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.From the start he was a money man, a man politicians and charities went to when they wanted to cast their nets into the rich enclaves of the Westside.He worked both sides, Republican, Democrat, it didn’t seem to matter.His profile grew, though, when he started working for candidates on a larger scale.The current governor was a client.So, too, were a handful of congressman and senators from other western states.A profile written several years earlier—and apparently without his cooperation—ran under the headline THE PRESIDENT’S MAIN MONEY MAN.It said Mittel had been tapped to round up California contributors for the president’s reelection war chest.It said the state was one of the cornerstones of the national campaign’s funding plan.The story also noted the irony that Mittel was a recluse in the high-profile world of politics.He was a backstage man who abhorred the spotlight.So much so that he had repeatedly turned down patronage jobs from those he’d helped elect.Instead, Mittel elected to stay in Los Angeles, where he was the founding partner of a powerful financial district law firm, Mittel, Anderson, Jennings & Rountree.Still, it seemed to Bosch that what this Yale-educated lawyer did had little to do with law as Bosch knew it.He doubted Mittel had been inside a courtroom in years.That made Harry think of the Conklin award and he smiled.Too bad Mittel had quit the DA’s office.He might’ve been in line for it someday.There was a photo that ran with the profile.It showed Mittel at the bottom of the steps of Air Force One greeting the then president at LAX.Though the article had been published years earlier, Bosch was nevertheless startled by how young Mittel was in the photo.He looked at the story again and checked the man’s age.Doing the arithmetic, he realized that currently Mittel was barely sixty years old.Bosch pushed the newspaper clips aside and got up.For a long time he stood at the sliding glass door to the deck and stared at the lights across the pass.He began to consider what he knew about circumstances thirty-three years old.Conklin, according to Katherine Register, knew Marjorie Lowe.It was clear from the murder book that he had somehow reached into the investigation of her death for reasons unknown.His reach was then apparently covered up for reasons unknown.This had occurred only three months before he announced his candidacy for district attorney and less than a year before a key figure in the investigation, Johnny Fox, died while in his political employ.Bosch thought that it was obvious that Fox would have been known to Mittel, the campaign manager.Therefore, he further concluded, whatever it was that Conklin did or knew, it was likely that Mittel, his frontman and the architect of his political run, had knowledge of it as well.Bosch went back to the table and turned to the list of names in his notebook.Now he picked up the pen and circled Mittel’s name as well.He felt like having another beer but he settled for a cigarette.Chapter FourteenIN THE MORNING Bosch called the LAPD personnel office and asked them to check whether Eno and McKittrick were still current.He doubted they were still around but knew he had to make the check.It would be embarrassing if he went through a search for them only to find one or both still on the payroll.The clerk checked the roll and told him no such officers were currently on the force.He decided he would have to put on his Harvey Pounds pose after that.He dialed the DMV in Sacramento, gave the lieutenant’s name and asked for Ms.Sharp again.By the tone she inflected in the single word “Hello” after picking up the phone, Bosch had no doubt that she remembered him.“Is this Ms.Sharp?”“That’s who you asked for, isn’t it?”“I did, indeed.”“Then it’s Ms.Sharp.What can I do for you?”“Well, I wanted to mend our fences, so to speak.I have a few more names I need driver’s license addresses for and I thought that directly working with you would expedite the matter and perhaps repair our working relationship.”“Honey, we don’t have a working relationship.Hold the line, please.”She punched the button before he could say anything.The line was dead for so long that he began to believe his scam to burn Pounds wasn’t worth it.Finally, a different clerk picked up and said Ms.Sharp had instructed her to help.Bosch gave her Pounds’s serial number and then the names Gordon Mittel, Arno Conklin, Claude Eno and Jake McKittrick.He said he needed the home addresses on their licenses.He was put on hold again.During the time he waited he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder and fried an egg over easy in a pan on the stove.He made a sandwich out of it with two slices of white toast and cold salsa from a jar he kept in the refrigerator.He ate the dripping sandwich while leaning over the sink.He had just wiped his mouth and poured himself a second cup of coffee when the clerk finally picked back up.“Sorry it took so long.”“No problem.”He then remembered he was Pounds and wished he hadn’t said that.The clerk explained that she had no addresses or license information on Eno or McKittrick, then gave him addresses for Conklin and Mittel.Goff had been right.Conklin lived in Park La Brea.Mittel lived above Hollywood on Hercules Drive in a development called Mount Olympus.Bosch was too preoccupied at that point to continue the Pounds charade.He thanked the clerk without further confrontation and hung up.He thought about what his next move should be.Eno and McKittrick were either dead or out of state.He knew he could get their addresses through the department’s personnel office but that might take all day.He picked up the phone again and called Robbery-Homicide, asking for Detective Leroy Ruben.Ruben had put nearly forty years in on the department, half of it in RHD.He might know something about Eno and McKittrick.He might also know Bosch was on stress leave.“Ruben, can I help you?”“Leroy, it’s Harry Bosch.What do you know?”“Not much, Harry.Enjoying the good life?”Right away he was telling Bosch he knew of his situation.Bosch knew now that his only alternative was to be straight with him.To a point.“It ain’t bad.But I’m not sleeping late every day.”“No? What’re you getting up for?”“I’m kind’ve freelancing on an old case, Leroy.That’s why I called.I want to try to track down a couple of old dicks.Thought maybe you’d know of them.They were out of Hollywood.”“Who are they?”“Claude Eno and Jake McKittrick.Remember them?”“Eno and McKittrick.No…I mean, yeah, I think I remember McKittrick.He checked out…it must’ve been ten, fifteen years ago.He went back to Florida, I think.Yeah, Florida
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