“I said shut up, Rooker! I don’t have the time to hear a bunch of bullshit when you know it went down just like I said. You took off the guy’s watch and his wallet. Only you fucked up, Rooker. You scratched the guy’s wrist with the watch. Postmortem wound. It’s going to come up on the autopsy and that means you four are going to go down the toilet unless it gets contained.”

He paused, waiting to see if Rooker had anything to say now. He didn’t.

“Okay, sounds like I have your attention. Anybody want to tell me where the watch and wallet are?”

Another pause while Bosch looked at his watch. It was a quarter to ten. The four RHD men said nothing.

“I didn’t think so,” Bosch said, looking from face to face. “So this is what we’re going to do. I meet with Irving in fifteen minutes to give him the overview. He then holds the press conference. If the front desk downstairs doesn’t get a call with information as to the location of the gutter or trash can or whatever place this stuff was stashed, then I tell Irving the robbery was staged by people at the crime scene and it goes from there. Good luck to you guys then.”

He scanned their faces again. They showed nothing but anger and defiance. Bosch expected nothing less.

“Personally, I wouldn’t mind it going that way, seeing you people get what you got coming. But it will fuck the case — put hair on the cake, taint it beyond repair. So I’m being selfish about it and giving you a chance it makes me sick to give.”

Bosch looked at his watch.

“You’ve got fourteen minutes now.”

With that he turned and started heading back out through the squad room. Rooker called after him.

“Who are you to judge, Bosch? The guy was a dog. He deserved to die like a dog and who gives a shit? You should do the right thing, Bosch. Let it go.”

As if it was his intention all along, Bosch casually turned behind an empty desk and came back up a smaller aisle toward the foursome. He had recognized the phrasing of the words Rooker had used. His demeanor disguised his growing rage. When he got back to the group, he broke their informal circle and leaned over Rooker’s desk, his palms down flat on it.

“Listen to me, Rooker. You call my home again — whether it’s to warn me off or to just tell me the weather — and I’ll come looking for you. You won’t want that.”

Rooker blinked but then raised his hands in surrender.

“Hey, man, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talk — ”

“Save it for somebody you can convince. At least you could’ve been a man and skipped the cellophane. That’s coward shit, boy.”