9 Dragons

honors. He thought for a moment about Robert going off to the university and getting the opportunity to take his father’s business and turn it into something bigger and better. Meantime, his older sister dropped out of school, came home and made the beds.
    Li asked for no changes to his statement and signed the bottom of each page. When he was finished he looked up at a wall clock hung over the door and Bosch could tell he thought they were done.
    But they weren’t. Now it was Bosch’s turn. He opened his briefcase and removed a file. From it he took the photo print of the bagman who had collected money from Li’s father. Bosch handed it to Li.
    “Tell me about this guy,” he said.
    Li held the printout in both hands and knitted his eyebrows as he looked at it. Bosch knew that people did this to show they were earnestly concentrating, but it usually was a cover for something else. Bosch knew that he had probably taken a call in the last hour from his mother and had known that he might be shown the printout. However Li responded, Bosch knew he would not be truthful.
    “I can’t tell you anything,” Li said after a few seconds. “I don’t recognize him. I’ve never seen him.”
    He handed the printout back to Bosch but Harry didn’t take it.
    “But you know who he is, don’t you.”
    It wasn’t really said as a question.
    “No, actually, I don’t,” Li said, mild annoyance in his voice.
    Bosch smiled at him but it was one of those that carried no warmth or humor.
    “Mr. Li, did your mother call you and tell you we would be showing you that picture?”
    “No.”
    “We can check the phones, you know.”
    “So what if she did? She didn’t know who it was and neither do I.”
    “You want us to find the person who killed your father, right?”
    “Of course! What kind of question is that?”
    “It’s the kind of question I ask when I know somebody is holding something back from me and that it-”
    “What? How dare you!”
    “-could be very useful to my investigation.”
    “I am holding nothing back! I don’t know this man. I don’t know his name and I have never seen him before! That is the goddamn truth!”
    Li’s face grew flushed. Bosch waited a moment and then spoke calmly.
    “You might be telling the truth. You might not know his name and maybe you’ve never seen him before. But you know who he is, Robert. You know your father was making payoffs. Maybe you are, too. If you think there is any danger involved in talking to us, then we can protect you.”
    “Absolutely,” Chu chimed in.
    Li shook his head and smiled like he couldn’t believe the situation he had found himself in. He started breathing heavily.
    “My father just died-he was killed. Can’t you leave me alone? Why am I being badgered? I’m a victim here, too.”
    “I wish we could leave you alone, Robert,” Bosch said. “But if we don’t find the party responsible, there’s nobody else who will. You don’t want that, do you?”
    Li seemed to compose himself and shook his head.
    “Look,” Bosch continued. “We have a signed statement here. Nothing you tell us now has to go beyond this room. No one will ever know what you tell us.”
    Bosch reached over and ticked the printout with his finger. Li was still holding it.
    “Whoever killed your father took the disc out of the recorder in the back but left the old discs. This guy was on it. He took a payment from your father at the same time and on the same day a week before the murder. Your father gave him two hundred sixteen dollars as a payoff. The guy is triad and I think you know it. You have to help us out here, Robert. There’s nobody else who can.”
    Bosch waited. Li put the printout on the desk and rubbed his sweating palms down the thighs of his blue jeans.
    “Okay, yes, my father paid the triad,” he said.
    Bosch breathed slowly. They had just made a big step. He wanted to keep Li talking.
    “For how long?” he asked.
    “I don’t know, all his life-all my life, I guess. It was just something he always did. To him, it was part of being Chinese. You paid.”
    Bosch nodded.
    “Thank you, Robert, for telling us this. Now, yesterday you told us that with the economy and everything, things were not going so well at the store. Do you know, was your father behind on his payments”
    “I don’t know, maybe. He didn’t tell me. We didn’t see eye to eye on that.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I didn’t think he should pay. I told him a million