9 Dragons

understood. Getting caught breaking and entering was one thing. Getting caught breaking and entering with a gun was about ten years of something else.
    “Okay, one hour.”
    They went down the elevator and out through the tunnel. Along the way Bosch tapped Sun on the arm and asked him which one of the mailboxes had Peng’s apartment number on it. Sun found the box and they saw that the lock had long been punched out. Bosch glanced back through the tunnel to the security guard reading the paper. He opened the mailbox and saw two letters.
    “Looks like nobody got Saturday’s mail,” Bosch said. “I think Peng and his family have split.”
    They returned to the car and Sun said he wanted to move it to a less noticeable spot now that they were back in it. He drove up the street, turned around and then parked by a containment wall that surrounded the trash bins for the building across the street and down one. They still had a view of the sixth-floor walkway and the door to Peng’s apartment.
    “I think we’re wasting our time,” Bosch said. “They’re not coming back.”
    “One hour, Harry. Please.”
    Bosch noted it was the first time Sun had called him by his name. It didn’t placate him.
    “You’re giving him another hour’s lead time, that’s all.”
    Bosch pulled the box out of his jacket pocket. He opened it up and looked at the phone.
    “You watch the place,” he said. “I’m going to work on this.”
    The plastic hinges on the phone had melted and Bosch struggled to open it. Finally, it broke in two when he applied too much pressure. The LCD screen was cracked and partially melted. Bosch put that part aside and concentrated on the other half. The battery compartment cover was melted, its seams fused together. He opened his door and leaned out. He struck the phone on the curb three times, harder each time, until the impacts finally cracked the seams and the compartment cover fell off.
    He pulled back in and closed the door. The phone’s battery appeared to be intact but again the deformed plastic made it difficult to remove. This time he pulled his badge case and removed one of his picks. He used it to pry the battery out. Beneath it was the cradle for the phone’s memory card.
    It was empty.
    “Shit!”
    Bosch threw the phone down into the foot well. Another dead end.
    He looked at his watch. It had only been twenty minutes since he had agreed to give Sun the hour. But Bosch couldn’t remain still. All of his instincts told him he had to get into that apartment. His daughter could be in there.
    “Sorry, Sun Yee,” he said. “You can wait here, but I can’t. I’m going in.”
    He leaned forward and pulled the gun out of his waistband. He wanted to leave it outside the Mercedes in case they were caught in the apartment and the police connected them with the car. He wrapped the gun in his daughter’s blanket, opened the door and got out. He walked through an opening in the containment wall and put the bundle on top of one of the overfull trash bins. He would easily be able to retrieve it when he got back.
    When he stepped out of the containment area, he found Sun out of the car and waiting
    “Okay,” Sun said. “We go.”
    They started back to Peng’s building.
    “Let me ask you something, Sun Yee. Do you ever take those shades off”
    Sun’s answer came without explanation.
    “No.”
    Once again the security guard in the lobby never looked up. The building was big enough that there was always somebody with a key waiting for an elevator. In five minutes they were back in front of Peng’s door. While Sun stood at the railing as a lookout and visual block, Bosch went down to one knee and worked the lock. It took him longer than expected-almost four minutes-but he got it open.
    “Okay,” he said.
    Sun turned away from the railing and followed Bosch into the apartment.
    Before he had even closed the door Bosch knew they would find death in the apartment. There was no overpowering odor, no blood on the walls, no physical indication at all in the first room. But after attending more than five hundred murder scenes over the years as a cop, he had developed what he considered a sense for blood. He had no scientific backing to his theory, but Bosch believed that spilled blood changed the composition of air in an enclosed environment. And he sensed that change now. The fact that it could be his own daughter’s blood made the recognition dreadful.
    He held up his hand to stop Sun from