“I’m not asking to cut in line. I’m just wondering if maybe you could look at it on your lunch break, and if it looks good, then you put your magic mix on it and check it at the end of the day to see what you’ve got. Four hours but no time taken off the clock from your regular work.”

Bosch spread his arms like he was explaining something that was so simple it was beautiful.

“The line stays intact and nobody gets upset.”

Sargent smiled as he raised his hand to punch in the combo on the unit’s door lock. He typed 1-8-5-2 on the keypad, the year Smith & Wesson was founded.

He pushed the door open.

“I don’t know, Harry. We only get fifty minutes for lunch and I need to go out. I don’t bring my lunch like some of the other guys.”

“That’s why you need to tell me what you want for lunch so I can be back here with it at eleven-fifteen.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

Sargent led him to a workstation that was mainly a padded stool and a high table that was littered with gun parts and barrels and several evidence bags containing bullets or handguns. Taped to the wall over the table was the Times headline:

“PISTOL PETE” MAKES STATE’S CASE

AGAINST ALLEGED MOB HIT MAN

Sargent put Bosch’s package down front and center on the table, which Harry took as a good sign. Bosch looked around to make sure nobody else could see him trying to work Sargent. They were the only ones in the unit so far.

“So what do you think?” Bosch said. “I bet after you guys moved down here you haven’t had a pepper steak from Giamela’s since forever.”

Sargent nodded thoughtfully. The regional lab was only a few years old and it consolidated the crime labs of both the LAPD and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office. The LAPD’s gun unit had previously been located at the Northeast Station up near Atwater. The go-to place up there was a sub shop called Giamela’s. Bosch and whoever his partner of the moment was would always stop there, even scheduling “gun runs” around lunchtime, and often taking their take-out subs into the nearby Forest Lawn Memorial Park to eat. Bosch once had a partner who was a baseball fanatic and always insisted that they make a stop on gun runs to check Casey Stengel’s grave. If it was not properly trimmed and weeded, he would personally alert the caretakers to the problem.

“You know what I miss?” Sargent said. “I miss their meatball sub. That sauce was kick-ass.”

“One meatball sub coming up,” Bosch said. “You want cheese on that?”

“No, no cheese. But can you get the sauce on the side in a cup or something? That way it won’t get soggy.”