“They have phones but they’re dead. We’ve been running all night. Mine’s dead.”

“Then page them. Get them in here.”

Bosch slowly got up and headed to the phone which was on top of the storage cabinet that ran along one wall of the room. He called Rider and Edgar’s pagers, but when he punched in the return number he added an extra seven at the end. This was a long-standing code they used. The extra seven — as in code seven, the radio call for out of service — meant they should take their time in returning the pages, if they returned them at all.

“Okay, Chief,” Bosch said. “Hopefully, they’ll call in. What about Chastain and his people?”

“Never mind them. I want your team back here by eleven for the press conference.”

Bosch moved back to his seat.

“How come?” he asked, though he knew exactly why. “I thought you said the police chief was going — ”

“The chief will lead it. But we want to have a show of force. We want the public to know we have top-notch investigators on this case.”

“You mean top-notch black investigators, don’t you?”

Bosch and Irving held hard stares for a moment.

“Your job, Detective, is to solve this case and solve it as quickly as you can. You are not to concern yourself with other matters.”

“Well, that’s kind of hard to do, Chief, when you are pulling my people out of the field. Can’t solve anything quickly if they’ve got to be here for every dog and pony show you people cook up.”

“That is enough, Detective.”

“They are top-notch investigators. And that’s what I want to use them for. Not as cannon fodder for the department’s race relations. They don’t want to be used that way, either. That in itself is ra — ”

“Enough, I said! I do not have time to debate racism, institutional or otherwise with you, Detective Bosch. We are talking about public perceptions. Suffice it to say that if we mishandle this case or its perceptions from the outside, this city could be burning again by midnight.”

Irving paused to look at his watch.

“I meet the police chief in twenty minutes. Could you please begin to enlighten me with the accomplishments of the investigation up to this point?”

Bosch reached over and opened his briefcase. Before he could reach for his notebook the phone on the cabinet rang. He got up and went to it.

“Remember,” Irving said, “I want them here by eleven.”

Bosch nodded and picked up the phone. It wasn’t Edgar or Rider and he had not expected that it would be.

“This is Cormier downstairs in the lobby. This Bosch?”

“Yeah.”