Nine Dragons

by Michael Connelly

  “Maddie, you all right?”

  Without answering or looking away from the window, she said, “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “What?”

  Bosch knew exactly who and what she was talking about but was trying to stretch time, put off as long as possible the inevitable.

  “I’m not stupid, you know. You’re here. Sun Yee’s here. She should be here. She would be here but something’s happened to her.”

  Bosch felt an invisible punch hit him square in the chest. Madeline was still hugging the pillow in front of her and looking out the window with tear-filled eyes.

  “Maddie, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you but this wasn’t the right time.”

  “When is the right time?”

  Bosch nodded.

  “You’re right. Never.”

  He reached back and put his hand on her knee but she immediately pushed it away. It was the first sign of the blame he would always carry.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I can say. When I landed this morning your mother was there at the airport, waiting for me. With Sun Yee. She only wanted one thing, Maddie. To get you home safe. She didn’t care about anything else, including herself.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Bosch hesitated but there was no other way to respond but with the truth.

  “She got shot, baby. Somebody was shooting at me and she got hit. I don’t think she even felt it.”

  Madeline put her hands over her eyes.

  “It’s all my fault.”

  Bosch shook his head, even though she wasn’t looking at him.

  “Maddie, no. Listen to me. Don’t ever say that. Don’t even think that. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. Everything here is my fault.”

  She didn’t respond. She hugged the pillow closer and kept her eyes on the roadside as it passed by in a blur.

  An hour later they were at the drop-off curb at the airport. Bosch helped his daughter out of the Mercedes and then turned to Sun. They had said little in the car. But now it was time to say good-bye and Bosch knew his daughter could not have been rescued without Sun’s help.

  “Sun Yee, thank you for saving my daughter.”

  “You saved her. Nothing could stop you, Harry Bosch.”

  “What will you do? The police will come to you about Eleanor, if not everything else.”

  “I will handle these things and make no mention of you. This is my promise. No matter what happens, I will leave you and your daughter out of it.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Good luck to you, too.”

  Bosch shook his hand and then stepped back. After another awkward pause, Madeline stepped forward and hugged Sun. Bosch saw the look on his face, even behind the disguise of the sunglasses. No matter their differences, Bosch knew Sun had found some sort of resolve in Madeline’s rescue. Maybe it allowed him to find refuge in himself.

  “I am so sorry,” Madeline said.

  Sun stepped back and broke the embrace.

  “You go on now,” he said. “You have a happy life.”

  They left him standing there and headed into the main terminal through the glass doors.

  Bosch and his daughter found the first-class window at Cathay Pacific and Harry bought two tickets on the 11:40 P.M. flight to Los Angeles. He got a refund for his intended flight the next morning but still had to use two credit cards to cover the overall cost. But he didn’t care. He knew that first-class passengers were accorded special status that moved them quickly through security checks and first onto planes. Airport and airline staff and security were less likely to concern themselves with first-class travelers, even if they were a disheveled man with blood on his jacket and a thirteen-year-old girl who couldn’t seem to keep tears off her cheeks.

  Bosch also understood that his daughter had been left traumatized by the past sixty hours of her life, and while he couldn’t begin to know how to care for her in this regard, he instinctively felt that any added comfort couldn’t hurt.

  Noting Bosch’s unkempt appearance, the woman behind the counter mentioned to him that the first-class waiting lounge offered showering facilities to travelers. Bosch thanked her for the tip, took their boarding passes and then followed a first-class hostess to security. As expected, they breezed through the checkpoint on the power of their newfound status.

  They had almost three hours to kill and though the previously mentioned shower facility was tempting, Bosch decided that food might be a more pressing need. He couldn’t remember when and what he had last eaten and he assumed his daughter had been equally deprived of nourishment.

  “You hungry, Mads?”

  “Not really.”

  “They fed you?”

  “No, uh-uh. I couldn’t eat, anyway.”

  “When did you last eat something?”

  She had to think.

  “I had a piece of pizza at the mall on Friday. Before…”

  “Okay, we’ve got to eat, then.”

  They took an escalator up to an area where there were a variety of restaurants overlooking the duty-free shopping mecca. Bosch chose a sit-down restaurant in the center of the concourse that had good views of the shopping level. His daughter ordered chicken fingers and Bosch ordered a steak and french fries.

  “You should never order a steak at an airport,” Madeline said.

  “Why’s that?”

  “You won’t get good quality.”

  Bosch nodded. It was the first time she had said something more than one or two words in length since they had said good-bye to Sun. Harry had been watching her slowly collapse inward as the release of fear that followed her escape wore off and the reality of what she had been through and what had happened to her mother sank in. Bosch had feared she might be going into some form of shock. Her odd observation about the quality of steak in an airport seemed to indicate that she was in a dissociated state.

  “Well, I guess I’ll find out.”

  She then jumped the conversation to a new place.

  “So am I going to live in L.A. with you now?”

  “I think so.”

  He studied her face for a reaction. It remained unchanged—blank stare over cheeks streaked with dried tears and sadness.

  “I want you to,” Bosch said. “And last time you were over, you said you wanted to stay.”

  “But not like this.”

  “I know.”

  “Will I ever go back to get my things and say good-bye to my friends?”

  Bosch thought for a moment before responding.

  “I don’t think so,” he finally said. “I might be able to get your things sent. But you’re probably going to have to e-mail your friends, I guess. Or call them.”

  “At least I’ll be able to say good-bye.”

  Bosch nodded and was silent, noting the obvious reference to her lost mother. She soon spoke again, her mind like a balloon caught in the wind, touching down here and there on unpredictable currents.

  “Are we, like, wanted by the police here?”

  Bosch looked around to see if anyone sitting nearby had heard the question, then leaned forward to answer.

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “We could be. I could be. But I don’t want to find out here. It will be better to deal with all of this from L.A.”

  After a pause she asked another question and this one hit Bosch between the numbers.

  “Dad, did you kill those men that had me? I heard a lot of shooting.”

  Bosch thought about how he should answer—as a cop, as a father—but didn’t take too long.

  “Let’s just say that they got what they deserved. And that whatever happened was brought on by their own actions. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  When the food came they stopped talking and ate ravenously. Bosch had chosen the restaurant, the table and his seat so that he would have a good view of the shopping area and the security gate beyond. As he ate, he kept a vigilant watch for a
ny unusual activity involving the airport’s security staff. Any movement of multiple personnel or search activity would cause him concern. He had no idea if he was even on any police radar yet but he had cut a deadly path across Hong Kong and had to remain alert to it catching up to him.

  “Are you going to finish your french fries?” Maddie asked.

  Bosch turned his plate so she could reach the fries.

  “Have at it.”

  When she reached across the table her sleeve pulled back and Bosch saw the bandage in the crook of her elbow. He thought of the bloodstained tissue Eleanor had found in the wastebasket in the room at Chungking Mansions.

  Bosch pointed at her arm.

  “Maddie, how did you get that? Did they take your blood?”

  She put her other hand over the wound as if that could stop all consideration of it.

  “Do we have to talk about this now?”

  “Can you just tell me one thing?”

  “Yes, Quick took my blood.”

  “I was going to ask something else. Where were you before you were put in the trunk and taken to the boat?”

  “I don’t know, some kind of hospital place. Like a doctor’s office. I was locked in a room the whole time. Please, Dad, I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

  “Okay, sweetheart, we’ll talk about it when you want.”

  After the meal, they headed down to the shopping area. Bosch bought a complete set of new clothes in a men’s store and a pair of jogging shoes and arm sweatbands in a sports shop. Maddie declined the offer of new clothing and said she’d stick with what was in her backpack.

  Their next stop was a general store and Maddie picked out a stuffed panda bear she said she wanted to use as a pillow and a book called The Lightning Thief.

  They then headed to the airline’s first-class lounge and signed up to use the shower facilities. Despite a long day’s buildup of blood, sweat and grime, Bosch showered quickly because he didn’t want to be separated from his daughter for very long. Before getting dressed he checked the wound on his arm. It was clotted and beginning to scab over. He used the armbands he had just bought as a double bandage over the wound.

  Once he was dressed he took the top off the trash can that was next to the sink in the shower room. He bundled his old clothes and shoes together and buried them under the paper towels and other debris in the can. He didn’t want anyone to spot his belongings and retrieve them, especially the shoes in which he had trod across the bloody tiles in Tuen Mun.

  Feeling somewhat refreshed and ready for the long flight ahead, he stepped out and looked around for his daughter. He didn’t see her anywhere in the lounge and went back to wait for her near the entrance to the women’s shower room. After fifteen minutes and no sign of Madeline, he started getting worried. He waited another five and then went to the reception desk and asked the woman behind the counter to send an employee into the shower room to check on his daughter.

  The woman said she would do it herself. Bosch followed and then waited when she went into the shower room. He heard the shower running when the door was opened. He then heard voices and soon the woman from the front desk stepped out.

  “She’s still in the shower and she said everything is fine. She said she was going to be a while longer.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  The woman went back to her position and Bosch checked his watch. The boarding of their flight would not start for at least a half hour. There was time. He went back to the lounge and sat in a chair nearest to the hallway leading to the showers. He kept watch the whole time.

  He couldn’t imagine where Madeline’s thoughts were. He knew she needed help and that he was completely unequipped to provide it. His governing thought was simply to get her back to Los Angeles and to go from there. He already had in mind who he would call in to counsel Maddie once he got her there.

  Just as the boarding of their flight was announced in the lounge, Madeline came down the hallway, her dark hair slicked back and wet. She was wearing the same clothes she had changed into in the car but had added a hooded sweatshirt. Somehow she was cold.

  “Are you all right?” Bosch asked.

  She didn’t answer. She just stopped in front of Bosch with her head down.

  “I know, stupid question,” Harry said. “But are you ready to fly? They just called our flight. We need to go.”

  “I’m ready. I just wanted a long, hot shower.”

  “I understand.”

  They left the lounge and made their way to the gate, and while approaching, Bosch saw no more than the usual gathering of security. Their tickets were taken, their passports checked and they were allowed to board.

  The plane was a large double-decker with the cockpit on the upper level and the first-class cabin right below in the nose of the craft. A flight attendant informed them that they were the only ones flying first class and that they could pick their seats. They took the two seats in the front row and it felt like they had the plane to themselves. Bosch wasn’t planning on taking his eyes off his daughter until they were in Los Angeles.

  As the loading of the plane neared completion, the pilot came on the speaker and announced that they would spend thirteen hours in the air. That was shorter than the flight over because the winds would be with them. However, they would be flying back against the grain of time. They would land in Los Angeles at 9:30 Sunday night, two hours before they had taken off in Hong Kong.

  Bosch did the math and knew that it would add up to a thirty-nine-hour day before it was over. The longest day of his life.

  Eventually, the big plane was cleared for an on-time takeoff and it trundled down the runway, picked up speed and climbed loudly into the dark sky. Bosch breathed a little easier as he looked out the window and saw the lights of Hong Kong disappear below the clouds. He hoped never to be back again.

  His daughter reached across the space between their seats and grabbed his hand. He looked over and held her eyes. She had started to cry again. Bosch squeezed her hand and nodded.

  “It’s going to be all right, Maddie.”

  She nodded back and held on.

  After the plane leveled off, the flight attendant came around and offered them food and drink but both Bosch and his daughter declined. Madeline watched a movie about teenage vampires and then folded her seat down flat—one of the perks of first class—and went to sleep.

  Soon she was soundly asleep and he envisioned some sort of internal healing process taking place. The armies of sleep charging through her brain and attacking the bad memories.

  He bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. As the seconds, minutes and hours moved backwards, he watched her sleep and wished for the impossible, that time would move backwards far enough for him to begin the whole day again. That was the fantasy. The reality was that his life was almost as significantly altered as hers was. She was with him now. And he knew that no matter what he had done or caused to happen until this point in his life, she would be his ticket to redemption.

  If he could protect and serve her, he had the chance to make up for everything. For all of it.

  His plan was to keep watch on her through the night. But his exhaustion eventually defeated him and he closed his eyes as well. Soon he dreamed of a place by a river. There was an outdoor table with a white tablecloth ruffled by the wind. He sat across the table from both Eleanor and Madeline and they smiled at him. It was a dream of a place that had never been and would never be.

  PART THREE: To Protect and Serve

  39

  The last hurdle was customs and immigration in Los Angeles. The agent at the entry booth swiped their passports and was ready to routinely stamp them when something on the computer caught his eye. Bosch held his breath.

  “Mr. Bosch. You were in Hong Kong for less than a day?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t even need to pack a bag. I just went to pick up my daughter.”

  The agent nodded as though he understood and had seen it before. He s
tamped the passports. He looked at Madeline and said, “Welcome to L.A., young lady.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  It was almost midnight by the time they got to the house on Woodrow Wilson Drive. Bosch carried the backpack into the guest room and his daughter followed. She was familiar with the room, having used it on several visits.

  “Now that you’ll be living here full-time, we can fix up this room any way you want,” Bosch said. “I know you had a lot of posters and stuff back in Hong Kong. You can do whatever you want here.”

  There were two cardboard boxes stacked in the corner that contained old case files Bosch had copied.

  “I’ll get these out of here,” he said.

  He moved them one at a time into his bedroom. He continued to talk to her as he moved up and down the hall.

  “I know you don’t have a private bathroom but the guest bathroom in the hall is all yours. I don’t get many guests here, anyway.”

  After moving the boxes, Bosch sat down on the bed and looked at his daughter. She was still standing in the middle of the room. The look on her face cut Bosch deeply. He could see the reality of the situation hitting her. It didn’t matter that she had repeatedly voiced a desire to live in L.A. She was now here permanently and grasping that fact was a daunting task.

  “Maddie, I just want to tell you something,” he said. “I’m used to being your father four weeks a year. That was easy. This is going to be hard. I am going to make mistakes and I’m going to need you to be patient with me while I learn. But I promise you I will do the best I can.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, what can I get you? Are you hungry? Tired? What?”

  “No, I’m fine. I guess I shouldn’t have slept so much on the plane.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You needed the sleep right then. And sleep is always good. It heals.”

  She nodded and looked awkwardly around the room. It was a basic guest room. A bed, bureau and a table with a lamp.

  “Tomorrow we’ll get you a TV to put in here. One of those flat screens. And also a computer and a desk. We’ll need to go shopping for a lot of things.”

  “I think I need a new cell phone. Quick took mine.”