Free The Night Fire: A Ballard and Bosch thriller (Harry Bosch 22) by Michael Connelly

regarding a case they were working. Compton bailed out of the car they were arguing in and then bailed out of the relationship they’d had.
    “I want you to meet me at Men’s Central,” Ballard said. “Dennard Dorsey, I want to talk to him and I might need you for leverage.”
    “Never heard of him,” Compton said.
    “Come on, Rob, your name’s on the VOP order.”
    “I’ll have to look him up.”
    “Go ahead. I’ll wait.”
    Ballard heard typing and realized she had reached Compton at his desk.
    “I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he said. “I seem to recall being left high and dry by you the last time I did you a favor.”
    “Oh, come on,” Ballard said. “I seem to recall you pussied out on me and I got mad. You got out of the car and walked away. But you can make up for it now with Dorsey.”
    “
I
have to make up for it? You’ve got balls, Ballard. That’s all I can say about it.”
    Ballard heard a peal of laughter from the other side of the partition. She knew Amy had heard Compton’s comment. She held the phone against her chest so Compton would not hear, then turned the volume down before bringing it back to her mouth.
    “You got him or not?” she asked.
    “Yeah, I got him,” Compton said. “No wonder I didn’t remember him. I never met him. He never reported. Got out of Wasco nine months ago, came back down here, and never showed up. I put in the VOP and he got picked up.”
    “Well, now’s a good time to meet him.”
    “I can’t, Renée. I got paper to do today.”
    “Paperwork? Come on, Robby. I’m working a murder and this guy may have been a key witness.”
    “Doesn’t look like the type who’s going to talk. He’s got a gang jacket. Rolling 60s going back to the eighties. He’s hard-core. Or was.”
    “Not really. Back in the day he was a snitch. A protected snitch. Look, I’m going over there. You can help me if you want. Maybe give him some incentive to talk.”
    “What incentive would that be?”
    “I figure you might give him a second chance.”
    “Nah, nah, nah, I’m not letting the guy out. He’ll just shit all over me again. I can’t do that, Ballard.”
    Compton going to her last name told her he was set on this.
    “Okay, I tried,” she said. “I’ll try something else. See ya around, Robby. Or actually, I probably won’t.”
    She disconnected and dropped her phone on the desk. Amy spoke teasingly from the other side of the partition.
    “Bitch.”
    “Hey, he deserved it. I’m working a murder here.”
    “Roger that.”
    “Roger the fuck that.”
    Ballard’s plan was to go over to Men’s Central, but first she finished the rundown on the names on her list. After Brendan Sloan, whose whereabouts she already knew, came Elvin Kidd, the Rolling 60s street boss at the time of the murder, and Nathan Brazil, John Hilton’s roommate. Both were still alive and Ballard got addresses for them from the DMV computer. Kidd lived out in Rialto in San Bernardino County and Brazil was in West Hollywood.
    Ballard was curious about Kidd. Now nearly sixty years old, he had moved far away from Rolling 60s Crips turf, and his interactions with the justice system seemed to have stopped almost twenty years before. There had been arrests and convictions and prison time, but then it appeared that Kidd either started to fly below the radar with his continuing illegal pursuits or found the straight-and-narrow life. The latter possibility would not have been all that unusual. There were not that many old gangsters on the street. Many never got out of their twenties alive, many were incarcerated with life sentences, and many simply grew out of gang life after realizing only the first two alternatives awaited them.
    In checking Kidd’s record she came across a possible connection to Hilton. Both had spent time at Corcoran State Prison, with what looked like a sixteen-month overlap in the late 1980s when they were both there. Hilton was finishing his sentence while Kidd