The three detectives nodded. Bosch had been sued often enough in his twenty-five years with the department, but somehow he had always avoided tangling with Elias. Still, he didn’t believe Irving’s explanation was complete. He knew that Edgar had already alluded to a reason for their choice, probably a reason more important than the fact that none of them had been sued by Elias. Bosch’s two partners were black. That might come in handy for Irving at some point. Bosch knew Irving’s desire that the department have only one face and one race — blue — would go out the window when he needed a black face for the cameras.

“I don’t want my people paraded in front of the media, Chief,” Bosch said. “If we’re on the case, we’re on the case to work it, not for a show.”

Irving stared at him with angry eyes.

“What did you call me?”

Bosch was momentarily taken aback.

“I called you Chief.”

“Oh, good. Because I was wondering if there was some confusion here over the line of command in this room. Is there, Detective?”

Bosch looked away and out the window again. He could feel his face turning red and it upset him to give himself away.

“No,” he said.

“Good,” Irving said without a trace of tension. “Then I am going to leave you with Captain Garwood. He will bring you up to speed on what has been accomplished so far. When he is done, we will talk about how we are going to set this case up.”

He turned to the door but Bosch stopped him.

“One more thing, Chief.”

Irving turned back to him. Bosch had recovered his composure now. He looked calmly at the deputy chief.

“You know we are going to be looking hard at cops on this. Lots of them. We’ll have to go through all of the lawyer’s cases, not just the Black Warrior thing. So I just need to know up front — we all need to — do you and the police chief want the chips to fall where they fall or . . .”

He didn’t finish and Irving said nothing.

“I want to protect my people,” Bosch said. “This kind of case . . . we just need to be clear about everything up front.”

Bosch was taking a gamble saying it in front of Garwood and the others. It would likely anger Irving again. But Bosch took the shot because he wanted Irving to answer him in front of Garwood. The captain was a powerful man in the department. Bosch wanted him to know that his team would be following the directives of the highest command, just in case the chips fell close to some of Garwood’s people.

Irving looked at him for a long moment before finally speaking.

“Your insolence is noted, Detective Bosch.”

“Yes, sir. But what’s the answer?”