The Dark Hours (Harry Bosch #23)(10)

According to the records in the file, Raffa’s lawyer, listed as Roger Mills, negotiated a disposition that got the twenty-one-year-old Javier probation and community service in exchange for a guilty plea. The case was then expunged from Raffa’s record when he completed probation and 120 hours of community service without issue. The file noted that his community service included painting over gang graffiti on freeway overpasses throughout the city.

It was the one and only arrest record in the file, although there were several field interview cards paper-clipped together there. These were all dated before the arrest and went back to when Raffa was sixteen years old. Most of these came out of basic gang rousts — patrol breaking up parties or Hollywood Boulevard cruise lines. Officers taking down names and associates, tattoos, and other descriptors to be fed into Gang Intel files and databases. As the son of a body shop owner, Raffa was always driving classic and restored cars or low riders that were also described on the shake cards.

From early on in the cards Raffa had the nickname El Chopo ascribed to him. It was an obvious riff on the moniker of one of the biggest cartel kingpins, known as El Chapo, which meant Shorty in Spanish. One note that caught Ballard’s eye and was repeated on the four cards written and filed between 2000 and 2003 was the description of a tattoo on the right side of Raffa’s neck. It depicted a white billiard ball with an orange stripe and the number 13 — a reference to Las Palmas 13 and its association with and deference to la eMe, the prison gang also known as the Mexican Mafia. The 13 was a reference to M, the thirteenth letter of the alphabet.

Ballard thought about the discoloration she had seen on Raffa’s neck. She realized it was laser scarring from when he’d had the tattoo removed.

There was a photocopy of an intel report in the file dated October 25, 2006, that was a bullet-point recounting of multiple nuggets of unsubstantiated bits of gossip and information from a confidential informant identified as LP3. Ballard assumed that the informant was a Las Palmas insider. She scanned through the separate entries and found the one about Raffa.

Javier Raffa (El Chopo) DOB 02/14/82 — said to have paid Humberto Viera $25K cash tribute for no-strings separation from the gang.



Ballard had never heard of someone buying their way out of a gang. She had always known of the blood in, blood out, till death do us part rule of gang law. She picked up the desk phone. Newsome had taped a station phone directory to it. She called the extension next to GED and asked for Sergeant Davenport. While she waited for him to come on the line, she picked one of the baseballs off its pedestal and tried to make out the signature scribbled on it. She knew little about baseball or Dodgers players past and present. To her, the first name of the signature looked like Mookie but she thought she had to have that wrong.

Davenport came on the line.

“It’s Ballard. Got a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Humberto Viera of Las Palmas, is he still around?”

Davenport chuckled.

“Depends on what you mean by ‘around,’ ” he said. “He’s been up in Pelican Bay for at least eight, ten years. And he isn’t coming back.”

“Your case?” Ballard asked.

“I was part of it, yeah. Got him on a couple of one-eight-sevens of White Fence guys. We flipped the getaway driver, and that was it for Humberto. Bye-bye on him.”

“Okay. Anyone else I could talk to about Javier Raffa buying his way out of the gang?”

“Hmm. I don’t think so. That goes pretty far back, as far as I remember. I mean, there are always OGs around, but they’re original gangsters because they toe the line. But for the most part, these gangs turn over membership every eight or ten years. Nobody’s going to talk to you about Raffa.”

“What about LP-three?”

There was a pause before Davenport answered. And it was clear that earlier, when he had claimed not to remember the snitch, he was lying.

“What do you think you’ll get out of her?”

“So it’s a woman?”

“I didn’t say that. What do you think you’ll get out of him?”

“I don’t know. I’m looking for a reason somebody put a bullet in Javier Raffa’s head.”

“Well, LP-three is long gone. That’s a dead end.”

“You’re sure now?”

“I’m sure.”

“Thanks, Sergeant. I’ll catch you later.”

Ballard put the phone in its cradle. It was clear to her from Davenport’s gaffe that LP3 was a woman and possibly still active as an informant. Otherwise he would not have been so clumsy in trying to cover up his slip of the tongue. Ballard didn’t know what it meant in terms of her case, considering that Raffa had apparently separated from the gang fourteen years earlier. But it was good to know that if the case turned toward the gang, the GED had an insider who could provide insight and information.

“What was that about?” Moore asked.

She was sitting across the aisle from Ballard.

“Gang Enforcement,” Ballard said. “They don’t want me talking to their Las Palmas CI.”

“Figures,” Moore said.

Ballard wasn’t sure what that meant but didn’t respond. She knew Moore was one and done on the late show. Her involvement in the case would end when the sun came up and her shift was over, the tactical alert was ended, and all officers returned to their normal schedules. Moore would be back on dayside, but Ballard would be left alone to work in the dark hours.