It took Bosch a moment to recover from my surprise knowledge of Frank Morgan, the obscure heir to Charlie Parker who for two decades squandered the inheritance on heroin. We crossed the reception area and went into the main office.

“So how’s the case going?” I asked.

“It’s going,” he said.

“I heard that before you came and saw me yesterday, you spent the night in Parker Center sweating a suspect. No arrest, though?”

I moved around behind Vincent’s desk and sat down. I started pulling the files out of my bag. Bosch stayed standing.

“Who told you that?” Bosch asked.

There wasn’t anything casual about the question. It was more of a demand. I acted nonchalant about it.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I must’ve heard it somewhere. Maybe a reporter. Who was the suspect?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Then, what is my business with you, Detective? Why are you here?”

“I came to see if you had any more names for me.”

“What happened to the names I gave you yesterday?”

“They’ve checked out.”

“How could you check them all out already?”

He leaned down and put both hands on the desk.

“Because I’m not working this case alone, okay? I have help and we checked out every one of your names. Every one of them is in jail, dead or was not worried about Jerry Vincent anymore. We also checked out several of the people he put away as a prosecutor. It’s a dead end.”

I felt a real sense of disappointment and realized that maybe I had put too much hope in the possibility of one of those names from the past belonging to the killer, and his arrest being the end of any threat to me.

“What about Demarco, the gun dealer?”

“I took that one myself and it didn’t take long to scratch him off the list. He’s dead, Haller. Died two years ago in his cell up at Corcoran. Internal bleeding. When they opened him up they found a toothbrush shiv lodged in the anal cavity. It was never determined whether he’d put it up there for safekeeping himself or somebody else did it for him, but it was a good lesson for the rest of the inmates. They even put up a sign. Never put sharp objects up your ass.”

I leaned back in my seat, as much repelled by the story as by the loss of a potential suspect. I recovered and tried to continue in nonchalant form.

“Well, what can I tell you, Detective? Demarco was my best shot. Those names were all I had. I told you I can’t reveal anything about active cases, but here’s the deal: There’s nothing to reveal.”

He shook his head in disbelief.