the movies, Henry. This is real life and we’re going downtown.”
Bosch pulled him up off the bed and pointed him toward the door.
“Dave, you got all of that secured?”
“Got it.”
“Then, lead the way.”
Chu left the room, carrying the metal box containing the Glock. Bosch followed, keeping Lau in front of him and keeping one hand on the chain between the cuffs. They moved down the hall, but when they got to the top of the stairs, Bosch pulled the cuffs like the reins on a horse and stopped.
“Wait a minute. Back up here.”
He walked Lau backwards to the middle of the hall. Something had caught Bosch’s eye as they had passed but it didn’t register until they got to the stairs. Now he looked at the framed diploma from the University of Southern California. Lau had graduated with a liberal arts degree in 2004.
“You went to SC?” Bosch asked.
“Yeah, the film school. Why?”
Both the school and graduation year matched the diploma Bosch had seen in the back office at Fortune Fine Foods & Liquor. And then there was the Chinese connection as well. Bosch knew that a lot of kids went to USC and several thousand graduated every year, many of them of Chinese descent. But he had never trusted coincidences.
“Did you know a guy at SC named Robert Li-spelled L-I”
Lau nodded.
“Yeah, I knew him. He was my roommate.”
Bosch felt things suddenly begin to crash together with an undeniable force.
“What about Eugene Lam? Did you know him?”
Lau nodded again.
“I still do. He was my roommate back then, too.”
“Where?”
“Like I told you, a shithole down in gangland. Near the campus.”
Bosch knew that USC was an oasis of fine and expensive education surrounded by hardscrabble neighborhoods where personal safety would be an issue. A few years back a football player on the practice field had even been hit with a stray round from a nearby gang shooting.
“Is that why you bought the gun? For protection down there”
“Exactly.”
Chu had realized he had lost them and came hurrying back up the stairs and down the hallway.
“Harry, what’s up?”
Bosch held up his free hand to signal Chu to hang back and be quiet. He spoke to Lau again.
“And those guys knew you bought the gun six years ago?”
“We went together. They helped me pick it out. Why are you-”
“Are you still friends? You stay in touch?”
“Yeah, but what’s this got to do with-”
“When was the last time you saw one of them?”
“I saw them both last week. We play poker almost every week.”
Bosch glanced over at Chu. The case had just broken wide open.
“Where, Henry? Where do you play?”
“Most of the time right here. Robert still lives with his parents and Huge has a tiny place in the Valley. I mean, come on, I’ve got the beach here.”
“What day did you play last week?”
“It was Wednesday.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, because I remember it was the night before my shoot was going to start and I didn’t really want to play. But they showed up and we played for a little bit. It was a short night.”
“And the time before that? When was that?”
“The week before. Wednesday or Thursday, I can’t remember.”
“But it was after the shooting on the beach?”
Lau shrugged.
“Yeah, pretty sure. Why?”
“What about the key to the box? Would one of them have known where the key was?”
“What did they do?”
“Just answer the question, Henry.”
“Yeah, they knew. They used to like to get the gun out sometimes and play around with it.”
Bosch pulled his keys out and uncuffed Lau. The screenwriter turned and started to massage his wrists.
“I always wondered what that felt like,” he said. “So I could write about it. The last time I was too drunk to remember.”
He finally looked up and saw Bosch’s intent stare.
“What’s going on?”
Bosch put a hand on his shoulder and turned him toward the stairs.
“Let’s go back down to the living room and talk, Henry. I think there is a lot you can tell us.”
45
They waited for Eugene Lam in the alley behind Fortune Fine Foods & Liquor. There was a small employee lot squeezed between a row of trash bins and the stacks of baled cardboard. It was Thursday, two days after they had visited Henry Lau, and the case had come together. They had used the time to work on evidence gathering and testing, and to prepare a strategy. Bosch had also used the time to enroll his daughter in the school at the bottom of the hill. She had started classes that morning.
They believed Eugene