Nine Dragons
Page 18
Bosch nodded. The concession that she would be willing to do it was enough for him.
“Then maybe you should pack a couple bags and put them in the trunk, too.”
She turned back around without responding. After a moment Sun looked over at her and spoke in Chinese. She responded with a nod and Sun started down the mountain again. Bosch knew that she was going to do what he’d asked.
Fifteen minutes later Sun stopped in front of the twin towers commonly known by locals as “The Chopsticks.” And Eleanor, having said not a single word in those fifteen minutes, extended an olive branch to the backseat.
“You want to come up? You can make a coffee while I pack the bags. You look like you could use it.”
“Coffee would be good but we don’t have—”
“It’s instant coffee.”
“Okay, then.”
Sun stayed with the car and they went up. The “chopsticks” were actually two interlinked and oval-shaped towers that rose seventy-three stories from the midslope of the mountain above Happy Valley. It was the tallest residential building in all of Hong Kong and as such stuck out at the edge of the skyline like two chopsticks protruding from a pile of rice. Eleanor and Madeline had moved into an apartment here shortly after arriving from Las Vegas six years earlier.
Bosch gripped the railing in the speed elevator as they went up. He didn’t like knowing that just below the floor was an open shaft that went straight down forty-four floors.
The door opened on a small foyer leading to the four apartments on the floor, and Eleanor used a key to go in the first door on the right.
“Coffee’s in the cabinet over the sink. I won’t take long.”
“Good. You want a cup?”
“No, I’m good. I had some at the airport.”
They entered the apartment and Eleanor split off to go to her bedroom while Bosch found the kitchen and went to work on the coffee. He found a mug that said World’s Best Mom on its side and used that. It had been hand-painted a long time before and the words had faded with each cycle the mug had gone through in the dishwasher.
He stepped out of the kitchen, sipping the hot mixture, and took in the panorama. The apartment faced west and afforded a stunning view of Hong Kong and its harbor. Bosch had only been in the apartment a few times and never tired of seeing this. Most times when he came to visit, he met his daughter in the lobby or at her school after classes.
A huge white cruise ship was making its way through the harbor and steaming toward the open sea. Bosch watched it for a moment and then noticed the Canon sign sitting atop the building in Kowloon. It was a reminder of his mission. He turned toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He found Eleanor in their daughter’s room, crying as she put clothes into a backpack.
“I don’t know what to take,” she said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be away or what she’ll need. I don’t even know if we’ll ever see her again.”
Her shoulders trembled as she let the tears fall. Bosch put a hand on her left shoulder but she immediately shrugged it off. She would take no comfort from him. She roughly zipped the backpack closed and left the room with it. Bosch was left to look about the room by himself.
Keepsakes from trips to L.A. and other places were on every horizontal surface. Posters from movies and music groups covered the walls. A stand in the corner had several hats, masks and strings of beads hanging on it. Numerous stuffed animals from earlier years were crowded against the pillows on the bed. Bosch couldn’t help but feel like he was somehow invading his daughter’s privacy by being in the room uninvited by her.
On a small desk was an open laptop computer, its screen dark. Bosch stepped over and tapped the space bar and after a few moments the screen came alive. His daughter’s screen saver was a photograph taken on her last trip to L.A. It showed a group of surfers in a line, floating on their boards and waiting for the next set of waves. Bosch remembered that they had driven out to Malibu to eat breakfast at a place called Marmalade and afterward had watched the surfers at a nearby beach.
Harry noticed a small box made of carved bone next to the computer’s mouse. It reminded Bosch of the carved handle of the knife he had found in Chang’s suitcase. It looked like something you would keep important things in, like money. He opened it and found that it contained only a small string of carved jade monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil—on red twine. Bosch took it out of the box and held it up to see it better. It was no more than two inches long and there was a small silver ring on the end so that it could be attached to something.
“You ready?”
Bosch turned. Eleanor was in the doorway.
“I’m ready. What is this, an earring?”
Eleanor stepped closer to see it.
“No, the kids hook those things on their phones. You can buy them at the jade market in Kowloon. So many of them have the same phones, they dress them up to be different.”
Bosch nodded as he put the jade string back in the bone box.
“Are they expensive?”
“No, that’s cheap jade. They cost about a dollar American and the kids change them all the time. Let’s go.”
Bosch took a last look around his daughter’s private domain and on the way out grabbed a pillow and a folded blanket off the bed. Eleanor looked back and saw what he was doing.
“She might be tired and want to sleep,” Bosch explained.
They left the apartment and in the elevator Bosch held the blanket and pillow under one arm and one of the backpacks in the other. He could smell his daughter’s shampoo on the pillow.
“You have the passports?” Bosch asked.
“Yes, I have them,” Eleanor said.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
He acted like he was studying the pattern of ponies on the blanket he was holding.
“How far can you trust Sun Yee? I’m not sure we should be with him after we get the gun.”
Eleanor answered without hesitation.
“I told you, you don’t have to worry about him. I trust him all the way and he’s staying with us. He’s staying with me.”
Bosch nodded. Eleanor looked up at the digital display that showed the floors clicking by.
“I trust him completely,” she added. “And Maddie does, too.”
“How does Maddie even—”
He stopped. He suddenly understood what she was saying. Sun was the man Madeline had told him about. He and Eleanor were together.
“You get it now?” she asked.
“Yeah, I get it,” he said. “But are you sure Madeline trusts him?”
“Yes, I’m sure. If she told you otherwise, then she was just trying to get your sympathy. She’s a girl, Harry. She knows how to manipulate. Yes, her life has been…disrupted a bit by my relationship with Sun Yee. But he has shown her nothing but kindness and respect. She’ll get over it. That is, once we get her back.”
Sun Yee had the car waiting in the drop-off circle at the front of the building. Harry and Eleanor put the backpacks in the trunk but Bosch took the pillow and blanket with him into the backseat. Sun pulled out and they went the rest of the way down Stubbs Road into Happy Valley and then over to Wan Chai.
Bosch tried to put the conversation from the elevator out of his mind. It wasn’t important at the moment because it wouldn’t help him get his daughter back. But it was hard to compartmentalize his feelings. His daughter had told him back in L.A. that Eleanor was in a relationship. And he’d had relationships himself since their divorce. But being hit with the reality of it here in Hong Kong was difficult. He was riding with a woman he still loved on some basic level and her new man. It was hard to take.
He was sitting behind Eleanor. He looked over the seat at Sun and studied the man’s stoic demeanor. He was no hired gun here. He had more of a stake than that. Bosch realized that could make him an asset. If his daughter could count on and trust him, then so could Bosch. The rest he could put aside.
Bosch nodded. It wasn’t any sort of approval he was giving. It was just the silent message that he now understood they were all in this together.
26
Wan Chai was the part of Hong Kong that never slept. The place where anything could happen and anything could be had for the right price. Anything. Bosch knew that if he wanted a laser sight to go with the gun they were going to pick up, he could get it. If he wanted a shooter to go with the setup, he could probably get that, too. And this didn’t even begin to address the other things, like drugs and women, that would be available to him in the strip bars and music clubs along Lockhart Road.
It was eight-thirty and full daylight as they cruised down Lockhart. Many of the clubs were still active, shutters closed against the light but neon burning brightly up above in the smoky air. The street was wet and steamy. Fragmented reflections of neon splashed across it and over the windshields of the taxis lining the curbs.
Bouncers stood on post and female hawkers sat on stools waving down pedestrians and motorists alike. Men in rumpled suits, their steps slowed by a night of alcohol or drugs, were moving slowly on the pavement. Double-parked outside the rows of red taxis the occasional Rolls-Royce or Mercedes idled, waiting for the money to run out inside and the journey home to finally begin.
In front of almost every establishment was an ash can for burning offerings to the hungry ghosts. Many were alive with flames. Bosch saw a woman in a silk robe with a red dragon on the back standing outside a club called Red Dragon. She was showering what looked like real Hong Kong dollars into the flames leaping from the can in front of her club. She was hedging her bets with the ghosts, Bosch thought. She was going with the real thing.
The smell of fire and smoke mixed with an underlying scent of fried foods got into the car despite the windows being up. Then a harsh odor Bosch couldn’t identify, almost like one of the cover-up odors he’d pick up from time to time in the coroner’s office, hit him and he started breathing through his mouth. Eleanor flipped down her visor so she could see him in the makeup mirror.
“Gway lang go,” she said.
“What?”
“Turtle-shell jelly. They make it around here in the mornings. They sell it in the medicine shops.”
“It’s strong.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it. You think the smell’s strong, you should actually taste it sometime. Supposed to be the cure for whatever ails you.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
In another two blocks the clubs got smaller and seedier from the outside. The neon signage was more garish and usually accompanied by lighted posters containing photographs of the beautiful women supposedly waiting inside. Sun double-parked next to the taxi that was first in line at the intersection. Three of the corners were occupied by clubs. The fourth was a noodle shop that was open and already crowded.
Sun released his seat belt and opened his door. Bosch did the same.
“Harry,” Eleanor said.
Sun turned back to look at him.
“You don’t go,” he told Bosch.
Bosch looked at him.
“You sure? I have money.”
“No money,” Sun said. “You wait here.”
He got out and closed the door. Bosch closed his door and stayed in the car.
“What’s going on?”
“Sun Yee’s calling on a friend for the gun. It’s not a transaction involving money.”
“Then, what does it involve?”
“Favors.”
“Is Sun Yee in a triad?”
“No. He wouldn’t have gotten the job in the casino. And I wouldn’t be with him.”
Bosch wasn’t so sure about the casino job being off-limits to a triad man. Sometimes the best way to know your enemy is to hire your enemy.
“Was he in a triad?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. They don’t let you just quit.”
“But he’s getting the gun from a triad guy, right?”
“I don’t know that either. Look, Harry, we are getting the gun you told me you had to have. I didn’t think there would be all of these questions. Do you want it or not?”
“Yes, I want it.”
“Then, we are doing what needs to be done to get it. And Sun Yee is risking his job and freedom doing it, I might add. Gun laws are very harsh here.”
“I understand. No more questions. Just thank you for helping me.”
In the silence that followed, Bosch could hear muffled but pulsing music coming from one of the shuttered clubs or maybe from all three of them. Through the windshield he saw Sun approach three men in suits who were standing outside a club directly across the intersection. Like with most of the establishments in Wan Chai, the sign out front was in Chinese and English. The place was called the Yellow Door. Sun spoke briefly with the men and then nonchalantly opened his suit jacket so they could see he was not armed. One of the men did a quick but competent pat-down and Sun was then allowed to enter through the signature yellow door.
They waited for nearly ten minutes. During that time Eleanor said almost nothing. Bosch knew she was fearful about their daughter’s situation and angry with his questions, but he needed to know more than he knew.
“Eleanor, don’t get upset with me, okay? Let me just say this. As far as we know, we have the element of surprise here. As far as the people who have Maddie know, I’m still in L.A., deciding whether to kick their guy loose or not. So if Sun Yee is going to the triad here to get me a gun, won’t he have to tell them where the gun is going and what it might be used for? Won’t the guy with the gun then turn around and give the triad guys across the harbor in Kowloon the heads-up? You know, like, look who’s in town and, oh, by the way, he’s coming your way.”
“No, Harry,” she said dismissively. “That’s not how it works.”
“Well, then how does it work?”
“I told you. Sun Yee is calling in a favor. That’s it. He doesn’t have to provide any information because the guy with the gun owes him the favor. That’s how it works. Okay?”
Bosch stared at the club entrance. No sign of Sun.
“Okay.”
Another five minutes went by silently in the car and then Bosch saw Sun step back through the yellow door. But instead of heading back to the car, he crossed the street and went into the noodle shop. Bosch tried to track him through the glass windows but the reflecting neon outside was too strong and Sun disappeared from sight.
“Now what, he’s getting food?” Bosch asked.
“I doubt it,” Eleanor said. “He was probably sent over there.”
Bosch nodded. Precautions. Another five minutes went by and when Sun emerged from the noodle shop he was carrying a Styrofoam to-go carton that was secured closed with two rubber bands. He carried it flat, as if trying not to dishevel the plate of noodles within. He returned to the car and got in. Without a word he handed the carton over the seat to Bosch.
Holding the carton low, Bosch took off the rubber bands and opened it as Sun pulled the Mercedes away from the curb. The carton contained a medium-size pistol made of blue steel. There was nothing else. No backup magazine or extra ammunition. Just the gun and whatever was in it.
Bosch dropped the carton to the floor of the car and held the pistol in his left hand. There was no brand name or marking on the bluing. Just serial and model numbers, but the five-point star stamped into the grip told Bosch the weapon was a Black Star pistol manufactured by the government of China. He had seen them on occasion in L.A. They were made by the tens of thousands for the Chinese military and a growing number ended up being stolen and smuggled across the ocean. Many of them obviously stayed in China and were smuggled into Hong Kong.
Bosch held the pistol down between his knees and ejected the magazine. It was double-stacked with
fifteen 9 millimeter Parabellum rounds. He thumbed them out and put them into a cup holder in the armrest. He then ejected a sixteenth round from the chamber and put it in the cup holder with the others.
Bosch looked down the sight to focus his aim. He peered into the chamber, looking for any sign of rust, and then studied the firing pin and extractor. He checked the gun’s action and trigger several times. The weapon seemed to be functioning properly. He then studied each bullet as he reloaded the magazine, looking for corrosion or any other indication that the ammunition was old or suspect. He found nothing.
He firmly pushed the magazine back into place and jacked the first round into the chamber. He then ejected the magazine again, pushed the last bullet into the opening and once more put the gun back together. He had sixteen rounds and that was it.
“Happy?” Eleanor asked from the front seat.
Bosch looked up from the weapon and saw that they were on the down ramp to the Cross Harbour Tunnel. It would take them directly to Kowloon.
“Not quite. I don’t like carrying a gun I’ve never fired before. For all I know, the pin on this thing could have been filed and I’ll be drawing dead when I need it.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that. You just have to trust Sun Yee.”
Sunday morning traffic was light in the two-lane tunnel. Bosch waited until they passed the low point in the middle and had started up the incline toward the Kowloon side. He’d heard several backfires from taxis along the way. He quickly wrapped his daughter’s blanket around the gun and his left hand. He then pulled the pillow over and turned to look out the rear window. There were no cars in sight behind them because the cars back there had not reached the midpoint of the tunnel.
“Whose car is this, anyway?” he asked.
“It belongs to the casino,” Eleanor said. “I borrowed it. Why?”
Bosch lowered the window. He held the pillow up and pressed the muzzle into the padding. He fired twice, the standard double pull he employed to check the mechanism of a gun. The bullets snapped off the tunnel’s tiled walls.
Even with the wadding around the gun, the two reports echoed loudly in the car. The car swerved slightly as Sun looked into the backseat. And Eleanor yelled.