There was no time to hang flags now. They got back into Sun’s Mercedes and headed down the mountain toward Wan Chai. Along the way, Bosch realized that one route down would take them directly by the apartment building where Eleanor and his daughter lived.
Bosch leaned forward from the backseat.
“Eleanor, let’s go by your place first.”
“Why?”
“Something I forgot to tell you to bring. Madeline’s passport. Yours, too.”
“Why?”
“Because this won’t be over when we get her back. I want both of you away from here until it is.”
“And how long is that?”
She had turned to look back at him from the front seat. He could see the accusation in her eyes. He wanted to try to avoid all of that so that the rescue of his daughter was the complete focus.
“I don’t know how long. Let’s just get the passports. Just in case there is no time later.”
Eleanor turned to Sun and spoke sharply in Chinese. He immediately pulled to the side of the road and stopped. There was no traffic coming down the mountain behind them. It was too early for that. She turned fully around in her seat to face Bosch.
“We’ll stop for the passports,” she said evenly. “But if we need to disappear, don’t think for a minute we will be going with you.”
Bosch nodded. The concession that she would be willing to do it was enough for him.
“Then maybe you should pack a couple bags and put them in the trunk, too.”
She turned back around without responding. After a moment Sun looked over at her and spoke in Chinese. She responded with a nod and Sun started down the mountain again. Bosch knew that she was going to do what he’d asked.
Fifteen minutes later Sun stopped in front of the twin towers commonly known by locals as “The Chopsticks.” And Eleanor, having said not a single word in those fifteen minutes, extended an olive branch to the backseat.
“You want to come up? You can make a coffee while I pack the bags. You look like you could use it.”
“Coffee would be good but we don’t have-”
“It’s instant coffee.”
“Okay, then.”
Sun stayed with the car and they went up. The “chopsticks” were actually two interlinked and oval-shaped towers that rose seventy-three stories from the midslope of the mountain above Happy Valley. It was the tallest residential building in all of Hong Kong and as such stuck out at the edge of the skyline like two chopsticks protruding from a pile of rice. Eleanor and Madeline had moved into an apartment here shortly after arriving from Las Vegas six years earlier.
Bosch gripped the railing in the speed elevator as they went up. He didn’t like knowing that just below the floor was an open shaft that went straight down forty-four floors.
The door opened on a small foyer leading to the four apartments on the floor, and Eleanor used a key to go in the first door on the right.
“Coffee’s in the cabinet over the sink. I won’t take long.”
“Good. You want a cup?”
“No, I’m good. I had some at the airport.”
They entered the apartment and Eleanor split off to go to her bedroom while Bosch found the kitchen and went to work on the coffee. He found a mug that said World’s Best Mom on its side and used that. It had been hand-painted a long time before and the words had faded with each cycle the mug had gone through in the dishwasher.
He stepped out of the kitchen, sipping the hot mixture, and took in the panorama. The apartment faced west and afforded a stunning view of Hong Kong and its harbor. Bosch had only been in the apartment a few times and never tired of seeing this. Most times when he came to visit, he met his daughter in the lobby or at her school after classes.
A huge white cruise ship was making its way through the harbor and steaming toward the open sea. Bosch watched it for a moment and then noticed the Canon sign sitting atop the building in Kowloon. It was a reminder of his mission. He turned toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He found Eleanor in their daughter’s room, crying as she put clothes into a backpack.
“I don’t know what to take,” she said. “I don’t know how long we’ll be away or what she’ll need. I don’t even know if we’ll ever see her again.”
Her shoulders trembled as she let the tears fall. Bosch put a hand on her left shoulder but she immediately shrugged it off. She would take no comfort from him. She roughly zipped the backpack closed and left the room with it. Bosch was left to look about the room by himself.
Keepsakes from trips to L.A. and other places were on every horizontal surface. Posters from movies and music groups covered the walls. A stand in the corner had several hats, masks and strings of beads hanging on it. Numerous stuffed animals from earlier years were crowded against the pillows on the bed. Bosch couldn’t help but feel like he was somehow invading his daughter’s privacy by being in the room uninvited by her.
On a small desk was an open laptop computer, its screen dark. Bosch stepped over and tapped the space bar and after a few moments the screen came alive. His daughter’s screen saver was a photograph taken on her last trip to L.A. It showed a group of surfers in a line, floating on their boards and waiting for the next set of waves. Bosch remembered that they had driven out to Malibu to eat breakfast at a place called Marmalade and afterward had watched the surfers at a nearby beach.
Harry noticed a small box made of carved bone next to the computer’s mouse. It reminded Bosch of the carved handle of the knife he had found in Chang’s suitcase. It looked like something you would keep important things in, like money. He opened it and found that it contained only a small string of carved jade monkeys-see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil-on red twine. Bosch took it out of the box and held it up to see it better. It was no more than two inches long and there was a small silver ring on the end so that it could be attached to something.
“You ready?”
Bosch turned. Eleanor was in the doorway.
“I’m ready. What is this, an earring?”
Eleanor stepped closer to see it.
“No, the kids hook those things on their phones. You can buy them at the jade market in Kowloon. So many of them have the same phones, they dress them up to be different.”
Bosch nodded as he put the jade string back in the bone box.
“Are they expensive?”
“No, that’s cheap jade. They cost about a dollar American and the kids change them all the time. Let’s go.”
Bosch took a last look around his daughter’s private domain and on the way out grabbed a pillow and a folded blanket off the bed. Eleanor looked back and saw what he was doing.
“She might be tired and want to sleep,” Bosch explained.
They left the apartment and in the elevator Bosch held the blanket and pillow under one arm and one of the backpacks in the other. He could smell his daughter’s shampoo on the pillow.
“You have the passports” Bosch asked.
“Yes, I have them,” Eleanor said.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
He acted like he was studying the pattern of ponies on the blanket he was holding.
“How far can you trust Sun Yee? I’m not sure we should be with him after we get the gun.”
Eleanor answered without hesitation.
“I told you, you don’t have to worry about him. I trust him all the way and he’s staying with us. He’s staying with me.”
Bosch nodded. Eleanor looked up at the digital display that showed the floors clicking by.
“I trust him completely,” she added. “And Maddie does, too.”
“How does Maddie even-”
He stopped. He suddenly understood what she was saying. Sun was the man Madeline had told him about. He and Eleanor were together.