9 Dragons - Страница 2

Доступ к книге ограничен фрагменом по требованию правообладателя.

Bosch and Ferras gave their names and serial numbers to a patrol officer with the crime scene attendance log and then ducked under the tape. As they approached the front door of the store, Bosch put his hand into his right jacket pocket and pulled out a book of matches. It was old and worn. The front cover said fortune liquors and it carried the address of the small yellow building before them. He thumbed the book open. There was only one match missing, and on the inside cover was the fortune that came with every matchbook:

Happy is the man who
finds refuge in himself.

Bosch had carried the matchbook with him for more than ten years. Not so much for the fortune, though he did believe in what it said. It was because of the missing match and what it reminded him of.

“Harry, what’s up?” Ferras asked.

Bosch realized he had paused in his approach to the store.

“Nothing, I’ve just been here before.”

“When? On a case?”

“Sort of. But it was a long time ago. Let’s go in.”

Bosch walked past his partner and entered the open front door of the liquor store.

Several patrol officers and a sergeant were standing inside. The store was long and narrow. It was a shotgun design and essentially three aisles wide. Bosch could see down the center aisle to a rear hallway and an open back door leading to a parking area behind the store. The cold-beverage cases ran along the wall on the left aisle and then across the back of the store. The liquor was on the right aisle, while the middle aisle was reserved for wine with red on the right and white on the left.

Bosch saw two more patrol officers in the rear hallway and he guessed they were holding the witness in what was probably a rear storage room or office. He put his briefcase down on the floor by the door. From the pocket of his suit coat he pulled two pairs of latex gloves. He gave a set to Ferras and they put them on.

The sergeant noticed the arrival of the two detectives and broke away from his men.

“Ray Lucas,” he said by way of greeting. “We have one vic down behind the counter here. His name is John Li, spelled L-I. Happened, we think, less than two hours ago. Looks like a robbery where the guy just didn’t want to leave a witness. A lot of us down here in the Seventy-seventh knew Mr. Li. He was a good old guy.”

Lucas signaled Bosch and Ferras over to the counter. Bosch held his coat so it wouldn’t touch anything when he went around and squeezed into the small space behind the counter. He squatted down like a baseball catcher to look more closely at the dead man on the floor. Ferras leaned in over him like an umpire.

The victim was Asian and looked to be almost seventy. He was on his back, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. His lips were pulled back from clenched teeth, almost in a sneer. There was blood on his lips, cheek and chin. It had been coughed up as he died. The front of his shirt was soaked with his blood and Bosch could see at least three bullet entry points in his chest. His right leg was bent at the knee and folded awkwardly under his other leg. He had obviously collapsed on the spot where he had been standing when he was shot.

“No casings that we can see,” Lucas said. “The shooter cleaned those up and then he was smart enough to pull the disc out of the recorder in the back.”

Bosch nodded. The patrol guys always wanted to be helpful but it was information Bosch didn’t need yet and could be misleading.

“Unless it was a revolver,” he said. “Then there would have been no casings to clean up.”

“Maybe,” Lucas said. “But you don’t usually see too many revolvers down here anymore. Nobody wants to be caught in a drive-by with just six bullets in their gun.”

Lucas wanted Bosch to know that he knew the lay of the land down here. Bosch was just a visitor.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry said.

Bosch focused on the body and studied the scene silently. He was pretty sure the victim was the same man he had encountered in the store so many years before. He was even in the same spot, on the floor behind the counter. And Bosch could see a soft pack of cigarettes in the shirt pocket.

He noticed that the victim’s right hand had blood smeared on it. He didn’t find this unusual. From earliest childhood people touch their hand to an injury to try to protect it and make it better. It is natural instinct. This victim had done the same here, most likely grabbing at his chest after the first shot hit him.

There was about a four-inch spatial separation between the bullet wounds, which formed the points of a triangle. Bosch knew that three quick shots from close range would usually have made a tighter -cluster. This led him to believe that the victim had likely been shot once and then fell to the floor. The killer had then probably leaned over the counter and shot him two more times, creating the spread.

The slugs tore through the victim’s chest, causing massive damage to the heart and lungs. The blood expectorated through the mouth showed that death was not immediate. The victim had tried to breathe. After all his years working cases Bosch was sure of one thing. There was no easy way to die.

“No headshot,” Bosch said.

“Right,” Ferras said. “What’s it mean?”

Bosch realized he had been musing out loud.

“Maybe nothing. Just seems like three in the chest, the shooter wanted no doubt. But then no headshot to be sure.”

“Like a contradiction.”

“Maybe.”

Bosch took his eyes off the body for the first time and looked around from his low angle. His eyes immediately held on a gun that was in a holster attached to the underside of the counter. It was located for easy access in case of a robbery or worse, but it had not even been pulled from its holster.

“We’ve got a gun under here,” Bosch said. “Looks like a forty-five in a holster, but the old man never got the chance to pull it.”

“The shooter came in quick and shot the old guy before he could reach for his piece,” Ferras said. “Maybe it was known in the neighborhood that the old man had the gun under the counter.”

Lucas made a noise with his mouth, as if he was disagreeing.

“What is it, Sergeant?” Bosch asked.

“The gun’s gotta be new,” Lucas said. “The guy’s been robbed at least six times in the last five years since I’ve been here. As far as I know, he never pulled a gun. This is the first I knew about a gun.”

Bosch nodded. It was a valid observation. He turned his head to speak over his shoulder to the sergeant.

“Tell me about the witness,” he said.

“Uh, she’s not really a witness,” Lucas said. “It’s Mrs. Li, the wife. She came in and found her husband when she was bringing him in his dinner. We’ve got her in the back room but you’ll need a translator. We called the ACU, asked for Chinese to go.”

Bosch took another look at the dead man’s face, then stood up and both his knees cracked loudly. Lucas had referred to what was once known as the Asian Crimes Unit. It had recently been changed to the Asian Gang Unit to accommodate concerns that the unit name besmirched the city’s Asian population by suggesting all Asians were involved in crime. But the old dogs like Lucas still called it the ACU. Regardless of name or acronym, the decision to call in an additional investigator of any stripe should have been left to Bosch as lead investigator.

“You speak Chinese, Sarge?”

“No, that’s why I called ACU.”

“Then, how did you know to ask for Chinese and not Korean or maybe even Vietnamese?”

“I’ve been on the job twenty-six years, Detective. And-”

“And you know Chinese when you see it.”

“No, what I’m saying is I have a hard time making it through a shift these days without a little jolt, you know? So once a day I stop by here to pick up one of those energy drinks. Five-hour boost it gives you. Anyway, I got to know Mr. Li a little bit from coming in. He told me he and his wife came from China and that’s how I knew.”

Bosch nodded and was embarrassed at his effort to embarrass Lucas.

“I guess I’ll have to try one of those boosts,” he said. “Did Mrs. Li call nine-one-one”

“No, like I said, she doesn’t have much English. From what I got from dispatch, Mrs. Li called her son and he’s the one who called nine-one-one.?”

Bosch stepped out and around the counter. Ferras lingered behind it, squatting to get the same view of the body and the gun that Bosch had just had.

“Where is the son?” Bosch asked.

“He’s coming but he works up in the Valley,” Lucas said. “Should be here anytime now.”

Bosch pointed to the counter.

“When he gets here, you and your people keep him away from this.”

“Got it.”

“And we’re going to have to try to keep this place as clear as possible now.”

Lucas got the message and took his officers out of the store. Finished behind the counter, Ferras joined Bosch near the front door, where he was looking up at the camera mounted on the ceiling at the center of the store.

“Why don’t you check out the back?” Bosch said. “See if the guy really pulled the disc, and look in on our witness.”

“Got it.”

“Oh, and find the thermostat and cool it down in here. It’s too warm. I don’t want that body to turn.”

Ferras headed down the center aisle. Bosch looked back to take in the scene as a whole. The counter was about twelve feet long. The cash register was set up at center with an open space for customers to put down their purchases. On one side of this were racks of gum and candy. On the other side of the register were other point-of-purchase products like energy drinks, a plastic case containing cheap cigars and a lotto display case. Overhead was a wire-mesh storage box for cigarette cartons.