I Don't Like Having Snakes Around," "You'll Get What You Deserve." He had to admit, you got to have a pretty strange day when you're being chased by a snake in a garbage truck. He made a tight turn at the top of the hill and headed for the road into town. He'd be in the station in thirty minutes. They could take a look at their options after that. The truck was a couple of blocks down the street before he noticed the man in the blue sweater watching him through the window. He was on the passenger side. The man looked as though he was concentrating on something. He raised the camera, then lowered it again. The truck came to a stop behind a row of police vehicles, facing down the street toward town. The blue-shirted man crossed the sidewalk and walked over to the truck. The truckie cranked down his window, but the man passed on by and went up the steps into the station. Bosch thought about getting out of the truck and going inside. He'd have to hurry up to make the morning meeting. But he remained where he was, figuring the man in the blue sweater had a reason for going inside. Then the truckie lowered his window. "What happened?" "You get in your car and drive, okay?" Bosch's instincts told him the man was being as cooperative as he needed to be. "I'll call you." "What?" "Just drive." "What are you talking about?" "Just drive and I'll call you." Bosch nodded at the driver and started to pull away from the curb. But the truckie seemed frozen in place. He just sat there with his hand on the window crank, staring back toward the station. Bosch raised his hand to give the signal to move away and then saw that the man in the blue sweater was standing in the doorway now. His arm was extended and his hand held something in his hand. Bosch assumed he was holding up the camera. He wanted the truck to leave and the man was giving the signal. Bosch saw the whole scene as if it were happening in a movie. The old man would die a slow death when he learned he had nothing to fear from a dirty city cop and would die having no idea that it was he who had been wronged. Bosch wondered if there would be an investigation and, if so, if there would be two victims or only one. He knew how it worked. The investigation of wrongs done to police officers wouldn't be nearly as efficient as it would be when the victims were regular citizens. The investigators would turn away from a police officer and that would be the end of it. But how would the investigators look at the death of a dirty cop? Bosch couldn't answer that. He didn't want to imagine any of it. But he kept on driving away from the curb and toward the station. He watched the cruiser in front of him move out into the middle of the street and pass the truck and continue up the road. He knew he shouldn't be doing what he was about to do, but his fate was somehow out of his hands. He wanted to save the old man. But he couldn't. So he did the next best thing. He made the snake hunt go away. He knew he wouldn't look in the mirror to see who was behind him or if the truck was being followed. ## THE GUNFIRE SEEMED TO COME FROM ALL OVER THE place. Bosch moved away from the entrance to the small restaurant on the corner of a block of storefronts. He moved into the crowd. He looked around to see if there were officers running to help, and there weren't. No one was running anywhere. He didn't see any uniforms in sight. It was as if no one in this whole city knew they were in danger. Bosch knew that was the way things worked. You got the cops you deserved. He wished he could tell the old man that. But he didn't get the chance. The sound of the gunfire made him turn around. He saw one man in blue chasing another, with an AK-47 in his hands, across the open sidewalk toward a red double-parked car in the middle of the street. The man in blue had a blue denim shirt pulled over his head and a weapon slung across his chest. The man with the AK-47 was wearing a blue denim shirt and the blue denim cap Bosch had seen on some of the other men on the corner earlier. Bosch went to the patrol car and was about to get in when he saw the dead soldier's body lying on the ground near a storefront. The man was on his back. His left leg was twisted behind him and looked nearly torn off by the shrapnel still in his flesh. Bosch stared down at the wounded man as the officer in blue chased down the one with the AK-47. He looked down at the hole in the soldier's chest. There was a long pool of blood under him and it didn't look like he had a chance of getting up. Bosch knew what he had to do. He turned and got into the patrol car. The keys were in the ignition. The engine of the cruiser cranked up and Bosch turned in his seat to pull away. He felt the seat belt pull tight against his chest as he turned and he heard a loud pop that sounded like a bullet hitting metal. He looked down and saw that blood was dripping down the front of his pants. He took his hand off the shifter and reached down to pull off the seat belt. The blood was coming faster now and the pressure of the belt across his chest was making it hard to breathe. He heard the shots coming closer. He reached down to the floor under the seat and pulled out a black radio and put it on the seat next to him. He unclipped the microphone and held it up in front of his mouth. He depressed the button. "I have shots fired! Seventy-eight Seventy-nine Twenty-eight!" The call was answered with more gunfire, then a woman's voice came on the radio: "Central! Central!" Bosch looked at the mic and then back out the side window. He couldn't see any of the gunfire coming from behind him. He looked to the front and saw that the driver and the man in blue with the weapon were now in front of the car in the middle of the street. The man who had been running with the AK-47 was running in the direction of a blue pickup. He was waving the rifle as he ran, screaming something that Bosch couldn't hear. A moment later, the pickup came around the corner. It was the blue truck that had been following him earlier. The gunner got into the back. Bosch knew they must have seen him go back to the station. It would be just a matter of time before he got there and there would be no way to explain what happened. He could see in his mind a hundred ways the end of his career could play out. He pictured the stories in the newspapers, the looks on the faces of fellow officers, the questions they would have for him. The shame. He knew this could destroy him. But then there was something else going on inside his head, a dark voice that told him if he didn't act now he was going to die. The passenger door on the patrol car opened and Bosch saw two guns aimed at him. The rear door to the pickup opened and an elderly Latino man jumped out. He was waving a gun at Bosch. Bosch knew the man. It was the owner of the little store on the corner, the one he'd just been in. The man in the blue sweater saw the gun in Bosch's hand and turned to fire, hitting the front windshield and sending pieces of safety glass into the air. Bosch turned away from the shooting, trying to put the safety glass out of his mind. He could hear it hitting his truck and car. He reached for the mike button but the transmission in his cruiser was in reverse and he could not find it. The truck slid backward and then into reverse. Bosch tried to keep his foot on the brake and the wheels from turning, but he couldn't stop them as they spun in the asphalt. Bosch reached down and put his hand on the shifter. He put his thumb on the gas pedal and started to lift it. It was then that he saw the old man, the one in the blue denim shirt, raise his pistol and shoot Bosch in the left leg. He felt the bullet rip through his skin and then his muscles. Bosch shouted out in pain and rage and raised the gun in the direction of the old man. The man in blue fired again, but his aim was off and he was hitting the rear of the patrol car. Bosch turned his head and looked through the rear glass. The old man was a few steps behind the car. He was still shooting. Bosch didn't know what to do. He was still gripping the shifter with his thumb on the gas pedal. There were no more shots coming from the truck. He glanced at the transmission. It was in drive. He thought about the men outside waiting for him, knowing he was going to do something and not knowing what it would be. He could have driven off into a