9 Dragons

visitor.
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry said.
    Bosch focused on the body and studied the scene silently. He was pretty sure the victim was the same man he had encountered in the store so many years before. He was even in the same spot, on the floor behind the counter. And Bosch could see a soft pack of cigarettes in the shirt pocket.
    He noticed that the victim’s right hand had blood smeared on it. He didn’t find this unusual. From earliest childhood people touch their hand to an injury to try to protect it and make it better. It is natural instinct. This victim had done the same here, most likely grabbing at his chest after the first shot hit him.
    There was about a four-inch spatial separation between the bullet wounds, which formed the points of a triangle. Bosch knew that three quick shots from close range would usually have made a tighter -cluster. This led him to believe that the victim had likely been shot once and then fell to the floor. The killer had then probably leaned over the counter and shot him two more times, creating the spread.
    The slugs tore through the victim’s chest, causing massive damage to the heart and lungs. The blood expectorated through the mouth showed that death was not immediate. The victim had tried to breathe. After all his years working cases Bosch was sure of one thing. There was no easy way to die.
    “No headshot,” Bosch said.
    “Right,” Ferras said. “What’s it mean?”
    Bosch realized he had been musing out loud.
    “Maybe nothing. Just seems like three in the chest, the shooter wanted no doubt. But then no headshot to be sure.”
    “Like a contradiction.”
    “Maybe.”
    Bosch took his eyes off the body for the first time and looked around from his low angle. His eyes immediately held on a gun that was in a holster attached to the underside of the counter. It was located for easy access in case of a robbery or worse, but it had not even been pulled from its holster.
    “We’ve got a gun under here,” Bosch said. “Looks like a forty-five in a holster, but the old man never got the chance to pull it.”
    “The shooter came in quick and shot the old guy before he could reach for his piece,” Ferras said. “Maybe it was known in the neighborhood that the old man had the gun under the counter.”
    Lucas made a noise with his mouth, as if he was disagreeing.
    “What is it, Sergeant?” Bosch asked.
    “The gun’s gotta be new,” Lucas said. “The guy’s been robbed at least six times in the last five years since I’ve been here. As far as I know, he never pulled a gun. This is the first I knew about a gun.”
    Bosch nodded. It was a valid observation. He turned his head to speak over his shoulder to the sergeant.
    “Tell me about the witness,” he said.
    “Uh, she’s not really a witness,” Lucas said. “It’s Mrs. Li, the wife. She came in and found her husband when she was bringing him in his dinner. We’ve got her in the back room but you’ll need a translator. We called the ACU, asked for Chinese to go.”
    Bosch took another look at the dead man’s face, then stood up and both his knees cracked loudly. Lucas had referred to what was once known as the Asian Crimes Unit. It had recently been changed to the Asian Gang Unit to accommodate concerns that the unit name besmirched the city’s Asian population by suggesting all Asians were involved in crime. But the old dogs like Lucas still called it the ACU. Regardless of name or acronym, the decision to call in an additional investigator of any stripe should have been left to Bosch as lead investigator.
    “You speak Chinese, Sarge?”
    “No, that’s why I called ACU.”
    “Then, how did you know to ask for Chinese and not Korean or maybe even Vietnamese?”
    “I’ve been on the job twenty-six years, Detective. And-”
    “And you know Chinese when you see it.”
    “No, what I’m saying is I have a hard time making it through a shift these days without a little jolt, you know? So once a day I stop by here to pick up one of those energy drinks. Five-hour boost it gives you. Anyway, I got to know Mr. Li a little bit from coming in. He told me he and his wife came from China and that’s how I knew.”
    Bosch nodded and was embarrassed at his effort to embarrass Lucas.
    “I guess I’ll have to try one of those boosts,” he said. “Did Mrs. Li call nine-one-one”
    “No, like I said, she doesn’t have much English. From what I got from dispatch, Mrs. Li called her son and