9 Dragons

because of the payoff.”
    They were now facing each other less than two feet apart.
    “Well, there was nothing before me yesterday that even suggested this,” Chu said. “I was called out there to translate. You didn’t ask me my opinion about anything else. You deliberately shut me out, Bosch. Maybe if you had included me, I would have seen or heard something.”
    “That’s bullshit. You’re not trained as a detective to stand there with your thumb in your mouth. You don’t need an invite to ask a question.”
    “With you I thought I did.”
    “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means I watched you, Bosch. How you treated Mrs. Li, her son…me.”
    “Oh, here we go.”
    “What was it, Vietnam? You served in Vietnam, right?”
    “Don’t pretend you know anything about me, Chu.”
    “I know what I see and I’ve seen it before. I’m not from Vietnam, Detective. I’m an American. Born right here, like you.”
    “Look, can we just drop this so we can get on with the case”
    “Whatever you say. You’re the lead.”
    Chu put his hands on his hips and turned back to the screen. Bosch tried to back his emotions down. He had to admit Chu had a point. And he was embarrassed that he had been so easily pegged as someone who had come back from Vietnam with a racial prejudice.
    “All right,” he said. “Maybe the way I dealt with you yesterday was a mistake. I’m sorry. But you’re in now and I need to know what you know. No holding back.”
    Chu relaxed too.
    “I just told you everything. The only other thing I was thinking was about the two hundred sixteen.”
    “What about it?”
    “It’s a double payment. Like maybe Mr. Li missed a week. Maybe he was having trouble paying. His son said business was bad there.”
    “And so maybe that’s what got him killed.”
    Bosch pointed to the screen again.
    “Can you make me a hard copy?”
    “I would like one myself.”
    Chu moved to the printer and pushed a button twice. Soon two copies of the image of the man turning from the counter were printing.
    “Do you have mug books?” Bosch asked. “Intelligence files?”
    “Of course,” Chu said. “I will try to identify him. I will make inquiries.”
    “I don’t want him to know we’re coming.”
    “Thank you, Detective. But, yes, I assumed that.”
    Bosch didn’t respond. It had been another misstep. He was having a hard time with Chu. He found himself unable to trust him, even though he carried the same badge.
    “I would also like to get a print of the tattoo as well,” Chu said.
    “What tattoo?” Bosch asked.
    Chu took the remote from Bosch and tapped the rewind button. He eventually froze the picture at the moment the man was reaching his left hand out to take the cash from Mr. Li. Chu used his finger to trace a barely visible outline on the inside of the man’s arm. Chu was right. It was a tattoo, but the marking was so light on the grainy image that Bosch had completely missed it.
    “What is that” he asked.
    “It looks like the outline of a knife. A self-administered tattoo.”
    “He’s been in prison.”
    Chu pushed the button to make prints of the image.
    “No, usually these are done on the boat. On the way across the ocean.”
    “What does it mean to you?”
    “Knife is
kim
. There are at least three triads that have a presence here in Southern California.
Yee Kim, Sai Kim
and
Yung Kim
. These mean Righteous Knife, Western Knife and Brave Knife. They are offshoots of a Hong Kong triad called Fourteen K. Very strong and powerful.”
    “Over here or there?”
    “Both places.”
    “Fourteen K? Like fourteen-karat gold”
    “No, fourteen is a bad-luck number. It sounds like the Chinese word for death.
K
is for kill.”
    Bosch knew from his daughter and his frequent visits to Hong Kong that any permutation of the number 4 was considered bad luck. His daughter lived with his ex-wife in a condominium tower where there were no floors marked with the numeral 4. The fourth floor was marked
P
for parking and the fourteenth was skipped in the way the thirteenth floor was skipped in most western buildings. The floors in the building that were actually the fourteenth and twenty-fourth contained the residences of English speakers who did not hold the same superstitions as the Han-the Chinese people.
    Bosch gestured to the screen.
    “So you think this guy could be in one of the Fourteen K spinoffs?” he asked.
    “Perhaps yes,” Chu said. “I will begin to make inquiries