“Damn. Too bad they weren’t so tight with those guns they let cross the border last year.”

“Very funny, Harry. I’ll tell her you said that.”

“Uh, I think it might be better if you didn’t.”

Walling then asked for the Beretta’s serial number and he read it out to her, noting that the eighth digit was missing. She said that either she would get back to him or her friend Agent Suzanne Wingo would contact him directly. She ended the call with a personal question.

“So Harry, how long are you going to do this?”

“Do what?” he asked, even though he had a good idea what she meant.

“Do the badge-and-gun thing. I thought you’d be retired by now, voluntarily or not.”

He smiled.

“As long as they let me, Rachel. Which, according to my DROP contract, is about four more years.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll cross paths again before your time is up.”

“Yeah, I hope so.”

“Take care.”

“Thanks for doing this.”

“Well, let me make sure it will get done before you start thanking me.”

Bosch put the phone back in its cradle. As soon as he stood to go back to his own cubicle, his cell phone buzzed. The ID was blocked but he answered, just in case it was Rachel trying to call him back.

Instead, it was Detective Mendenhall from the PSB.

“Detective Bosch, we need to schedule an interview. What does your schedule look like?”

Bosch started back over to the Open-Unsolved squad. Mendenhall’s voice did not sound threatening. She was even and matter-of-fact. Maybe she already knew the complaint from O’Toole was bullshit. Harry decided to confront the internal investigation head-on.

“Mendenhall, this is a bullshit beef. I want it taken care of quickly. So how about tomorrow morning, first thing?”

If she was surprised that Bosch wanted to come in sooner rather than later, she didn’t show it in her voice.

“I have eight o’clock open. Will that work?”

“Sure, your place or mine?”

“I would prefer that you come here, unless that’s a problem.”

She was talking about the Bradbury Building, where most of PSB was located.

“No problem, Mendenhall. I’ll be there with a rep.”

“Very good. We’ll see if we can get this handled. I ask one last thing, Detective.”

“What’s that?”

“That you refer to me as Detective or Detective Mendenhall. It is disrespectful to call me by just my last name. I would rather our relationship be professional and respectful from the start.”

Bosch had just gotten to his cubicle and saw Chu at his station. He realized he never called Chu by his first name or his rank. Was he being disrespectful all this time?

“You got it, Detective,” he said. “I’ll see you at eight.”

He disconnected the call. Before sitting down, he leaned over the partition into Rick Jackson’s cubicle.