Nine Dragons (34 page)

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “We could be. I could be. But I don’t want to find out here. It will be better to deal with all of this from L.A.”

After a pause she asked another question and this one hit Bosch between the numbers.

“Dad, did you kill those men that had me? I heard a lot of shooting.”

Bosch thought about how he should answer—as a cop, as a father—but didn’t take too long.

“Let’s just say that they got what they deserved. And that whatever happened was brought on by their own actions. Okay?”

“Okay.”

When the food came they stopped talking and ate ravenously. Bosch had chosen the restaurant, the table and his seat so that he would have a good view of the shopping area and the security gate beyond. As he ate, he kept a vigilant watch for any unusual activity involving the airport’s security staff. Any movement of multiple personnel or search activity would cause him concern. He had no idea if he was even on any police radar yet but he had cut a deadly path across Hong Kong and had to remain alert to it catching up to him.

“Are you going to finish your french fries?” Maddie asked.

Bosch turned his plate so she could reach the fries.

“Have at it.”

When she reached across the table her sleeve pulled back and Bosch saw the bandage in the crook of her elbow. He thought of the bloodstained tissue Eleanor had found in the wastebasket in the room at Chungking Mansions.

Bosch pointed at her arm.

“Maddie, how did you get that? Did they take your blood?”

She put her other hand over the wound as if that could stop all consideration of it.

“Do we have to talk about this now?”

“Can you just tell me one thing?”

“Yes, Quick took my blood.”

“I was going to ask something else. Where were you before you were put in the trunk and taken to the boat?”

“I don’t know, some kind of hospital place. Like a doctor’s office. I was locked in a room the whole time. Please, Dad, I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

“Okay, sweetheart, we’ll talk about it when you want.”

After the meal, they headed down to the shopping area. Bosch bought a complete set of new clothes in a men’s store and a pair of jogging shoes and arm sweatbands in a sports shop. Maddie declined the offer of new clothing and said she’d stick with what was in her backpack.

Their next stop was a general store and Maddie picked out a stuffed panda bear she said she wanted to use as a pillow and a book called
The Lightning Thief
.

They then headed to the airline’s first-class lounge and signed up to use the shower facilities. Despite a long day’s buildup of blood, sweat and grime, Bosch showered quickly because he didn’t want to be separated from his daughter for very long. Before getting dressed he checked the wound on his arm. It was clotted and beginning to scab over. He used the armbands he had just bought as a double bandage over the wound.

Once he was dressed he took the top off the trash can that was next to the sink in the shower room. He bundled his old clothes and shoes together and buried them under the paper towels and other debris in the can. He didn’t want anyone to spot his belongings and retrieve them, especially the shoes in which he had trod across the bloody tiles in Tuen Mun.

Feeling somewhat refreshed and ready for the long flight ahead, he stepped out and looked around for his daughter. He didn’t see her anywhere in the lounge and went back to wait for her near the entrance to the women’s shower room. After fifteen minutes and no sign of Madeline, he started getting worried. He waited another five and then went to the reception desk and asked the woman behind the counter to send an employee into the shower room to check on his daughter.

The woman said she would do it herself. Bosch followed and then waited when she went into the shower room. He heard the shower running when the door was opened. He then heard voices and soon the woman from the front desk stepped out.

“She’s still in the shower and she said everything is fine. She said she was going to be a while longer.”

“Okay, thanks.”

The woman went back to her position and Bosch checked his watch. The boarding of their flight would not start for at least a half hour. There was time. He went back to the lounge and sat in a chair nearest to the hallway leading to the showers. He kept watch the whole time.

He couldn’t imagine where Madeline’s thoughts were. He knew she needed help and that he was completely unequipped to provide it. His governing thought was simply to get her back to Los Angeles and to go from there. He already had in mind who he would call in to counsel Maddie once he got her there.

Just as the boarding of their flight was announced in the lounge, Madeline came down the hallway, her dark hair slicked back and wet. She was wearing the same clothes she had changed into in the car but had added a hooded sweatshirt. Somehow she was cold.

“Are you all right?” Bosch asked.

She didn’t answer. She just stopped in front of Bosch with her head down.

“I know, stupid question,” Harry said. “But are you ready to fly? They just called our flight. We need to go.”

“I’m ready. I just wanted a long, hot shower.”

“I understand.”

They left the lounge and made their way to the gate, and while approaching, Bosch saw no more than the usual gathering of security. Their tickets were taken, their passports checked and they were allowed to board.

The plane was a large double-decker with the cockpit on the upper level and the first-class cabin right below in the nose of the craft. A flight attendant informed them that they were the only ones flying first class and that they could pick their seats. They took the two seats in the front row and it felt like they had the plane to themselves. Bosch wasn’t planning on taking his eyes off his daughter until they were in Los Angeles.

As the loading of the plane neared completion, the pilot came on the speaker and announced that they would spend thirteen hours in the air. That was shorter than the flight over because the winds would be with them. However, they would be flying back against the grain of time. They would land in Los Angeles at 9:30 Sunday night, two hours before they had taken off in Hong Kong.

Bosch did the math and knew that it would add up to a thirty-nine-hour day before it was over. The longest day of his life.

Eventually, the big plane was cleared for an on-time takeoff and it trundled down the runway, picked up speed and climbed loudly into the dark sky. Bosch breathed a little easier as he looked out the window and saw the lights of Hong Kong disappear below the clouds. He hoped never to be back again.

His daughter reached across the space between their seats and grabbed his hand. He looked over and held her eyes. She had started to cry again. Bosch squeezed her hand and nodded.

“It’s going to be all right, Maddie.”

She nodded back and held on.

After the plane leveled off, the flight attendant came around and offered them food and drink but both Bosch and his daughter declined. Madeline watched a movie about teenage vampires and then folded her seat down flat—one of the perks of first class—and went to sleep.

Soon she was soundly asleep and he envisioned some sort of internal healing process taking place. The armies of sleep charging through her brain and attacking the bad memories.

He bent down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. As the seconds, minutes and hours moved backwards, he watched her sleep and wished for the impossible, that time would move backwards far enough for him to begin the whole day again. That was the fantasy. The reality was that his life was almost as significantly altered as hers was. She was with him now. And he knew that no matter what he had done or caused to happen until this point in his life, she would be his ticket to redemption.

If he could protect and serve her, he had the chance to make up for everything. For all of it.

His plan was to keep watch on her through the night. But his exhaustion eventually defeated him and he closed his eyes as well. Soon he dreamed of a place by a river. There was an outdoor table with a white tablecloth ruffled by the wind. He sat across the table from both Eleanor and Madeline and they smiled at him. It was a dream of a place that had never been and would never be.

PART THREE:
To Protect and Serve

39

T
he last hurdle was customs and immigration in Los Angeles. The agent at the entry booth swiped their passports and was ready to routinely stamp them when something on the computer caught his eye. Bosch held his breath.

“Mr. Bosch. You were in Hong Kong for less than a day?”

“That’s right. I didn’t even need to pack a bag. I just went to pick up my daughter.”

The agent nodded as though he understood and had seen it before. He stamped the passports. He looked at Madeline and said, “Welcome to L.A., young lady.”

“Thank you,” she said.

It was almost midnight by the time they got to the house on Woodrow Wilson Drive. Bosch carried the backpack into the guest room and his daughter followed. She was familiar with the room, having used it on several visits.

“Now that you’ll be living here full-time, we can fix up this room any way you want,” Bosch said. “I know you had a lot of posters and stuff back in Hong Kong. You can do whatever you want here.”

There were two cardboard boxes stacked in the corner that contained old case files Bosch had copied.

“I’ll get these out of here,” he said.

He moved them one at a time into his bedroom. He continued to talk to her as he moved up and down the hall.

“I know you don’t have a private bathroom but the guest bathroom in the hall is all yours. I don’t get many guests here, anyway.”

After moving the boxes, Bosch sat down on the bed and looked at his daughter. She was still standing in the middle of the room. The look on her face cut Bosch deeply. He could see the reality of the situation hitting her. It didn’t matter that she had repeatedly voiced a desire to live in L.A. She was now here permanently and grasping that fact was a daunting task.

“Maddie, I just want to tell you something,” he said. “I’m used to being your father four weeks a year. That was easy. This is going to be hard. I am going to make mistakes and I’m going to need you to be patient with me while I learn. But I promise you I will do the best I can.”

“Okay.”

“Now, what can I get you? Are you hungry? Tired? What?”

“No, I’m fine. I guess I shouldn’t have slept so much on the plane.”

“Doesn’t matter. You needed the sleep right then. And sleep is always good. It heals.”

She nodded and looked awkwardly around the room. It was a basic guest room. A bed, bureau and a table with a lamp.

“Tomorrow we’ll get you a TV to put in here. One of those flat screens. And also a computer and a desk. We’ll need to go shopping for a lot of things.”

“I think I need a new cell phone. Quick took mine.”

“Yeah, we’ll get you a new phone, too. I have your memory card from the old one, so you won’t lose your contacts.”

She looked over at him and he realized he had made a mistake.

“You have the card? Did you get it from Quick? Was his sister there?”

Bosch held his hands up in a calming gesture and shook his head.

“I never met Quick or his sister. I found your phone but it was broken. All I got was the memory card.”

“She tried to save me. She found out that Quick was going to sell me and tried to stop it. But he kicked her out of the car.”

Bosch waited for her to say more but that was it. He wanted to ask her many questions about the brother and sister and everything else but his role as father overtook his role as cop. Now wasn’t the right time. He had to get her calmed and situated. There would be time later to be a cop, to ask about Quick and He and to tell her what happened to them.

He studied her face and she seemed to be drained of emotion. She still looked tired, even after all the sleep on the plane.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Maddie. I promise.”

She nodded.

“Um, do you think I can just be alone for a little while in here?”

“Sure you can. It’s your room. I think I should make some calls, anyway.”

He got up and headed to the door. He hesitated as he was closing it behind him and looked back at her.

“You’ll tell me if you need anything, right?”

“Yes, Dad. Thanks.”

He closed the door and went out to the living room. He pulled his phone and called David Chu.

“It’s Bosch. Sorry to call so late.”

“No problem. How is it going over there?”

“I’m back in L.A.”

“You’re back? What about your daughter?”

“She’s safe. What’s the status on Chang?”

There was a hesitation before Chu answered. He didn’t want to be the messenger.

“Well, he walks in the morning. We don’t have anything to file on him.”

“What about the extortion?”

“I took a last run at Li and Lam today. They won’t file a formal complaint. They’re too scared of the triad. Li said somebody called already and threatened him.”

Bosch thought for a moment about the threatening call he had received on Friday. He assumed it was the same caller.

“So Chang walks out of the DDC in the morning and heads to the airport,” he said. “He gets on a plane and we never see him again.”

“Looks like we lost this one, Harry.”

Bosch shook his head, his rage boiling over.

“Goddamn those motherfuckers.”

Bosch realized his daughter might be able to hear him. He opened one of the living room sliders and stepped out onto the rear deck. The sound from the freeway traffic down in the pass would help muffle his conversation.

“They were going to sell my kid,” he said. “For her organs.”

“God,” Chu said. “I thought they were just trying to intimidate you.”

“Yeah, well, they took her blood and she must’ve matched somebody with a lot of money because the plan changed.”

“Well, they could’ve tested her blood to make sure she was clean before they…”