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.
Bosch ran toward the door and pushed through. He found himself in the same pedestrian alley he had been in earlier. He quickly walked out to Nathan Road and looked for Sun and the Mercedes.
Headlights flashed from half a block away and Bosch saw the car waiting ahead of the clot of police vehicles parked haphazardly in front of the entrance to Chungking Mansions. Sun pulled away from the curb and cruised up to him. Bosch at first went to the back door but then realized Eleanor wasn’t with them anymore. He got in the front.
“You took long time,” Sun said.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
Sun glanced down at the briefcase with Bosch’s bleeding knuckles wrapped around the handle. He said nothing. He accelerated and headed away from the Chungking Mansions. Bosch turned in his seat to look back. His eyes rose up the building to the floor where they had left Eleanor. Somehow, Bosch had always thought they would grow old together. Their divorce didn’t matter. Other lovers didn’t matter. They’d always had an on-and-off relationship but that didn’t matter either. It had always been in the back of his mind that the separations were what were temporary. In the long run they would be together. Of course, they had Madeline together and that would always be their bond. But he had believed there would be more.
Now all of that was gone and it was because of the choices he had made. Whether it was because of his case or his momentary lapse in flashing his money didn’t really matter. All roads led back to him and he wasn’t sure how he was going to live with it.
He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
“Sun Yee, I’m sorry…I loved her, too.”
Sun didn’t respond for a long time and when he spoke, he brought Bosch out of the downward spiral and back into focus.
“We must find your daughter now. For Eleanor we will do this.”
Bosch straightened up and nodded. He then leaned forward and pulled the briefcase onto his lap.
“Pull over when you can. You have to look at this stuff.”
Sun made several turns and put several blocks between them and Chungking Mansions before pulling to a stop against the curb. They were across the street from a ramshackle market that was crowded with westerners.
“What’s this place” Bosch asked.
“This is the jade market. Very famous for westerners. You will not be noticed here.”
Bosch nodded. He opened the briefcase and handed Sun the unruly stack of hotel registration forms. There were at least fifty of them. Most had been filled out in Chinese and were unreadable to Bosch.
“What do I look for” Sun asked.
“Date and room number. Friday was the eleventh. We want that and room fifteen fourteen. It’s got to be in that stack.”
Sun started reading. Bosch watched for a moment and then looked out the window at the