9 Dragons

small string of carved jade monkeys-see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil-on red twine. Bosch took it out of the box and held it up to see it better. It was no more than two inches long and there was a small silver ring on the end so that it could be attached to something.
    “You ready?”
    Bosch turned. Eleanor was in the doorway.
    “I’m ready. What is this, an earring?”
    Eleanor stepped closer to see it.
    “No, the kids hook those things on their phones. You can buy them at the jade market in Kowloon. So many of them have the same phones, they dress them up to be different.”
    Bosch nodded as he put the jade string back in the bone box.
    “Are they expensive?”
    “No, that’s cheap jade. They cost about a dollar American and the kids change them all the time. Let’s go.”
    Bosch took a last look around his daughter’s private domain and on the way out grabbed a pillow and a folded blanket off the bed. Eleanor looked back and saw what he was doing.
    “She might be tired and want to sleep,” Bosch explained.
    They left the apartment and in the elevator Bosch held the blanket and pillow under one arm and one of the backpacks in the other. He could smell his daughter’s shampoo on the pillow.
    “You have the passports” Bosch asked.
    “Yes, I have them,” Eleanor said.
    “Can I ask you something?”
    “What?”
    He acted like he was studying the pattern of ponies on the blanket he was holding.
    “How far can you trust Sun Yee? I’m not sure we should be with him after we get the gun.”
    Eleanor answered without hesitation.
    “I told you, you don’t have to worry about him. I trust him all the way and he’s staying with us. He’s staying with me.”
    Bosch nodded. Eleanor looked up at the digital display that showed the floors clicking by.
    “I trust him completely,” she added. “And Maddie does, too.”
    “How does Maddie even-”
    He stopped. He suddenly understood what she was saying. Sun was the man Madeline had told him about. He and Eleanor were together.
    “You get it now?” she asked.
    “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “But are you sure Madeline trusts him?”
    “Yes, I’m sure. If she told you otherwise, then she was just trying to get your sympathy. She’s a girl, Harry. She knows how to manipulate. Yes, her life has been…disrupted a bit by my relationship with Sun Yee. But he has shown her nothing but kindness and respect. She’ll get over it. That is, once we get her back.”
    Sun Yee had the car waiting in the drop-off circle at the front of the building. Harry and Eleanor put the backpacks in the trunk but Bosch took the pillow and blanket with him into the backseat. Sun pulled out and they went the rest of the way down Stubbs Road into Happy Valley and then over to Wan Chai.
    Bosch tried to put the conversation from the elevator out of his mind. It wasn’t important at the moment because it wouldn’t help him get his daughter back. But it was hard to compartmentalize his feelings. His daughter had told him back in L.A. that Eleanor was in a relationship. And he’d had relationships himself since their divorce. But being hit with the reality of it here in Hong Kong was difficult. He was riding with a woman he still loved on some basic level and her new man. It was hard to take.
    He was sitting behind Eleanor. He looked over the seat at Sun and studied the man’s stoic demeanor. He was no hired gun here. He had more of a stake than that. Bosch realized that could make him an asset. If his daughter could count on and trust him, then so could Bosch. The rest he could put aside.
    As if sensing the eyes on him, Sun turned and looked at Bosch. Even with the blackout shades guarding Sun’s eyes, Bosch could tell he had read the situation and knew there were no secrets any longer.
    Bosch nodded. It wasn’t any sort of approval he was giving. It was just the silent message that he now understood they were all in this together.

26
    W an Chai was the part of Hong Kong that never slept. The place where anything could happen and anything could be had for the right price. Anything. Bosch knew that if he wanted a laser sight to go with the gun they were going to pick up, he could get it. If he wanted a shooter to go with the setup, he could probably get that, too. And this didn’t even begin to address the other things, like drugs and women, that would be available to him in the strip bars and music clubs along Lockhart Road.
    It was eight-thirty and full daylight as