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“Yeah,” Hastings said in a flat voice. “I’m just dandy.”
They left him there with his thoughts. Bosch looked around for Rita Ford as they were exiting the house but didn’t see her. It looked like Hastings was on his own for now.
33
THE FIRST THING Ballard did after she and Bosch got back in her city car was call Paul Masser on his cell.
“Paul, I need you to come in,” she said.
“Really?” he said. “It’s Sunday—what’s going on?”
“I need a search warrant and I want it to be ironclad. It can never come back on us in court.”
“And you need this today?”
“I need it ten minutes ago. Can you come in? I’ll have it roughed out for you. I promise, you’ll be in and out.”
“Can’t you just email it to me? I can go over it on my phone?”
“No, I want you at the pod so we can do it together.”
“Uh, okay. Give me an hour and I’ll be there.”
“Thank you. And, Paul, don’t tell anyone on the team that you’re rolling in to work. No one.”
She disconnected before he could ask her what was going on. She started driving down the hill to Sunset.
“You don’t need me for that, right?” Bosch said. “You and Paul will write it up.”
Ballard looked over at him.
“I guess,” she said. “But you’ve written more search warrants than Paul and me combined. Where do you have to go?”
“I was thinking I’d get my car and go sit on Rawls,” Bosch said. “If I can find him.”
Ballard nodded. It was the right move.
“Good idea,” she said. “I can get his home address out of my team files. He also has an office above one of his stores, the first one he opened in Santa Monica. It’s the flagship and he runs all the others from there. You can look that address up. It’s called DGP Mailboxes and More.”
“Got it,” Bosch said. “DGP?”
“I once heard him tell the others in the pod that it stood for Don’t Go Postal, but nobody’s supposed to know that.”
“Nice. Thoughtful. What about his car?”
“I have copies of all the paperwork he filled out when he joined the team, including a description of car and plate number for security at Ahmanson.”
“Good, get that to me, too. Let me out on Sunset and I’ll grab a Lyft back to my place. Save you some driving.”
“You sure?”
“My car’s in the opposite direction of Ahmanson. You need to get there and start writing.”
Ballard had a green light and made the turn from Sunset Plaza onto Sunset Boulevard. She pulled to the curb in front of a real estate office. Bosch paused before getting out as he looked at the glass facade of the business.
“What?” Ballard asked.
“Nothing,” Bosch said. “I worked a case that involved that place when it was a high-end jewelry store. Two brothers were murdered in the back room.”
