9 Dragons

expected her to bolt and run, but she got on under protest and then was gone. He’d felt a hollowness inside ever since.
    Now his next vacation and trip to Hong Kong wasn’t scheduled for another month and he knew it was going to be a long, tough wait until then.
    “Harry, what are you doing out here?”
    Bosch turned. His partner, Ferras, was standing there, having come out of the squad room, probably to use the restroom.
    “I was talking to my daughter. I wanted some privacy.”
    “She all right?”
    “She’s fine. I’ll meet you back in the squad.”
    Bosch headed toward the door, putting his phone back in his pocket.

11
    B osch got home at eight that night, coming through the door with a to-go bag from the In-N-Out down on Cahuenga.
    “Honey, I’m home,” he called out as he struggled with the key, the bag and his briefcase.
    He smiled to himself and went directly into the kitchen. He put his briefcase down on the counter, grabbed a bottle of beer out of the refrigerator and went out to the deck. Along the way he turned on his CD player, leaving the sliding door open so the music could mingle on the deck with the sound of the 101 Freeway down in the pass.
    The deck was positioned with a northeasterly view stretching across Universal City, Burbank and on to the San Gabriel Mountains. Harry ate his two hamburgers, holding them over the open bag to catch drippings, and watched the dying sun change the colors of the mountain slopes. He listened to “Seven Steps to Heaven” off Ron Carter’s
Dear Miles
album. Carter was one of the most important bassists of the last five decades. He had played with everybody and Bosch often wondered about the stories he could tell, the sessions he’d sat in on and the musicians he knew. Whether on his own recordings or on somebody else’s, Carter’s work always stood out. Harry believed this was because as a bassist he could never really be a sideman. He was always the anchor. He always drove the beat, even if it was behind Miles Davis’s horn.
    The song now playing had an undeniable momentum to it. Like a car chase. It made Bosch think about his own chase and the advances that had been made through the day. He was satisfied with his own momentum but uncomfortable with the realization that he had moved the case to a point where he was now reliant on the work of others. He had to wait for others to identify the triad bagman. He had to wait for others to decide whether to use the bullet casing as a test case for their new fingerprint technology. He had to wait for somebody to call.
    Bosch was most at home in a case when he was pushing the action himself, setting the track for others to follow. He wasn’t a sideman. He had to drive the beat. And at this juncture he had pushed it just about as far as he could. He started thinking about his next moves and the options were few. He could start hitting Chinese-owned businesses in South L.A. with the photo of the triad bagman. But he knew it would likely be an exercise in futility. The cultural divide was wide. No one would willingly identify a triad member to the police.
    Nevertheless, he was prepared to go that route if nothing else broke soon. It would at least keep him moving. Momentum was momentum, whether you found it in music or on the street or in the beat of your own heart.
    As the light started to disappear from the sky, Bosch reached into his pocket and pulled out the book of matches he always carried. He thumbed it open and studied the fortune. Since the night he first read it he had taken it seriously. He believed that he was a man who had found refuge in himself. Over time, at least.
    His cell rang as he was chewing his last bite. He pulled the phone and checked the screen. The ID was blocked but he answered anyway.
    “Bosch.”
    “Harry, David Chu. You sound like you’re eating. Where are you?”
    His voice was tight with excitement.
    “I’m at home. Where are you”
    “Monterey Park. We got him!”
    Bosch paused for a moment. Monterey Park was a city in the east county where nearly three-quarters of the population was Chinese. Fifteen minutes from downtown, it was like a foreign country with impenetrable language and culture.
    “Who have you got?” he finally asked.
    “Our guy. The suspect.”
    “You mean you got an ID?”
    “We got more than an ID. We got him. We’re looking right at him.”
    There were several things about what Chu was saying that immediately bothered Bosch.
    “First of all,