30

Bosch walked out of the alley onto Nathan Road and immediately saw the crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the police response to the call inside the Chungking Mansions. Police and fire rescue vehicles were arriving and stopping and causing traffic snarls and confusion. Barricades had not yet been set up, as the arriving officers were probably too busy trying to get up to the fifteenth floor to find out what had happened. Harry was able to join the end of a flow of paramedics carrying a stretcher up the steps and into the first level of the building.

The commotion and confusion had drawn many of the shopkeepers and customers into a crowd around the elevator alcove. Someone was barking orders at the crowd in Chinese but no one seemed to be reacting. Bosch pushed his way through and got to the rear aisle where the hotel desks were. He saw that the diversion had worked in his favor. The aisle was completely empty.

When he got to the desk where he had rented the two rooms, he saw that a security gate had been pulled halfway down from the ceiling, indicating the desk was closed. But the man on the stool was there with his back turned while he sat at the rear counter, shoving paperwork into a briefcase. It looked like he was getting ready to leave.

Without losing momentum Bosch jumped up and slid over the counter and under the gate, smashing into the man on the stool and knocking him to the floor. Bosch jumped on top of him and hit him twice in the face with his fist. The man’s head was on the concrete floor and he absorbed the full impact of the punches.

“No, please!” he managed to spit out between punches.

Bosch quickly glanced back over the counter to make sure it was still clear. He then pulled the gun from behind him and pressed the muzzle into the roll of fat below the man’s chin.

“You got her killed, you motherfucker! And I’m going to kill you.”

“No, please! Sir, please!”

“You told them, didn’t you? You told them I had money.”

“No, I have not.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me or I’ll kill you right now. You told them!”

The man lifted his head off the floor.

“Okay, listen, listen, please. I said nobody to get hurt. You understand? I said nobody to-”

Bosch pulled the gun back and brought it down hard on the man’s nose. His head snapped back against the concrete. Bosch pushed the barrel into his neck.

“I don’t care what you said. They killed her, you fuck! Do you understand that?”

The man was dazed and bleeding, his eyes blinking as he wavered in and out of consciousness. With his right hand, Bosch slapped his cheek.

“Stay awake. I want you to see it coming.”

“Please, no…I am very sorry, sir. Please don’t-”

“Okay, this is what you’re going to do. You want to live, then you tell me who rented room fifteen fourteen on Friday. Fifteen fourteen. You tell me right now.”

“Okay, I tell you. I show you.”

“Okay, you show me.”

Bosch pulled his weight back off him. The man was bleeding from the mouth and nose and Bosch was bleeding from the knuckles of his left hand. He quickly reached up and pulled the security fence all the way down to the counter.

“Show me. Now.”

“Okay, it is here.”

He pointed to the briefcase he had been loading. He reached into it and Bosch raised the gun and pointed it at his head.

“Easy.”

The man pulled out a stack of room registration forms. Bosch saw his own on top. He reached over and grabbed it off the stack and crumpled it into the pocket of his coat. All the while he kept his aim on the man.

“Friday, room fifteen fourteen. Find it.”

The man put the stack of forms on the back counter and started going through them. Bosch knew he was taking too much time. The police would come any moment to the hotel desks and find them. It had been at least fifteen minutes since the shootings on fifteen. He saw a shelf under the front counter and put the gun there. If the police caught him with it, he’d go to prison, no matter what.

Looking at the robber’s gun as he placed it down prompted the realization that he had left his ex-wife and the mother of his daughter lying dead and alone up there on fifteen. It put a spear through Bosch’s chest. He closed his eyes for a moment to try to push the thought and vision away.

“Here it is.”

Bosch opened his eyes. The man was turning to him from the rear counter. Bosch heard a distinct metal snap. He saw the man’s right arm start to swing around and up from his side and Bosch knew there was a knife before he saw it. In a split-second decision, he chose to block rather than parry the attack. He moved forward and into the man, raising his left forearm to block the knife and driving his right fist toward his attacker’s throat.

The knife tore through the sleeve of Bosch’s jacket and he felt the blade slice into the inside of his forearm. But that was all the damage he took. His punch to the throat sent the man backwards and he fell on the overturned stool. Bosch dropped on him again, grabbing his knife hand by the wrist and smashing it back repeatedly against the floor until the weapon clattered loose on the concrete.

Bosch raised himself up while still holding the man down by the throat. He could feel blood sliding down his arm from the wound. He thought again about Eleanor lying dead up on fifteen. Her life and everything taken from her before she could even say a word. Before she could see her daughter safe again.

Bosch raised his left fist and struck the man viciously in the ribs. He did it again and again, punching body and face, until he was sure most of the man’s ribs and jaw were broken and he’d lapsed into unconsciousness.

Bosch was winded. He picked up the switchblade and folded it closed and dropped it into his pocket. He moved off the man’s unmoving body and gathered the fallen registration forms. He then got up and shoved them back into the counterman’s briefcase and closed it. He leaned over the counter to look out through the security gate. It was still clear in the aisle, though he could now hear announcements being made through a bullhorn coming from the elevator alcove. He knew that police procedure would have to be to shut the place down and secure it.

He raised the security gate two feet and then grabbed the gun off the shelf and put it into his rear waistband. He climbed over the counter with the briefcase and slid out. After checking to make sure he had left no blood on the counter, he lowered the gate and walked away.

As he moved, Bosch held his arm up to check the wound through the rip in his coat sleeve. It looked superficial but it was a bleeder. He pulled his coat sleeve up to bunch it around the wound and absorb the blood. He checked the floor behind him to make sure he wasn’t dripping.

At the elevator alcove the police were herding everybody out to the street and into a cordoned-off area where they would be held for questioning about what they might have heard or seen. Bosch knew he couldn’t go through that process. He made a U-turn and headed down an aisle toward the other side of the building. He got to an intersection of aisles and caught a glimpse to his left of two men hurry-ing in a direction away from the police activity.

Bosch followed, realizing he wasn’t the only one in the building who wouldn’t want to be questioned by the police.

The two men disappeared into a narrow passageway between two of the now-shuttered shops. Bosch followed.

The passage led to a staircase down into a basement where there were rows of storage cages for the shopkeepers above, who had such limited public retail space. Bosch followed the men down one aisle and then turned right. He saw them heading toward a glowing red Chinese symbol over a door and knew it had to be an exit. The men pushed through and an alarm sounded. They slammed the door behind them.