Page 6

“Of course. Be my guest.”

Bosch went into the galley kitchen, got a Modelo out of the refrigerator, and filled a glass of water from the faucet. When he walked out of the kitchen, he saw Haller was on the back deck, looking down at the Hollywood Freeway. Bosch went over and put the glass down on the flat railing next to him.

“It’s better to look up than down,” he said.

“How do you mean?” Haller asked.

“I like to look at the treetops, not the freeway. We’ve got red-tailed hawks, ravens, even a great horned owl in the trees here.”

“Nice. So you’re a birder now?”

“I spent four hundred dollars on night-vision binoculars. So, yeah, I guess I am.”

Bosch pointed to the glass of water.

“I don’t have any fancy water,” he said. “That’s out of the tap.”

“Water is water,” Haller said.

“Tell that to my daughter. She carries around a bottle that uses ultraviolet or something to purify it.”

“I have one of those things too.”

Haller held his glass up in a toast.

“So how much do the lawyers get of the four billion?” Bosch asked.

Haller spread his arms wide as if shocked by the insulting question from his own half brother.

“You mean the lawyers who got this deal for every child who was abused?” he asked.

“Yeah, how much do they get?” Bosch pushed.

“You’ll be happy to know that under the terms of the deal, our fees are capped.”

“At what?”

“Fifty thousand per client per tier.”

“What does that mean?”

“The settlement amounts are based on severity of abuse. The most grievous cases are in tier one, the more moderate cases in tier two, and so on.”

“And who decides who goes in which tier?”

“A special master.”

“A special master decides whether a kid getting raped was grievous one or two.”

“Not that simple. Like with you — you were physically abused but not sexually assaulted. You’re in tier two.”

“How many clients did you end up with on this?”

“Nineteen.”

“What tiers?”

“Most are like you, tier two.”