Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

Henry Lau had a spacious home with a back deck that was ten feet over the boardwalk and had a view of the Pacific across the widest stretch of Venice beach. He invited Bosch and Chu in and asked them to sit down in the living room. Chu sat down but Bosch remained standing, positioning his back to the view so that he would not be distracted during the interview. He wasn’t getting the vibe he was expecting. Lau seemed to take their knocking on his door as routine and expected. Harry hadn’t counted on that.

Lau was wearing blue jeans, sneakers and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a silk-screened image of a long-haired man wearing sunglasses, and a caption that said, the dude abides. If he had been sleeping, he had slept in his clothes.

Bosch pointed him to a square black leather chair with armrests a foot wide.

“Have a seat, Mr. Lau, and we’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” he said.

Lau was small and catlike. He sat down and brought his legs up onto the chair.

“Is this about the shooting?” he asked.

Bosch glanced at Chu and then back at Lau.

“What shooting is that?”

“The one out there on the beach. The robbery.”

“When was this?”

“I don’t know. A couple weeks back. But I guess that’s not why you’re here if you don’t even know when it was.”

“That’s correct, Mr. Lau. We are investigating a shooting but not that one. Do you mind talking to us?”

Lau hiked his shoulders up.

“I don’t know. I don’t know about any other shootings, Officers.”

“We’re detectives.”

“Detectives. What shooting?”

“Do you know a man named Bo-Jing Chang?”

“Bo-Jing Chang? No, I don’t know that name.”

He looked genuinely surprised by the name. Bosch signaled Chu and he pulled a printout of Chang’s booking photo from his briefcase. He showed it to Lau. While he studied it, Bosch moved to another spot in the room to get another angle on him. He wanted to keep moving. It would help keep Lau off guard.

Lau shook his head after looking at the photo.

“No, don’t know him. What shooting are we talking about here?”

“Let us ask the questions for now,” Bosch said. “Then we’ll get to yours. Your neighbor said you’re a screenwriter?”

“Yes.”

“You write anything I might have seen?”

“Nope.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve never had anything that actually got made until right now. So there’s nothing out there you could’ve seen.”

“Well, then who pays for this nice pad on the beach?”

“I pay for it. I get paid to write. I just haven’t had anything hit the screen yet. It takes time, you know?”

Bosch moved behind Lau and the young man had to turn in his comfortable seat to track him.

“Where did you grow up, Henry?”

“San Francisco. Came down here to go to school and stayed.”

“You were born up there?”

“That’s right.”

“You a Giants or Dodgers man?”

“Giants, baby.”

“That’s too bad. When was the last time you were in South L.A.?”

The question came from left field and Lau had to think before answering. He shook his head.

“I don’t know, five or six years at least. Been a while, though. I wish you could tell me what this is about because then I might be able to help you.”

“So if somebody said they saw you down there last week, they’d be lying?”

Lau smirked like they were playing a game.

“Either that or they were just mistaken. You know what they say?.”

“No, what do they say?”

“That we all look alike.”

Lau smiled brightly and looked to Chu for confirmation. Chu held his ground and just returned a dead-eyed stare.

“What about Monterey Park?” Bosch asked.

“You mean, have I been there?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“Uh, I went out there a couple times for dinner, but it’s really not worth the drive.”

“So you don’t know anyone in Monterey Park?”

“No, not really.”

Bosch had been circling, asking general questions and locking Lau in. It was time to circle closer now.

“Where’s your gun, Mr. Lau?”

Lau put his feet down on the floor. He looked at Chu and then back at Bosch.

“This is about my gun?”

“Six years ago you bought and registered a Glock Model Nineteen. Can you tell us where it is?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s in the lockbox in a drawer next to my bed. Where it always is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Okay, I get it, let me guess. Mr. Asshole in unit eight saw me holding it out there on the deck after the beach shooting and he made a complaint?”

“No, Henry, we haven’t spoken to Mr. Asshole. Are you saying that you had the gun with you after the shooting on the beach?”

“That’s right. I heard shots out there and a scream. I was on my own property and am entitled to protect myself.”

Bosch nodded to Chu. Chu opened the slider and stepped out onto the deck, closing the door behind him. He pulled his phone to make a call about the beach shooting.

“Look, if somebody said I fired it, they are full of shit,” Lau said.

Bosch looked at him for a long moment. He felt like there was something missing, a piece of the conversation he didn’t know about yet.

“As far as I know, nobody’s said that,” he said.

“Then, please, what is this all about?”

“I told you. It’s about your gun. Can you show it to us, Henry?”

“Sure, I’ll go get it.”

He sprang up from the chair and headed toward the stairs.

“Henry,” Bosch said. “Hold it there. We’re going to go with you.”

Lau looked back from the stairs.

“Suit yourself. Let’s get this over with.”

Bosch turned back to the deck. Chu was coming through the door. They followed Lau up the stairs and then down a hallway that cut back to the rear of the unit. Framed photographs, movie posters and diplomas lined both sides. They passed an open door to a bedroom that was used as a writing office and then entered the -master bedroom, a grand room with twelve-foot ceilings and ten-foot windows looking out over the beach.

“I called Pacific Division,” Chu said to Bosch. “The shooting was on the night of the first. They have two suspects in custody on it.”

Bosch flipped back through the calendar in his mind. The first was the Tuesday one week before the killing of John Li.

Lau sat down on the unmade bed next to a two-drawer side table. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a steel box with a handle on the top.

“Hold it right there,” Bosch said.

Lau put the box on the bed and stood up, hands up.

“Hey, I wasn’t going to do anything, man. You asked to see it.”

“Why don’t you let my partner open the box,” Bosch said.

“Suit yourself.”

“Detective.”

Bosch pulled a pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket and handed them to Chu. He then stepped over to Lau so that he was within arm’s reach if necessary.

“Why’d you buy the gun, Henry?”

“Because I was living in a complete shithole at the time and the bangers were all over the place. But it’s funny. I paid a million fucking dollars for this place and they’re still right out there on the beach, shooting the place up.”

Chu snapped the second glove on and looked at Lau.

“Do you give us permission to open this box?” he asked.

“Sure, go ahead. I don’t know what this is about but why the hell not? Just open it. The key is on a little hook on the back side of the table.”

Chu reached behind the bed table and found the key. He then used it to open the box. A black felt gun bag sat on some folded papers and envelopes. There was a passport and a box of bullets as well. Chu carefully lifted the bag out and opened it, producing a black semiautomatic pistol. He turned it and examined it.