Nine Dragons (13 page)

“No,” Bosch said quickly. “I need to witness you pulling the disc. Chain of evidence and custody. I’ll go with you.”

“No problem.”

Bosch spent another fifteen minutes in the store. He first watched the playback of the surveillance video and confirmed that Chang had come in and made his way back to Li’s office, then left after three minutes off camera with Li and Lam. He then collected the disc and returned to the office to go over Li’s account of what happened with Chang one more time. Li’s reluctance seemed to grow with Bosch’s more detailed questioning. Harry began to believe that the murder victim’s son would eventually refuse to cooperate with a prosecution. Still, there was another positive aspect to this latest development. Chang’s attempted extortion could be used in other ways. It could provide probable cause. And with probable cause Bosch could arrest Chang and search his belongings for evidence in the murder, whether Li eventually cooperated with a prosecution or not.

As he walked out the store’s automatic door, Bosch was excited. The case had new life. He pulled his phone and checked on the suspect.

“We’re all the way back to his apartment,” Chu said. “No stops. I think he might be in for the night.”

“It’s too early. It’s not even dark.”

“Well, all I can tell you is that he booked it home. He pulled the curtains closed, too.”

“Okay. I’m heading that way.”

“You mind picking me up a tofu dog on the way, Harry?”

“No, you’re on your own there, Chu.”

Chu laughed.

“Figures,” he said.

Bosch closed the phone. Chu had obviously caught the case excitement, too.

15

C
hang didn’t come out of his apartment until nine Friday morning. And when he did, he was carrying something that immediately put Bosch on high alert.

A large suitcase.

Bosch phoned Chu to make sure he was awake. They had split the overnight surveillance into four-hour shifts, each man taking a sleeping stint in his car. Chu had the four-to-eight sleep shift but Bosch hadn’t heard from him yet.

“You awake? Chang’s making a move.”

Chu still had sleep in his voice.

“Yeah, what move? You were supposed to call me at eight.”

“He put a suitcase in his car. He’s running. I think he was tipped.”

“To us?”

“No, to buying shares of Microsoft. Don’t play stupid.”

“Harry, who would tip him?”

Chang got into the car and started backing out of his space in the apartment complex parking lot.

“That’s a good goddamn question,” Bosch said. “But if anybody has the answer it’s you.”

“Are you suggesting I tipped off the subject of a major investigation?”

Chu’s voice carried the requisite outrage of the accused.

“I don’t know what you did,” Bosch said. “But you put our business out all over Monterey Park, so now it’s who knows who could’ve tipped this guy. All I know right now is that it looks like he’s splitting town.”

“All over Monterey Park? Are you just making this shit up?”

Bosch followed the Mustang north out of the parking lot, staying a block back.

“You told me the other night that the third guy you showed Chang’s photo to over there made the ID. Okay, so that’s three guys and they all have partners and they all have roll calls and they all talk.”

“Well, maybe this wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t tell Tao and Herrera to back off like we didn’t trust them.”

Bosch checked his mirror for Chu. He was trying not to let his anger distract him from the tail. They couldn’t lose Chang now.

“Move up. We’re heading to the ten. After he gets on, I want you to switch off with me and take the lead.”

“Got it.”

Chu’s voice still held anger. Bosch didn’t care. If Chang had been tipped to the investigation, then Harry would find out who had made the call and he would burn them to the ground, even if it was Chu.

Chang got on the westbound 10 Freeway and soon Chu passed Bosch to take the lead. Bosch glanced over and saw Chu flip him the bird.

Bosch moved over a lane, dropped back and made a call to Lieutenant Gandle.

“Harry, what’s up?”

“We’ve got problems.”

“Tell me.”

“The first one is that our guy put a suitcase in his trunk this morning and is on the ten heading toward the airport.”

“Shit, what else?”

“It looks to me like he was tipped, maybe told to get out of town.”

“Or maybe he was told all along to split after he clipped Li. Don’t go off the deep end on that, Harry. Not until you know something for sure.”

It annoyed Bosch that his own lieutenant wasn’t backing him, but he could deal with it. If Chang had been tipped and somewhere along the line the cancer of corruption was in the investigation, Harry would find it. He was sure of that. He let it go for now and concentrated on the choices that involved Chang.

“Do we take Chang down?” he asked.

“You sure he’s flying? Maybe he’s making a delivery or something. How big’s the suitcase?”

“Big. The kind you pack when you’re not coming back.”

Gandle sighed as he put on his plate yet another dilemma and decision to be made.

“Okay, let me talk to some people and I’ll get back to you.”

Bosch assumed that would be Captain Dodds and possibly someone in the district attorney’s office.

“There is some good news, Lieutenant,” he said.

“Holy shit, imagine that,” Gandle exclaimed. “What good news?”

“Yesterday afternoon we tailed Chang to the other store. The one our victim’s son runs in the Valley. He extorted him, told the kid he had to start paying now that his old man was gone.”

“What, this is great! Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I just did.”

“That gives us probable cause to arrest.”

“To arrest but probably not prosecute. The kid is a reluctant witness. He would have to come in to make the case and I don’t know if he’ll hold up. And either way, it’s not a murder charge. That’s what we want.”

“Well, at the very least, we could stop this guy from getting on a plane.”

Bosch nodded as the beginning of a plan started to form.

“It’s Friday. If we hold on to him and book him late in the day, he wouldn’t get a hearing till Monday afternoon. That would give us at least seventy-two hours to pull a case together.”

“With the extortion being the fallback position.”

“Right.”

Bosch was getting another call beeping in his ear and he assumed it was Chu. He asked Gandle to get back to him as soon as he had run the scenario by the powers that be.

Bosch took the other call without looking at the screen.

“Yeah?”

“Harry?”

It was a woman. He recognized the voice but couldn’t place it.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Teri Sopp.”

“Oh, hi, I thought it was my partner calling. What’s up?”

“I just wanted you to know I convinced them to use the casing you gave me yesterday in the testing program for electrostatic enhancement. We’ll see if we can raise a print off it.”

“Teri, you’re my hero! Will that be today?”

“No, not today. We’re not going back to that till next week. Probably Tuesday.”

Bosch hated to ask for a favor when he had just been given a favor, but he felt he had no choice.

“Teri, is there any way it can be done Monday morning?”

“Monday? I don’t think we’ll get to the actual application un—”

“The reason is, we may have our suspect in jail before the end of the day. We think he’s trying to leave the country and we might need to arrest him. That will give us till Monday to make the case, Teri. We’re going to need everything we can get.”

There was a hesitation before she responded.

“I’ll see what we can do. Meantime, if you arrest him, bring me down a print card so I can make the comparison as soon as I have something on this end. If I have something.”

“You got it, Teri. Thanks a million.”

Bosch closed his phone and searched the freeway in front of him. He saw neither Chu’s car—a red Mazda Miata—nor Chang’s silver Mustang. He realized he had fallen far behind. He hit Chu on speed dial.

“Chu, where are you?”

“South four oh five. He’s going to the airport.”

Bosch was still on the 10 Freeway and saw the 405 interchange up ahead.

“Okay, I’ll catch up.”

“What’s happening?”

“I’ve got Gandle making the call on whether we take Chang down or not.”

“We can’t let him go.”

“That’s what I say. We’ll see what they say.”

“You want me to get my boss involved?”

Bosch almost responded by saying he didn’t want to bring another boss into the mix with the possibility that there was a leak in the pipe somewhere.

“Let’s wait and see what Gandle says first,” he said diplomatically instead.

“You got it.”

Bosch hung up and worked his way through traffic in an effort to catch up. When he was on the overpass that took him from the 10 to the 405, he was able to pick out both Chu’s and Chang’s vehicles half a mile ahead. They were caught in the slowdown where lanes merged.

Switching off lead two more times, Bosch and Chu followed Chang to the LAX exit at Century Boulevard. It was now clear that Chang was leaving the city and they were going to have to stop him. He called Gandle back and was put on hold.

Finally, after a long two minutes Gandle picked up.

“Harry, whadaya got?”

“He’s on Century Boulevard four blocks from LAX.”

“I haven’t been able to talk to anybody yet.”

“I say we take him down. We book him for murder and worst-case scenario is on Monday we file on him for extortion. He’ll get bail but the judge will slap no travel on it, especially after him trying to leave today.”

“Your call, Harry, and I’ll back you.”

Meaning it would still be Bosch who had made the wrong call if by Monday everything fell apart and Chang waltzed out of jail a free man able to leave L.A. and never come back.

“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll let you know.”

Moments after Bosch closed his phone Chang turned right into a long-term parking lot that provided a shuttle service to all airport terminals. As expected, Chu called.

“This is it. What do we do?”

“We take him. We wait till he parks and he has that suitcase out of the trunk. We take him down then and we’ll get a look in the suitcase with a warrant.”

“Where?”

“I use this lot when I go to Hong Kong. There are endless rows and shuttle stations where they come pick you up. Let’s get in there and park. We act like we’re travelers and we get him at the shuttle station.”

“Roger that.”

They hung up. Bosch was in the lead at the moment, so he entered the lot directly behind Chang, taking a ticket out of an automatic feeder. The arm rose and he pulled through. He followed Chang down the main parkway and when Chang turned right into a tributary road Bosch kept going, thinking Chu would follow and take the right.

Bosch parked in the first space he saw, then jumped out and doubled back on foot to where Chang and Chu had turned. He saw Chang one lane over, standing behind the Mustang and struggling to pull his big suitcase out of the trunk. Chu was eight cars past him and parked.

Apparently realizing he would look suspicious without luggage in a long-term lot, Chu started walking toward a nearby shuttle stop, carrying a briefcase and a raincoat like a man on a business trip.

Bosch had no props to disguise himself with, so he moved down the center of the parking rows, using the vehicles as cover.

Chang locked his car and lugged the heavy suitcase to the shuttle stop. It was an old piece of luggage without the wheels that are almost standard on all sizes these days. When he got to the shuttle stop, Chu was already standing there. Bosch cut behind a minivan and came out two cars away. This would give Chang little time to recognize that the approaching man should have luggage in the long-term lot.

“Bo-Jing Chang,” Bosch said loudly as he got close.

The suspect jerked his body around to look at Bosch. Up close, Chang looked strong and wide, formidable. Bosch saw his muscles tense.

“You’re under arrest. Please place your hands behind your back.”

Chang’s fight-or-flight response never had a chance to kick in. Chu stepped behind him and expertly clipped one cuff to his right wrist while grabbing hold of the left wrist. Chang struggled for a moment, more in response to the surprise than anything else, but Chu cuffed the other wrist and the arrest was complete.

“What is this?” Chang protested. “What I do?”

He had a strong accent.

“We’re going to talk about all of that, Mr. Chang. Just as soon as we get you back to the Police Administration Building.”

“I have flight.”

“Not today.”

Bosch showed him his badge and ID, and then introduced Chu, making sure to mention that Chu was from the Asian Gang Unit. Bosch wanted to get that percolating in Chang’s head.

“Arrest for what?” the suspect asked.

“The murder of John Li.”

Bosch saw no surprise in Chang’s reaction. He saw him physically go into shut-down mode.

“I want lawyer,” he said.

“Hold on there, Mr. Chang,” Bosch said. “Let us tell you about your rights first.”

Bosch nodded to Chu, who produced a card from his pocket. He read Chang his rights and asked if he understood them. Chang’s only response was to ask for a lawyer again. He knew the drill.

Bosch’s next move was to call for a patrol unit to transfer Chang downtown, and a tow truck to take his car to the downtown police garage. Bosch was in no hurry at this point; the longer it took to transport Chang downtown, the closer they were to 2
P.M.
, the cutoff time in felony arraignment court. If they delayed Chang from getting into court, he could be secured as a guest of the city jail through the weekend.

After about five minutes of standing in silence while Chang sat on a bench in the shuttle stop’s shelter, Bosch turned and gestured to the suitcase and spoke to him conversationally, as if the questions and answers didn’t matter.

“That thing looks like it weighs a ton,” he said. “Where were you going?”