Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

Sun stepped off the elevator. He took in the scene and his focus quickly went to Eleanor on the floor.

“Eleanor!”

He rushed to her side. Bosch realized it was the first time he had heard him say her name. He had pronounced it Eeeleanor .

“She’s gone,” Bosch said. “I’m sorry.”

“Who did this?”

Bosch started to get up. He spoke in a monotone.

“Over there. Two men fired on us.”

Sun looked into the hallway and saw the two men on the ground. Bosch saw the confusion and horror on his face. He then turned back to Eleanor again.

“No!”

Bosch stepped back into the hall and picked up the gun he had pulled from the man’s waistband. Without examining it, he tucked the weapon into his own pants and went back to the alcove. Sun was on his knees next to Eleanor’s body. He was holding her hand in his.

“Sun Yee, I’m sorry. They took us by surprise.”

He waited a moment. Sun said nothing and didn’t move.

“I have to do something here and then we have to go. I’m sure the police are on their way.”

He put his hand on Sun’s shoulder and pulled him back. Bosch knelt next to Eleanor and picked up her right arm. He wrapped her hand around the gun he had gotten from Sun. He fired a shot into the wall next to the elevator. He then carefully placed her arm back down on the floor, her hand still holding the gun.

“What are you doing?” Sun demanded.

“Gunshot residue. Is the gun clean or will it be traced back to whoever gave it to you”

Sun didn’t respond.

“Sun Yee, is the gun clean?”

“It’s clean.”

“Then let’s go. We have to take the stairs. There’s nothing we can do for Eleanor now.”

Sun bowed his head for a moment and then slowly stood up.

“They came from the stairs,” Bosch said, referring to the gunmen. “We’ll go that way.”

They moved down the hall but Sun suddenly stopped to examine the two men on the floor.

“Come on,” Bosch prompted. “We have to go.”

Sun finally followed. They hit the stairwell door and started down.

“They’re not triad,” Sun said.

Bosch was two steps ahead. He stopped and looked back up at him.

“What? How do you know”

“They’re not Chinese. Not Chinese, not triad.”

“Then what are they?”

“Indonesian, Vietnamese-I think Vietnamese. Not Chinese.”

Bosch started down again and picked up the pace. They had eleven flights of stairs to go. As he moved he thought about this piece of information from Sun and couldn’t see how it fit with what was already known.

Sun fell behind the pace. And no wonder, Bosch thought. When he stepped off that elevator, his life irrevocably changed. That would slow anybody down.

Soon Bosch was a whole floor ahead of him. When he got to the bottom, he opened the exit door a crack to get his bearings. He saw that the door opened onto a pedestrian alley that ran between the Chungking Mansions and the building next door. Bosch could hear traffic and sirens close by and knew the exit was very close to Nathan Road.

The door was suddenly pushed closed. Bosch turned and Sun had one hand flat on the door. He pointed angrily at Harry with the other.

“You! You get her killed!”

“I know. I know, Sun Yee. It’s all on me. My case brought all of this-”

“No, they not triad! I told you ?.”

Bosch stared at him for a moment, not comprehending.

“Okay, they’re not triad. But-”

“You show your money and they rob.”

Bosch now understood. He was saying that the two men lying dead on the fifteenth floor with Eleanor had merely been robbers after Bosch’s money. But there was something wrong. It didn’t work. Harry shook his head.

“They were in front of us in the line for the elevator. They didn’t see my money.”

“They were told.”

Bosch considered this and his thoughts turned to the man on the stool. He had wanted to pay that man a visit already. The scenario Sun had spun made the need more immediate.

“Sun Yee, we need to get out of here. The police are going to close all the exits once they get up there and see what they have.”

Sun dropped his hand off the door and Bosch opened it again. It was clear. They stepped out into the alley. Twenty feet to their left was where the alley opened on Nathan Road.

“Where’s the car?”

Sun pointed toward the opposite end of the alley.

“I paid a man to watch it.”

“Okay, get the car and drive around front. I’m going back inside but I’ll be out front in five minutes.”

“What will you do”

“You don’t want to know.”

Bosch walked out of the alley onto Nathan Road and immediately saw the crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the police response to the call inside the Chungking Mansions. Police and fire rescue vehicles were arriving and stopping and causing traffic snarls and confusion. Barricades had not yet been set up, as the arriving officers were probably too busy trying to get up to the fifteenth floor to find out what had happened. Harry was able to join the end of a flow of paramedics carrying a stretcher up the steps and into the first level of the building.

The commotion and confusion had drawn many of the shopkeepers and customers into a crowd around the elevator alcove. Someone was barking orders at the crowd in Chinese but no one seemed to be reacting. Bosch pushed his way through and got to the rear aisle where the hotel desks were. He saw that the diversion had worked in his favor. The aisle was completely empty.

When he got to the desk where he had rented the two rooms, he saw that a security gate had been pulled halfway down from the ceiling, indicating the desk was closed. But the man on the stool was there with his back turned while he sat at the rear counter, shoving paperwork into a briefcase. It looked like he was getting ready to leave.

Without losing momentum Bosch jumped up and slid over the counter and under the gate, smashing into the man on the stool and knocking him to the floor. Bosch jumped on top of him and hit him twice in the face with his fist. The man’s head was on the concrete floor and he absorbed the full impact of the punches.

“No, please!” he managed to spit out between punches.

Bosch quickly glanced back over the counter to make sure it was still clear. He then pulled the gun from behind him and pressed the muzzle into the roll of fat below the man’s chin.

“You got her killed, you motherfucker! And I’m going to kill you.”

“No, please! Sir, please!”

“You told them, didn’t you? You told them I had money.”

“No, I have not.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me or I’ll kill you right now. You told them!”

The man lifted his head off the floor.

“Okay, listen, listen, please. I said nobody to get hurt. You understand? I said nobody to-”

Bosch pulled the gun back and brought it down hard on the man’s nose. His head snapped back against the concrete. Bosch pushed the barrel into his neck.

“I don’t care what you said. They killed her, you fuck! Do you understand that?”

The man was dazed and bleeding, his eyes blinking as he wavered in and out of consciousness. With his right hand, Bosch slapped his cheek.

“Stay awake. I want you to see it coming.”

“Please, no…I am very sorry, sir. Please don’t-”

“Okay, this is what you’re going to do. You want to live, then you tell me who rented room fifteen fourteen on Friday. Fifteen fourteen. You tell me right now.”

“Okay, I tell you. I show you.”

“Okay, you show me.”

Bosch pulled his weight back off him. The man was bleeding from the mouth and nose and Bosch was bleeding from the knuckles of his left hand. He quickly reached up and pulled the security fence all the way down to the counter.