The diner was the kind that had been called Frank's for so long that nobody currently working there had met Frank. Coffee that tasted like it had a grievance. Vinyl booths that hissed when you sat down. Two precincts over, which mattered: nobody from Mid-Wilshire ate here, and nobody from Hollywood would think to look. Ethan was in the back booth by 9:48, which gave him twelve minutes to pick the seat that faced the door and order something to look occupied with. He chose dry wheat toast and coffee. The Board logged the waitress's face, the position of the kitchen pass-through, the two exits — front and the one behind the restrooms that was technically marked employees only and was, in practice, propped with a cinder block.
Webb came in at 9:59 and forty-three seconds.
Ethan placed him before the door closed. Mid-forties. Carried himself like a man who had stopped expecting his shoulders to relax and had made peace with that. Wedding ring, scuffed. Coat off the rack, not the closet. The folded note in his jacket pocket showed the corner through the lining — Grey's writing, Ethan knew the angle of the fold from how Grey did everything else.
Webb scanned the room in one sweep, registered the back booth, and walked to it without altering his pace.
"Mercer."
"Detective."
"Marcus is fine. Booth's fine. Move over."
Ethan slid. Webb sat with his back to the kitchen, which meant he wanted the door, which meant either he was trained or he was nervous or both. Ethan did not file it as either yet. The Board kept the data point loose.
The waitress came. Webb said just coffee without looking at her. She refilled Ethan's cup along with Webb's and left.
"So." Webb set both hands flat on the table. Not a power move. A I have nothing in my hands move. "I read what Grey sent. About four times."
"And?"
"And I have questions."
"Okay."
"You first." Webb's mouth made a shape that was almost a smile but stopped early. "How do I know you?"
The Hollow brushed against the question — the question was a real question and was not the question Webb was actually asking. He was asking a different question underneath. The Hollow could not name it; it could only mark the gap. Calculated omission. Ethan filed it.
"You don't, sir. We haven't worked together."
"Marcus."
"Marcus."
"Mm." Webb sipped his coffee. Did not flinch at the temperature. "I asked around about you on my way over. Took twelve minutes. You know what I got?"
"Hero," Ethan said.
"Hero. Lucky. Scary instincts. Quote, scary instincts, unquote — that's Sergeant Bradford. I worked a case with Sergeant Bradford four years ago. He doesn't use the word scary."
"That sounds like him."
"It does." Webb set the cup down. "I also got: rich. The mansion-in-Hancock-Park kind of rich. Which is interesting, because the file Grey sent me is not the file of an officer killing time before his trust fund vests."
The Hollow brushed again. Webb was telling the truth. He was also testing something. The thing he was testing was will Ethan correct him about the mansion. The mansion was true. The trust-fund part was true. The framing was a test of whether Ethan would over-explain his own wealth. Most cops did. Ethan did not.
"Mm," Ethan said.
Webb's mouth made the not-quite-smile again.
"All right. So." Webb pulled the folded note from his jacket, opened it, set it on the table without showing Ethan the writing. "Grey says you've been paying attention for about six weeks. Your file says you've been paying attention longer than that."
The Hollow did not move. Webb believed the words he was saying and was not lying about what he had concluded.
"My file says what's in my file," Ethan said.
"Mm. Yeah. That's the kind of sentence I expected from you." Webb looked at him for a measured beat. "Here's where we are. I have a file open on a Mid-Wilshire officer right now. Not Armstrong. Different name. Smaller case — evidence-locker discrepancies, two months of pattern, IA has been building it for nine weeks. If I open your case before I close that one, both burn. The Armstrong end-run won't survive Petersen seeing me twice in the records room in three months. I need to park the smaller one. Which I can do. For about ten days."
The Hollow was quiet. Carl Petersen. The records clerk. The Board pulled the file on Petersen automatically — middle-aged, divorced, gambling debts the precinct gossip mill had been quietly speculating about for half a year. Ethan kept his face exactly where it had been. Petersen was, almost certainly, one of Armstrong's. The Hollow had already brushed against him twice this year. He did not say this.
"Ten days is a window," Ethan said.
"Ten days is a gift. I'd like to know what I'm gifting it to."
"You've read the file."
"I've read the file. The file tells me what Armstrong did. It does not tell me how you saw it." Webb leaned forward by maybe an inch. "Mercer. I do this work because I think the job is worth doing. I also do this work because I have learned that ninety percent of officers who report on another officer are either correct and settling a score, or incorrect and settling a score. The score-settling is the constant. The signal is the question. So when I look at your file and I see a P2 who has built a case Internal Affairs could not have built without subpoenas, the question is: what are you settling, Officer Mercer?"
Ethan held Webb's eyes.
The Hollow brushed the question and went clean. Webb had asked exactly what he meant. No fog. The question was not a test of whether Ethan was honest. It was a test of whether he was settled.
"I'm not settling anything, Marcus."
Webb watched him.
"I noticed Armstrong on a Lopez case in my first year. I noticed him again a couple of times after that. I made notes. The notes got more organized as I got more sure. About six weeks ago I had enough that I couldn't keep sitting on it. That's the chronology I'm comfortable putting in writing." He paused — the right length of pause. "I'd like Armstrong stopped before he frames Lopez. He's setting that table. I think you can see it in the case-load patterns in section four. That's what I'm settling, if you want to call it that."
Webb did not move for three seconds.
"Section four," he said. "The Vargas overlaps."
"Yes."
"Mm." Webb sipped his coffee again. Slower this time. "All right. I'll give you something. Quid pro quo, since we're being grown-ups."
"Okay."
"A name." Webb set the cup down. "Two years ago, Armstrong tried to dirty a sergeant in West Bureau. Failed. Sergeant pushed back, Armstrong walked it back, story died quiet. It never made paper. The sergeant's name was Hines. He's still on the job. I know about it because he came to my office and told me, off the record, never followed through. Hines has been on my someday list ever since."
The Net stayed quiet. The Hollow stayed quiet. Webb was telling the truth and the truth was a name Grey did not have, that Ethan's file did not have, that no public record carried. A piece of true information. The price of partnership.
Ethan filed Hines without reacting.
"Now you," Webb said.
"Now me."
"One thing I won't find in the folder. One thing that proves to me you're not running me. One thing that — if you're wrong about it — burns you before it burns me."
The Board ran the list. Three options surfaced; he chose the one that cost the least and proved the most.
"Petersen," Ethan said.
Webb's mouth made the shape again. The not-smile. He held it for longer this time. "Records clerk."
"Yes."
"What about him?"
"He's the leak inside Mid-Wilshire. Armstrong's case data routes through him to people I don't have names for yet. I have logs. They're not in the folder because they're circumstantial. If your IA case on the other officer goes through records, Petersen sees it. If Petersen sees it, Armstrong knows about your bigger case in twelve hours."
Webb did not write anything down. He looked at the laminate of the table for a long moment. Ethan let him.
"That's a real piece," Webb said finally.
"Yes."
"You give me Petersen, you give me a thing I have to act on or ignore. You understand what you've just done."
"Yes."
"Mm." Webb picked up his cup. Sipped. Did not flinch. "Ten days. Off the books. You and I do not exist on paper together until we have to. When we have to, we will have built something that survives daylight. Are we clear?"
"Yes."
Webb stood. Put two dollars on the table. Did not say goodbye.
Ethan sat in the booth for another seven minutes after Webb left, watching the door, the Board cataloguing the way Webb had walked out — the gait, the angle, the rhythm of his hand on the door handle, all of it filed and dated. Then he paid for his toast and left a tip that was within fifty cents of the average tip the booth had received that month.
Outside, the sun was at the angle that meant the morning was almost done.
He had thirty minutes to be back on shift. Tim would be at the car.