Nine Dragons

by Michael Connelly

  “Yeah, we’ll get you a new phone, too. I have your memory card from the old one, so you won’t lose your contacts.”

  She looked over at him and he realized he had made a mistake.

  “You have the card? Did you get it from Quick? Was his sister there?”

  Bosch held his hands up in a calming gesture and shook his head.

  “I never met Quick or his sister. I found your phone but it was broken. All I got was the memory card.”

  “She tried to save me. She found out that Quick was going to sell me and tried to stop it. But he kicked her out of the car.”

  Bosch waited for her to say more but that was it. He wanted to ask her many questions about the brother and sister and everything else but his role as father overtook his role as cop. Now wasn’t the right time. He had to get her calmed and situated. There would be time later to be a cop, to ask about Quick and He and to tell her what happened to them.

  He studied her face and she seemed to be drained of emotion. She still looked tired, even after all the sleep on the plane.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, Maddie. I promise.”

  She nodded.

  “Um, do you think I can just be alone for a little while in here?”

  “Sure you can. It’s your room. I think I should make some calls, anyway.”

  He got up and headed to the door. He hesitated as he was closing it behind him and looked back at her.

  “You’ll tell me if you need anything, right?”

  “Yes, Dad. Thanks.”

  He closed the door and went out to the living room. He pulled his phone and called David Chu.

  “It’s Bosch. Sorry to call so late.”

  “No problem. How is it going over there?”

  “I’m back in L.A.”

  “You’re back? What about your daughter?”

  “She’s safe. What’s the status on Chang?”

  There was a hesitation before Chu answered. He didn’t want to be the messenger.

  “Well, he walks in the morning. We don’t have anything to file on him.”

  “What about the extortion?”

  “I took a last run at Li and Lam today. They won’t file a formal complaint. They’re too scared of the triad. Li said somebody called already and threatened him.”

  Bosch thought for a moment about the threatening call he had received on Friday. He assumed it was the same caller.

  “So Chang walks out of the DDC in the morning and heads to the airport,” he said. “He gets on a plane and we never see him again.”

  “Looks like we lost this one, Harry.”

  Bosch shook his head, his rage boiling over.

  “Goddamn those motherfuckers.”

  Bosch realized his daughter might be able to hear him. He opened one of the living room sliders and stepped out onto the rear deck. The sound from the freeway traffic down in the pass would help muffle his conversation.

  “They were going to sell my kid,” he said. “For her organs.”

  “God,” Chu said. “I thought they were just trying to intimidate you.”

  “Yeah, well, they took her blood and she must’ve matched somebody with a lot of money because the plan changed.”

  “Well, they could’ve tested her blood to make sure she was clean before they…”

  He stopped, realizing the alternate scenario wasn’t comforting. He changed directions.

  “Is she back here with you, Harry?”

  “I told you, she’s safe.”

  Bosch knew that Chu would read his indirect answer as a lack of trust, but what was new? He couldn’t help it after the day he’d had. He tried to change the subject.

  “When was the last time you talked to Ferras or Gandle?”

  “I haven’t talked to your partner since Friday. I talked to the lieutenant a couple hours ago. He wanted to know where things stood as well. He’s pretty pissed off about it, too.”

  It was almost midnight on a Sunday and yet the freeway down below was packed, all ten lanes across. The air was crisp and cool, a welcome change from Hong Kong.

  “Who’s supposed to tell the DA’s office to kick him loose?” Bosch asked.

  “I was going to call over there in the morning. Unless you want to.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll be there in the morning. Why don’t you handle it, but wait until ten to make the call.”

  “Sure, but why ten?”

  “It will give me time to get over there and say good-bye to Mr. Chang.”

  “Harry, don’t do something you’ll regret.”

  Bosch briefly considered the past three days.

  “It’s too late for that.”

  Bosch ended the call with Chu and stood against the railing, looking out at the night. There was certainly something safe about being home but he couldn’t help thinking about what had been lost and left behind. It was like the hungry ghosts of Hong Kong had followed him across the Pacific.

  “Dad?”

  He turned. His daughter stood in the open doorway.

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Sure, why?”

  She stepped out onto the deck and stood next to him at the rail.

  “It sounded like you were mad when you were on the phone.”

  “It’s about the case. It’s not going well.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault. But listen, in the morning, I have to take a quick run downtown. I’ll make some calls and see if I can get somebody to watch you while I’m gone. And then when I get back we’ll go to the store, like I was saying before. Okay?”

  “You mean like a babysitter?”

  “No…I mean, yeah, I guess so.”

  “Dad, I haven’t had a babysitter or a nanny since I was, like, twelve.”

  “Yeah, well, that was only a year ago.”

  “I think I will be all right by myself. I mean, Mom lets me go to the mall after school by myself.”

  Bosch noted her use of the present tense. He was tempted to tell her that the plan to allow her to go to the mall by herself didn’t work out so well, but he was smart enough to save that for another time. The bottom line was that he had to consider her safety ahead of everything else. Could the forces that grabbed her in Hong Kong find her all the way over here in his home?

  It seemed unlikely but even if there was a small percentage chance, he couldn’t risk leaving her alone. The problem with that was he didn’t really know who he could call in. He wasn’t plugged into the neighborhood. He was the resident cop who got called when there was a problem. But otherwise he had never socialized with people on his street, or with anyone for that matter other than cops. He didn’t know who would be safe or any different from a complete stranger chosen from the child-sitter ads in the phone book. Bosch was at a loss and it was beginning to dawn on him that he had no business raising his own daughter.

  “Maddie, listen, this is one of those times when I said you were going to have to be patient with me. I don’t want you left alone. Not yet. You can stay in your room if you want—you’ll probably still be asleep because of jet lag. But I want an adult in the house with you. Somebody I can trust.”

  “Whatever.”

  Thinking about being the resident cop in the neighborhood suddenly pushed another idea into his brain.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what. If you don’t want a sitter, then I have another idea. There’s a school down at the bottom of the hill. It’s a public middle school. I think classes started last week because I saw all the cars on my way to work. I don’t know if it’s where you’ll end up going or if we’ll try to get you into a private school, but I could take you down there and you could look around and check it out. Maybe sit in on a class or two and see what you think while I go downtown. How would that be? I know the assistant principal and I trust her. She’ll take care of you.”

  His daughter hooked a strand of hair behind her ear and stared out at the view for a few moments before answe
ring.

  “I guess that would be okay.”

  “Okay, good, then we’ll do that. I’ll call in the morning and set it up.”

  Problem solved, Bosch thought.

  “Dad?”

  “What, baby?”

  “I heard what you said on the phone.”

  He froze.

  “I’m sorry. I will try not to use that kind of language anymore. And never around you.”

  “No, I don’t mean that. I mean when you were out here. About what you said about them selling me for my organs. Is that true?”

  “I don’t know, darling. I don’t know what their exact plan was.”

  “Quick took my blood. He said he was going to send it to you. You know, so you could run DNA and know that I was really kidnapped.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “Yeah, well, he was lying to you. The video he sent was enough to convince me. The blood wasn’t necessary. He was lying to you, Mad. He betrayed you and he got what he deserved.”

  She immediately turned toward him and Bosch realized he had slipped again.

  “What do you mean? What happened to him?”

  Bosch didn’t want to go down the slippery slope of lying to his daughter. He also knew that his daughter obviously cared about Quick’s sister, if not for Quick himself. She probably still didn’t understand the depth of his betrayal.

  “He’s dead.”

  Her breath caught in her throat and she brought her hands to her mouth.

  “Did you…”

  “No, Maddie, I didn’t do it. I found him dead at the same time I found your phone. I guess you somehow liked him, so I’m sorry. But he betrayed you, baby, and I have to tell you, I might have done the same thing to him if I had found him alive. Let’s go in now.”

  Bosch turned from the railing.

  “What about He?”

  Bosch stopped and looked back at her.

  “I don’t know about He.”

  He moved to the door and went inside. There, he had lied to her for the first time. It was to save her from some grief, but it didn’t matter. He could already feel that he was beginning to slide down the slope.

  40

  At 11 A.M. Monday, Bosch was waiting outside the Downtown Detention Center for the release of Bo-Jing Chang. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do or say to the murderer when he stepped through the door as a free man. But he knew he couldn’t let the moment pass. If Chang’s arrest had been the trigger that resulted in all that had happened in Hong Kong, including the death of Eleanor Wish, then Bosch would not be able to live with himself if he didn’t confront the man when he had the chance.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he was tempted not to answer it and risk missing Chang, but he saw on the screen that it was Lieutenant Gandle calling. He took the call.

  “I hear you’re back.”

  “Yeah, I was going to call you.”

  “You got your daughter?”

  “Yeah, she’s safe.”

  “Where?”

  Bosch hesitated but not for too long.

  “She’s with me.”

  “And her mother?”

  “She’s still in Hong Kong.”

  “How’s that going to work?”

  “She’ll live with me. For a while, at least.”

  “What happened back there? Anything I need to worry about?”

  Bosch wasn’t sure what to tell him. He decided to put it off.

  “I’m hoping there’s no blowback. But you never know.”

  “I’ll let you know what I hear. Are you coming in?”

  “Uh, not today. I need to take a couple days to get my daughter situated and in school and stuff. I want to get her some counseling.”

  “Is this white time or vacay days? I need to put it down.”

  Comp time was called “white time” in the LAPD, after the blank white form on which supervisors kept track of it.

  “Doesn’t matter. I think I have the white time.”

  “Then I’ll go with that. Are you okay, Harry?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I guess Chu told you about Chang getting kicked.”

  “Yeah, he told me.”

  “His prick lawyer was already here this morning to pick up his suitcase. I’m sorry, Harry. There’s nothing we could do. The case isn’t there and those two wimps up in the Valley won’t help us hold him on the extortion.”

  “I know.”

  “Didn’t help that your partner stayed home all weekend. Claimed he was sick.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Bosch had reached the end of his patience with Ferras but that was between him and his partner. He wouldn’t discuss it with Gandle yet.

  The door to the release office opened and Bosch saw an Asian man in a suit step out, carrying a briefcase. It wasn’t Chang. The man held the door with his body and waved up the street to a waiting car. Bosch knew this was it. The man in the suit was a well-known defense attorney named Anthony Wing.

  “Lieutenant, I gotta go. Can I call you back?”

  “Just call me when you decide how many days you’re taking and when I can put you back on the schedule. Meantime, I’ll find something for Ferras to do. Something inside.”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Bosch closed the phone just as a black Cadillac Escalade cruised up and Bo-Jing Chang stepped through the jail’s release door. Bosch moved into the path between him and the SUV. Wing then stepped between Bosch and Chang.

  “Excuse me, Detective,” Wing said. “You are impeding my client’s path.”

  “Is that what I’m doing, ‘impeding’? What about him impeding John Li’s life?”

  Bosch saw Chang smirk and shake his head behind Wing. He heard a car door slam behind him and Wing’s attention moved over Harry’s shoulder.

  “Make sure you get this,” he commanded.

  Bosch looked behind him and saw that a man with a video camera had gotten out of the big SUV. The lens of the camera was pointed at Bosch.

  “What is this?”

  “Detective, if you touch or harass Mr. Chang in any way, it will be documented and offered to the media.”

  Bosch turned back to Wing and Chang. Chang’s smirk had turned into a satisfied smile.

  “You think this is over, Chang? I don’t care where you go, this isn’t over. You and your people made it personal, asshole, and I don’t forget that.”

  “Detective, move aside,” Wing said, clearly playing to the camera. “Mr. Chang is leaving because he is innocent of the charges you tried to concoct against him. He is returning to Hong Kong because of LAPD harassment. Because of you, he is unable to continue enjoying the life he has known here for several years.”

  Bosch stepped out of their way and let them pass to the car.

  “You are full of shit, Wing. Take your camera and shove it up your ass.”

  Chang got into the backseat of the Escalade first, then Wing signaled the cameraman to get into the front seat.

  “We have your threat on film now, Detective,” Wing said. “Remember that.”

  Wing got in next to Chang and closed the door. Bosch stood there and watched the big SUV glide off, probably taking Chang directly to the airport to complete his legal escape.

  When Bosch got back to the school, he went to the assistant principal’s office to check in. Sue Bambrough had agreed that morning to allow Madeline to audit eighth-grade classes and see if she liked the school. When he stepped in, Bambrough asked him to sit down and then proceeded to tell him that his daughter was still in class and assimilating quite well. Bosch was surprised. She had been in L.A. a little more than twelve hours after losing her mother and spending a harrowing weekend in captivity. Bosch had feared that the drop-off at the school might be disastrous.

  Bosch already knew Bambrough. A couple of years earlier, a neighbor who had a child attending the school asked him to speak to the kid’s class about police work and crime. Bambrough was a bright, hands-on administrator who had
interviewed Bosch at length before allowing him to address any students. Bosch had rarely been grilled so thoroughly by defense attorneys in court. She had taken a hard line on the quality of police work in the city but her arguments were well thought out and articulate. Bosch respected her.

  “Class ends in ten minutes,” Bambrough said. “I’ll take you to her then. There is something I would like to talk to you about first, Detective Bosch.”

  “I told you last time, call me Harry. What is it you want to talk about?”

  “Well, your daughter’s quite a storyteller. She was overheard during the midmorning break telling other students that she just moved here from Hong Kong because her mother was murdered and she got kidnapped. My concern is that she’s self-aggrandizing in order to—”

  “It’s true. All of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was abducted and her mother was killed trying to rescue her.”

  “Oh, dear God! When did this happen?”

  Bosch regretted not telling Bambrough the whole story when they had talked that morning. He had simply told her that his daughter was going to be living with him and wanted to check the school out.

  “Over the weekend,” he answered. “We arrived from Hong Kong last night.”

  Bambrough looked like she had taken a punch.

  “Over the weekend? Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Of course I am. She’s been through a lot. I know it might be too soon to put her in school, but this morning I had…an appointment I couldn’t avoid. I’ll take her home now and if she wants to come back in a few days, I’ll let you know.”

  “Well, what about counseling? What about a physical examination?”

  “I’m working on all of that.”

  “Don’t be afraid to get her help. Children like to talk about things. It’s just that sometimes it’s not to their parents. I have found that children have an innate ability to know what they need in order to heal themselves and survive. Without her mother and with you being new at full-time parenting, Madeline may need an outside party to talk to.”

  Bosch nodded at the end of the lecture.

  “She’ll get whatever she needs. What would I need to do if she wants to go to school here?”

  “Just call me. You’re in the district and we have the space. There will be some minor paperwork for enrollment and we’ll have to get her transcript from Hong Kong. You’ll need her birth certificate and that’s about it.”