have dropped into some sort of internal reverie as he considered his situation.

“Do you understand them?” Rojas barked.

“Yes, I understand them,” Spivak said. “Look, Bosch, come on. We can work something out here, can’t we?”

“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “Can we?”

“I mean, I’m not who you really want, right?”

“I don’t know. You look pretty good to me. Broussard’s dead. Willman’s dead. That leaves you.”

Spivak walked the room with his eyes, going from Bosch to Rodriguez to Rojas and then back to Bosch.

“I can give you Zeyas,” he said desperately. “He knew. He knew everything and he approved it.”

“You’ve got evidence of that or just talk?” Rojas asked.

“I have e-mails and memorandums,” Spivak said quickly. “I wrote everything down just in case.”

“What about recordings?” Rodriguez asked. “Do you have him on tape?”

“No, but I could get that. I could wear a wire. You send me in and I tell him Broussard’s dead and we have an exposure problem. I’ll get him on tape, camera, you name it. He’s home right now in Hancock Park—I just talked to him. We can get this done before it all hits the news. What do you say? He’s the one you want, not me.”

Bosch nodded to Rodriguez and he stepped in to remove the handcuffs from Spivak’s wrists. Things were going the way he’d hoped and expected them to go. The arrest had been a bluff. Spivak had certainly committed moral crimes, but prosecuting him as an accessory to murder was a huge legal stretch. Instead, Bosch’s goal had been to gain his cooperation.

Once Spivak was uncuffed, Bosch put his hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down into his desk chair. Bosch casually sat on the edge of the desk and looked down at him.

“We are going to give you one chance at this,” he said.

“I won’t fuck up,” Spivak said. “I promise.”

“You do and we’re back to hanging it all on you. You understand?”

“I promise. I can deliver him.”

“What we’re going to do is walk on out of here like we had a good visit and everything’s cool. Nobody out there needs to be suspicious about anything. We’re going to walk over to the parking lot in front of Union Station and wait for you there. You’ve got fifteen minutes to tell your minions out there that you’re taking off to go see the candidate and then you come meet us. If you don’t show up, you better have a Learjet standing by with the fuel tanks topped off. Because we’ll come looking for you.”

“I know. I’ll be there, I’ll be there. I promise.”

“Good. We’re going to take you over to the D.A.’s office, where we’ve got a guy standing by to structure the deal and give you the parameters of what we expect and what you’ll get for delivering.”

“You mean you knew? You knew I’d make a deal?”

“Let’s just say we had a plan. You start with the little fish if you want the big fish. You still in, Spivak?”

“I’m in. Let’s do this.”

“Fifteen minutes, then. Don’t be late.”

Bosch stood up from the desk and looked over Spivak’s head. He stepped around him and yanked the poster down off the wall. He left it torn on the floor.