9 Dragons

the English artist David Hockney, who had lived in Los Angeles for a while and had created several photo collages as art pieces that documented scenes in Southern California. Bosch became familiar with the photo mosaics and the artist because Hockney had been his neighbor for a time in the hills above the Cahuenga Pass. Though Bosch had never met Hockney, he drew a connection to the artist because it had always been Harry’s habit to spread crime scene photos out in a mosaic that allowed him to look for new details and angles. Hockney did the same with his work.
    Looking at the photos now while sipping from a mug of black coffee he had brewed, Bosch was first drawn to the same things that had hooked him while he had been at the scene. Front and center were the bottles of Hennessy standing untouched in a row just across the counter. Harry had a hard time believing that the killing could be gang related because he doubted that a gangbanger would take the money and not a single bottle of Hennessy. The cognac would be a trophy. It was right there within reach, especially if the shooter had to lean over or go around the counter to grab bullet casings. Why not take the Hennessy, too?
    Bosch’s conclusion was that they were looking for a shooter who didn’t care about Hennessy. A shooter who was not a gangbanger.
    The next point of interest was the victim’s wounds. For Bosch, these alone excluded the mystery shoplifter as a suspect. Three bullets in the chest left no doubt that the intention was to kill. But there was no face shot and that seemed to put the lie to this being a killing motivated by anger or revenge. Bosch had investigated hundreds of murders, most of them involving the use of firearms, and he knew that when he had a face shot, the killing was most likely personal and the killer was someone known to the victim. Therefore, the opposite could be held true. Three in the chest was not personal. It was business. Bosch was sure that the unknown shoplifter was not their killer. Instead, they were looking for someone who was possibly a complete stranger to John Li. Someone who had coolly walked in and put three slugs into Li’s chest, then calmly emptied the cash register, picked up his brass and gone to the back room to grab the disc out of the camera-recorder.
    Bosch knew it was likely that this was not a first-time crime. In the morning he would need to check for similar crimes in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.
    Looking at the image of the victim’s face, Bosch suddenly noticed something new. The blood on Li’s cheek and chin was smeared. Also, the teeth were clean. There was no blood on them.
    Bosch held the photo up closer and tried to make sense of it. He had assumed the blood on Li’s face was expectorant. Blood that had come up from his destroyed lungs in his last fitful gasps for air. But how could that happen without getting blood on his teeth?
    He put the photo down and moved across the mosaic to the victim’s right hand. It had dropped down at his side. There was blood on the fingers and thumb, a drip line to the palm of his hand.
    Bosch looked back at the blood smeared on the face. He suddenly realized that Li had touched his bloody hand to his mouth. This meant a double transfer had taken place. Li had touched his hand to his chest, getting blood on it, and had then transferred blood from his hand to his mouth.
    The question was why. Were these movements part of the final death throes, or had Li done something else?
    Bosch pulled his cell and called the investigators’ line at the medical examiner’s office. He had it on speed dial. He checked his watch as the phone rang. It was ten past midnight.
    “Coroner’s.”
    “Is Cassel still there?”
    Max Cassel was the investigator who had worked the scene at Fortune Liquors and collected the body.
    “No, he just-wait a minute, there he is.”
    The call was put on hold and then Cassel picked up.
    “I don’t care who you are, I’m out the door. I just came back in because I forgot my coffee warmer.”
    Bosch knew Cassel lived at least an hour’s commute out in Palmdale. Coffee mugs with warmers you plugged into the cigarette lighter were a must for downtown workers with long drive times.
    “It’s Bosch. You put my guy in a drawer already?”
    “Nope, all the drawers are taken. He’s in icebox three. But I’m done with him and going home, Bosch.”
    “I understand. I just have one quick question. Did you check his