IN the long run, Frank Sinatra got ripped off. Decades ago, when the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce put his star down on the sidewalk, they put it on Vine Street rather than on Hollywood Boulevard. The thinking probably was that the Sinatra star would be a draw, people would come down from the boulevard to see it, to take a picture. But if that was the plan, it didn’t work. Frank was alone in a spot that probably saw more hypes than tourists. His star was at a crosswalk between two parking lots and next to a residence hotel where you had to convince the security guard to unlock the lobby door if you wanted to go in.

When Bosch had been in RHD years before, the Sinatra star had often been a meeting spot between detectives in the field or between detectives and their snitches. It hadn’t surprised Bosch that Garwood had suggested it for their meeting. It was a way of meeting on neutral ground.

By the time Bosch got to the star Garwood was already there. Bosch saw his unmarked Ford LTD in the parking lot.

Garwood flashed his lights. Bosch pulled to the curb in front of the hotel and got out. He crossed Vine to the parking lot and got in the front passenger seat. Garwood was wearing a suit, even though called from home. Bosch realized that he had never seen Garwood in anything other than a suit, the tie always pulled tight, the top button of his shirt never undone. Again Bosch thought of Rider’s Boris Karloff comment.

“Those fucking cars,” Garwood said, looking across the street at Bosch’s slickback. “I heard about you getting potshotted.”

“Yeah. That wasn’t fun.”

“So what brings you out tonight, Harry? How come you’re still investigating a case that the chief of police and everybody else has already closed?”

“Because I have a bad feeling about it, Cap. There are loose ends. Things can unravel when you have loose ends.”

“You never could leave things alone. I remember that from when you worked for me. You and your fucking loose ends.”

“So tell me about Chastain.”

Garwood said nothing, just stared ahead through the windshield, and Bosch realized that his former captain was unsure about things.