9 Dragons

opened.
    “It’s about a homicide investigation, ma’am. Can you open the door”
    There was a long pause and Bosch wanted to buzz her again but he realized he was not sure which of the buttons he had pushed was the one she had responded to.
    “Can you hold your badges to the camera, please?” the woman said.
    Bosch had not realized there was a camera and looked around.
    “Here.”
    Chu pointed to a small aperture located at the top of the panel. They held up their badges and soon the inner door buzzed. Bosch pulled it open.
    “I don’t even know what unit she was in,” Bosch said.
    The door led to a common area that was open to the sky. There was a small lap pool in the center and the building’s twelve townhomes all had entrances here, four each on the north and south sides and two each on the east and west. Eleven was on the west side, which meant the unit had windows facing the ocean.
    Bosch approached the door to number 11 and knocked on it and got no answer. The door to number 12 opened and a woman stood there.
    “I thought you said you wanted to speak to me,” she said.
    “We’re actually looking for Mr. Lau,” Chu said. “Do you know where he is?”
    “He might be at work. But I think he said he was shooting at night this week.”
    “Shooting what?” Bosch asked.
    “He’s a screenwriter and he’s working on a movie or a TV show. I’m not sure which.”
    Just then the door to number 11 cracked open. A man with bleary eyes and unkempt hair peered out. Bosch recognized him from the photo Chu had printed.
    “Henry Lau?” Bosch said. “LAPD. We need to ask you some questions.”

44
    H enry 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