“I guess nobody gets up around here till noon,” he said.

Bosch didn’t reply. He waited for the answer to his question. Irving’s signature physical trait had always been the shaved and polished scalp. He had the look going long before it was fashionable. In the department, he had been known as Mr. Clean because he had the look and he was the guy brought in to clean up the political and social messes that routinely arose in a heavily armed and political bureaucracy.

But now Irving’s look was shopworn. His skin was gray and loose and he looked older than he actually was.

“I always heard that losing a child was the most difficult pain,” Irving said. “Now I know it’s true. It doesn’t matter what age or what circumstances. . it’s just not supposed to happen. It’s not the natural order of things.”

There was nothing Bosch could say to that. He had sat with enough parents of dead children to know there was no debating what the councilman had said. Irving had his head down, eyes on the ornate pattern of the rug in front of him.

“I’ve worked for this city in one capacity or another for over fifty years,” he continued. “And here I am and I can’t trust a soul in it. So I reach out to a man I’ve tried to destroy in the past. Why? I’m not even sure myself. I suppose it’s because there was an integrity to our skirmishes. An integrity to you. I didn’t like you or your methods but I respected you.”

He looked up at Bosch now.

“I want you to tell me what happened to my son, Detective Bosch. I want the truth and I think I can trust you to give it to me.”

“No matter how it falls?”

“No matter how it falls.”

Bosch nodded.

“I can do that.”

He started to get up but paused when Irving continued.

“You said once that everybody counts or nobody counts. I remember that. This would put that to the test. Does the son of your enemy count? Will you give your best effort for him? Will you be relentless for him?”