9 Dragons

tunnel.
    “Whose car is this, anyway?” he asked.
    “It belongs to the casino,” Eleanor said. “I borrowed it. Why?”
    Bosch lowered the window. He held the pillow up and pressed the muzzle into the padding. He fired twice, the standard double pull he employed to check the mechanism of a gun. The bullets snapped off the tunnel’s tiled walls.
    Even with the wadding around the gun, the two reports echoed loudly in the car. The car swerved slightly as Sun looked into the backseat. And Eleanor yelled.
    “What the hell did you do?”
    Bosch dropped the pillow to the floor and raised the window. The car smelled like burnt gunpowder but it was quiet again. He unwrapped the blanket and checked the weapon. It had fired easily and without a jam. He was down to fourteen bullets and was good to go.
    “I had to make sure it worked,” he said. “You don’t carry a gun unless you’re sure.”
    “
Are you crazy?
You could get us arrested before we get a chance to do anything!”
    “If you keep your voice down and Sun Yee stays in his lane, I think we’ll be fine.”
    Bosch leaned forward and tucked the weapon into his waistband at the small of his back. Its slide was warm against his skin. Up ahead he saw light at the end of the tunnel. They would be in Kowloon soon.
    It was time.

27
    T he tunnel delivered them to Tsim Sha Tsui, the central waterside section of Kowloon, and within a few minutes Sun turned the Mercedes onto Nathan Road. It was a wide, four-lane boulevard lined with high-rise buildings as far as Bosch could see. It was a crowded mix of commercial and residential uses. The first two floors of every building were dedicated to retail and restaurant space, while the floors rising above were residential or office space. The clutter of video screens and signs in Chinese and English was an intense riot of color and motion. The buildings ranged from dowdy midcentury construction to the slick glass-and-steel structures of recent prosperity.
    It was impossible for Bosch to see the top of the corridor from the car. He lowered his window and leaned out in an effort to find the Canon sign, the first marker from the photo generated from his daughter’s abduction video. He couldn’t find it and pulled back into the car. He raised the window.
    “Sun Yee, stop the car.”
    Sun looked at him in the rearview.
    “Stop here”
    “Yes, here. I can’t see. I have to get out.”
    Sun looked at Eleanor for approval and she nodded.
    “We’ll get out. You find a place to park.”
    Sun pulled to the curb and Bosch jumped out. He’d taken the photo print from his backpack and had it ready. Sun then pulled away, leaving Eleanor and Bosch on the sidewalk. It was now midmorning and the streets and sidewalks were crowded with people. Smoke was in the air and the smell of fire. The hungry ghosts were close. The streetscape was replete with neon, mirrored glass and giant plasma screens broadcasting silent images of jerking motion and staccato edits.
    Bosch referred to the photo and then looked up and traced the skyline.
    “Where’s the Canon sign?” he asked.
    “Harry, you’re mixed up,” Eleanor said.
    She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him completely around.
    “Remember, everything is backwards.”
    She pointed almost directly up, her finger drawing a line up the side of the building they were in front of. Bosch looked up. The Canon sign was directly overhead and at an angle that made it unreadable. He was looking at the bottom edge of the sign’s letters. It was rotating slowly.
    “Okay, got it,” he said. “We start from there.”
    He looked back down and referred to the photo.
    “I think we have to go at least another block further in from the harbor.”
    “Let’s wait for Sun Yee.”
    “Call him and tell him where we’re going.”
    Bosch started off. Eleanor had no choice but to follow.
    “All right, all right.”
    She pulled her phone and started to make the call. As he walked, Bosch kept his eyes high on the buildings, looking for air-conditioning units. A block here was several buildings long. Looking up as he walked, he had a few near misses with other pedestrians. There seemed to be no collective uniformity of walking to your right. People moved every which way and Bosch had to pay attention to avoid collisions. At one point the people moving in front of him suddenly stepped left and right and Bosch almost stumbled over an old woman lying on the pavement, her hands clasped in beseeching