Bosch didn’t like that last part. He moved up the steps and looked in through the bars. Briscoe was leading Gant down a hallway toward the rear of the house. For the first time, he noticed a boy of about nine or ten sitting on a couch playing a handheld video game.

“Jordy, you okay?” he called.

Gant looked back and Bosch put his hands on the security gate’s handle and shook it to remind him that he was locked in and his backup was locked out.

“We’re cool,” Gant called back. “Momma’s going to give it up. She doesn’t want you crackers tearing her place up.”

He smiled as he disappeared from sight. Bosch stayed at the door, leaning close to it so he would hear any sound that might be trouble. He put the phony warrant—dummied off an old one—into his coat’s inside pocket to be used another day.

He waited five minutes and heard nothing except the electronic beeps of the boy’s game. He assumed that the kid was Trumont Story’s child.

“Hey, Jordy?” he finally called out.

The boy didn’t look away from his game. There was no reply.

“Jordy?”

Again no reply. Bosch tried the door handle, even though he knew it was locked. He turned back to the two GED cops and signaled them to go around the house to the back, to see if there was an open door. Chu jumped up on the stoop.

Then Bosch saw Gant appear at the mouth of the hallway. He was smiling and holding up a large Ziploc bag containing a black pistol.

“Got it, Harry. We’re good.”

Bosch told Chu to retrieve the two GED guys and he let out his first full breath in ten minutes. It was the best way to have worked it. There was no way O’Toole would have approved his going for a search warrant. There wasn’t enough probable cause for a judge to okay a search three years after the subject’s death. So the dummy warrant scam was the best way. And Gant’s script had worked perfectly. Briscoe had given them the gun voluntarily, without their having to illegally search the house.

As Gant approached the door, Bosch could see that the Ziploc bag was wet.

“Toilet tank?”

An obvious place. One of the top five hiding places used by criminals. They all watched The Godfather at some point in their maturation process.

“Nope. The drain pan under the washing machine.”

Bosch nodded. That wasn’t even top twenty-five. Briscoe reached around Gant and unlocked the security gate. Bosch pulled it open to let him out.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Briscoe,” he said.

“Just get the fuck off my property now and don’t come back,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. Gladly.”