Nine Dragons Read online

  “You mean there’s a chemical reaction.”

  “A microscopic chemical reaction. Your sweat is made up of a lot of different things but mostly sodium chloride—salt. It reacts with the brass—corrodes it—and leaves its mark. But we just can’t see it.”

  “And the electricity lets you see it.”

  “Exactly. We run a twenty-five-hundred-volt charge through the casing, dust it with carbon and then we see it. We’ve run several experiments so far. I’ve seen it work. It was invented by this guy named Bond in England.”

  Bosch was growing excited.

  “Then, why don’t we do it?”

  Sopp spread her fingers in a calming gesture.

  “Whoa, hold on, Harry. We can’t just do it.”

  “Why not? What are you waiting for, a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the chief or something?”

  “No, it’s not that. This kind of evidence and procedure has not been introduced in a California court yet. We’re working with the district attorney on protocols and nobody wants to go out with this for the first time on a case where it’s not a slam-dunk. We have to think of the future. The first time we use this process as evidence will set the precedent. If it’s not the right case, we’ll blow it and it would really set us back.”

  “Well, maybe this is the case. Who decides that?”

  “It’s first going to be up to Brenneman to pick the case and then he’ll take it to the DA.”

  Chuck Brenneman was the commander of the Scientific Investigation Division. Bosch realized that the process of choosing the first case could take weeks, if not months.

  “Look, you said you guys in here have been experimenting with it, right?”

  “Yeah, we have to make sure we know what we’re doing.”

  “Good, then experiment with this casing. See what you come up with.”

  “We can’t, Harry. We’re using dummy bullets in a controlled experiment.”

  “Teri, I need this. There might be nothing there but then again, the killer’s print might be on that shell. You can find out.”

  Sopp seemed to realize that she had been cornered by someone who was not going to go away.

  “All right, listen. The next set of experiments is not scheduled till next week. I can’t promise anything but I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Teri.”

  Bosch filled out the chain-of-evidence form and left the lab. He was excited about the possibility of using the new science to possibly get the killer’s print. It almost felt to him as if John Li had known about electrostatic enhancement all along. The thought sent a different kind of electricity down Bosch’s spine.

  As he stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor he checked his watch and saw that it was time to call his daughter. She would be walking down Stubbs Road to the Happy Valley Academy. If he didn’t get to her now he would have to wait until after school was out. He stopped in the hallway outside the squad room, pulled his phone and hit the speed dial. The transpacific call took thirty seconds to connect.

  “Dad! What’s with the picture of a dead person?”

  He smiled.

  “Hello to you, too. How do you know he’s dead?”

  “Um, let’s see. My dad investigates murders and he sends me bare feet on a steel table. And what is this other picture? The guy’s lungs? That is so gross!”

  “He was a smoker. I thought you should see that.”

  There was a moment of silence and then she spoke very calmly. There was no little girl in her voice now.

  “Dad, I don’t smoke.”

  “Yeah, well, your mother told me you smell like smoke when you come home from hanging out with your friends at the mall.”

  “Yeah, that might be true, but it’s not true that I smoke with them.”

  “Then who do you smoke with?”

  “Dad, I don’t! My friend’s older brother hangs out sometimes to watch over her. I don’t smoke and neither does He.”

  “He? I thought you said your friend was a her.”

  She said the name again, this time putting a heavy Chinese accent on it. It sounded like He-yuh.

  “He is a her. He is her name. It means ‘river.’”

  “Then why don’t you call her River?”

  “Because she’s Chinese and so I call her by her Chinese name.”

  “Must get like Abbott and Costello. Calling a she He.”

  “Like who?”

  Bosch laughed.

  “Never mind. Forget the lungs, Maddie. If you tell me you don’t smoke, I believe you. But that’s not why I’m calling. The tattoos on the ankles, could you read them?”

  “Yes, it’s gross. I have a dead guy’s feet on my phone.”

  “Well, you can delete it as soon as you tell me what the tattoos mean. I know you study that stuff in school.”

  “I’m not going to delete it. I’m showing my friends. They’ll think it’s cool.”

  “No, don’t do that. It’s part of a case I’m working and nobody else should see it. I sent it to you because I thought you could give me a quick translation.”

  “You mean in all of the LAPD you don’t have one person who can tell you? You have to call your daughter in Hong Kong for such a simple thing?”

  “At the moment, that’s about right. You do what you have to do. Do you know what the symbols mean or not?”

  “Yes, Dad. They were easy.”

  “Well, what do they mean?”

  “It’s like a fortune. On the left ankle the symbols are Fu and Cai, which mean ‘luck’ and ‘money.’ Then on the right side you have Ai and Xi, which is ‘love’ and ‘family.’”

  Bosch thought about this. It seemed to him the symbols were the things that were important to John Li. He had hoped that these things would always walk with him.

  Then he thought about the fact that the symbols were located on either side of Li’s Achilles tendons. Perhaps Li had placed the tattoos there intentionally, realizing that the things he hoped for also made him vulnerable. They were also his Achilles heel.

  “Hello, Dad?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I’m just thinking.”

  “Well, does it help? Did I crack the case?”

  Bosch smiled but immediately realized she couldn’t see this.

  “Not quite but it helps.”

  “Good. You owe me.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “You’re a pretty smart kid, aren’t you? How old are you now, thirteen going on twenty?”

  “Please, Dad.”

  “Well, your mother must be doing something right.”

  “Not much.”

  “Hey, that’s no way to talk about her.”

  “Dad, you don’t have to live with her. I do. And it’s not so much fun. I told you when I was in L.A.”

  “She’s still seeing somebody?”

  “Yeah, and I’m yesterday’s news.”

  “It’s not like that, Maddie. It’s just that it’s been a long time for her.”

  A long time for me, too, Bosch thought.

  “Dad, don’t take her side. To her I’m just in the way all the time. But when I say, fine, I’ll live with Dad, she says no way.”

  “You should be with your mother. She’s raised you. Look, in a month I’ll be coming over for a week. We can talk about all of this then. With your mother.”

  “Whatever. I gotta go. I’m here at school.”

  “All right. Say hello to He the she for me.”

  “Funny, Dad. Just don’t send me any more pictures of lungs, okay?”

  “Next time it will be a liver. Or maybe a spleen. Spleens photograph real nice.”

  “Daaaadd!”

  He closed the phone and let her go. He thought about what had been said during the conversation. It seemed to him that the weeks and months between seeing Maddie were getting more difficult. As she became her own person and grew more bright and communicative, he loved her more and missed her all the time. She had just been out to L.A. in July, taking the long flight
for the first time on her own. Barely a teenager and already a world traveler, she was wise beyond her years. He’d taken off work and they’d enjoyed two weeks of doing things together, exploring the city. It had been a wonderful time for him and at the end it was the first time she had ever mentioned wanting to live in Los Angeles. With him.

  Bosch was smart enough to realize that these sentiments were expressed after two weeks of full-time attention from a father who began each day by asking what she wanted to do. It was far different from the full-time commitment of her mother, who raised her day after day while making a living for them. Still, the toughest day Bosch had ever had as a part-time father was the day he took his daughter back to the airport and put her on the plane to fly home alone. He half expected her to bolt and run, but she got on under protest and then was gone. He’d felt a hollowness inside ever since.

  Now his next vacation and trip to Hong Kong wasn’t scheduled for another month and he knew it was going to be a long, tough wait until then.

  “Harry, what are you doing out here?”

  Bosch turned. His partner, Ferras, was standing there, having come out of the squad room, probably to use the restroom.

  “I was talking to my daughter. I wanted some privacy.”

  “She all right?”

  “She’s fine. I’ll meet you back in the squad.”

  Bosch headed toward the door, putting his phone back in his pocket.

  11

  Bosch got home at eight that night, coming through the door with a to-go bag from the In-N-Out down on Cahuenga.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he called out as he struggled with the key, the bag and his briefcase.

  He smiled to himself and went directly into the kitchen. He put his briefcase down on the counter, grabbed a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator and went out to the deck. Along the way he turned on his CD player, leaving the sliding door open so the music could mingle on the deck with the sound of the 101 Freeway down in the pass.

  The deck was positioned with a northeasterly view stretching across Universal City, Burbank and on to the San Gabriel Mountains. Harry ate his two hamburgers, holding them over the open bag to catch drippings, and watched the dying sun change the colors of the mountain slopes. He listened to “Seven Steps to Heaven” off Ron Carter’s Dear Miles album. Carter was one of the most important bassists of the last five decades. He had played with everybody and Bosch often wondered about the stories he could tell, the sessions he’d sat in on and the musicians he knew. Whether on his own recordings or on somebody else’s, Carter’s work always stood out. Harry believed this was because as a bassist he could never really be a sideman. He was always the anchor. He always drove the beat, even if it was behind Miles Davis’s horn.

  The song now playing had an undeniable momentum to it. Like a car chase. It made Bosch think about his own chase and the advances that had been made through the day. He was satisfied with his own momentum but uncomfortable with the realization that he had moved the case to a point where he was now reliant on the work of others. He had to wait for others to identify the triad bagman. He had to wait for others to decide whether to use the bullet casing as a test case for their new fingerprint technology. He had to wait for somebody to call.

  Bosch was most at home in a case when he was pushing the action himself, setting the track for others to follow. He wasn’t a sideman. He had to drive the beat. And at this juncture he had pushed it just about as far as he could. He started thinking about his next moves and the options were few. He could start hitting Chinese-owned businesses in South L.A. with the photo of the triad bagman. But he knew it would likely be an exercise in futility. The cultural divide was wide. No one would willingly identify a triad member to the police.

  Nevertheless, he was prepared to go that route if nothing else broke soon. It would at least keep him moving. Momentum was momentum, whether you found it in music or on the street or in the beat of your own heart.

  As the light started to disappear from the sky, Bosch reached into his pocket and pulled out the book of matches he always carried. He thumbed it open and studied the fortune. Since the night he first read it he had taken it seriously. He believed that he was a man who had found refuge in himself. Over time, at least.

  His cell rang as he was chewing his last bite. He pulled the phone and checked the screen. The ID was blocked but he answered anyway.

  “Bosch.”

  “Harry, David Chu. You sound like you’re eating. Where are you?”

  His voice was tight with excitement.

  “I’m at home. Where are you?”

  “Monterey Park. We got him!”

  Bosch paused for a moment. Monterey Park was a city in the east county where nearly three-quarters of the population was Chinese. Fifteen minutes from downtown, it was like a foreign country with impenetrable language and culture.

  “Who have you got?” he finally asked.

  “Our guy. The suspect.”

  “You mean you got an ID?”

  “We got more than an ID. We got him. We’re looking right at him.”

  There were several things about what Chu was saying that immediately bothered Bosch.

  “First of all, who is we?”

  “I’m with the MPPD. They IDed our guy off the video and then took me right to him.”

  Bosch could feel the pulse pounding in his temple. No doubt, getting the ID of the triad bagman—if it was legit—was a big step in the investigation. But everything else he was hearing wasn’t. Bringing another police department into the case and moving in on the suspect were potentially fatal mistakes and should never have been even considered without the lead investigator’s knowledge and approval. But Bosch knew he couldn’t go off on Chu. Not yet. He had to stay calm and do his best to contain a bad situation.

  “Detective Chu, listen closely to me. Did you make contact with the suspect?”

  “Contact? No, not yet. We were waiting for the right moment. He’s not alone right now.”

  Thank God for that, Bosch thought but didn’t say.

  “Has the suspect seen you?”

  “No, Harry, we’re across the street.”

  Bosch let out some more air. He was beginning to think that the situation might be salvageable.

  “Okay, I want you to hold where you are and tell me what moves you’ve made and where exactly we’re at. How did you get to Monterey Park?”

  “The AGU has a strong relationship with Monterey Park’s gang detail. Tonight after work I took by the photo of our guy to see if anybody recognized him. I got a positive ID from the third guy I showed it to.”

  “The third guy. Who was that?”

  “Detective Tao. I’m with him and his partner right now.”

  “Okay, give me the name you got.”

  “Bo-Jing Chang.”

  He spelled the name out.

  “So the last name is Chang?” Bosch asked.

  “Right. And according to their intel, he’s in Yung Kim—Brave Knife. It fits with the tattoo.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “That’s it at the moment. He’s supposedly a low-level guy. All these guys have real jobs. He works at a used-car lot here in MP. He has been here since ’ninety-five and has dual citizenship. No arrest record—over here, at least.”

  “And you got a twenty on him right now?”

  “I’m watching him play cards. Brave Knife is mostly centered here in MP. And there’s a club here where they like to get together at the end of the day. Tao and Herrera took me.”

  Bosch assumed Herrera was Tao’s partner.

  “You said you’re across the street?”

  “Yeah, the club’s in a little strip mall. We’re across the street. We can see them in there playing cards. We can see Chang with the binoculars.”

  “Okay, listen, I’m coming out there. I want you to back away until I get there. Move at least another block away.”

  There was a long pause before Chu responded.

  �
�We don’t need to move back, Harry. If we lose track of him he might get away.”

  “Listen, Detective, I need you to back away. If he gets away, that will be on me, not you. I don’t want to risk him seeing a police presence.”

  “We’re across the street,” Chu protested. “Four lanes.”

  “Chu, you’re not listening. If you can see him, then he can see you. Back the fuck away. I want you to move at least a block down the street and wait for me. I’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.”

  “This is going to be embarrassing,” Chu said in a near whisper.

  “I don’t care what it is. If you’d handled this the right way, you would’ve called me the moment you had an ID on the guy. Instead, you’re out there cowboying my case and I’m going to stop it before you fuck things up.”

  “You’ve got it wrong, Harry. I called you.”

  “Yeah, well, I appreciate that. Now back away. I’ll call when I’m close. What’s the name of the place?”

  After a pause Chu answered in a sulking voice.

  “It’s called Club Eighty-eight. It’s on Garvey about four blocks west of Garfield. Take the ten out to—”

  “I know how to get there. I’m on my way.”

  He closed the phone to end any further dispute and debate. Chu was on notice. If he didn’t back off or control the two Monterey Park officers, then his ass would belong to Bosch in an internal complaint process.

  12

  Harry was out the door within two minutes. He drove down out of the hills and then took the 101 back through Hollywood into downtown. He hooked up with the 10 and headed east. Monterey Park was another ten minutes in light traffic. Along the way Bosch called Ignacio Ferras at home, apprised him of what was happening and offered him the opportunity to meet up in Monterey Park. Ferras declined, saying it might be better if one of them was fresh in the morning. Besides, he was knee-deep in the forensic analysis of the financial aspects of the case, trying to determine how bad business had gotten for John Li and how badly he might have been entrenched with the triad.