9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

print might be on that shell. You can find out.”
    Sopp seemed to realize that she had been cornered by someone who was not going to go away.
    “All right, listen. The next set of experiments is not scheduled till next week. I can’t promise anything but I’ll see what I can do.?”
    “Thanks, Teri.”
    Bosch filled out the chain-of-evidence form and left the lab. He was excited about the possibility of using the new science to possibly get the killer’s print. It almost felt to him as if John Li had known about electrostatic enhancement all along. The thought sent a different kind of electricity down Bosch’s spine.
    As he stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor he checked his watch and saw that it was time to call his daughter. She would be walking down Stubbs Road to the Happy Valley Academy. If he didn’t get to her now he would have to wait until after school was out. He stopped in the hallway outside the squad room, pulled his phone and hit the speed dial. The transpacific call took thirty seconds to connect.
    “Dad! What’s with the picture of a dead person?”
    He smiled.
    “Hello to you, too. How do you know he’s dead?”
    “Um, let’s see. My dad investigates murders and he sends me bare feet on a steel table. And what is this other picture? The guy’s lungs? That is so gross!”
    “He was a smoker. I thought you should see that.”
    There was a moment of silence and then she spoke very calmly. There was no little girl in her voice now.
    “Dad, I don’t smoke.”
    “Yeah, well, your mother told me you smell like smoke when you come home from hanging out with your friends at the mall.”
    “Yeah, that might be true, but it’s not true that I smoke with them.”
    “Then who
do
you smoke with?”
    “Dad, I don’t! My friend’s older brother hangs out sometimes to watch over her. I don’t smoke and neither does He.”
    “He? I thought you said your friend was a her.”
    She said the name again, this time putting a heavy Chinese accent on it. It sounded like
He-yuh
.
    “He is a her. He is her name. It means ‘river.’”
    “Then why don’t you call her River?”
    “Because she’s Chinese and so I call her by her Chinese name.”
    “Must get like Abbott and Costello. Calling a she He.”
    “Like who?”
    Bosch laughed.
    “Never mind. Forget the lungs, Maddie. If you tell me you don’t smoke, I believe you. But that’s not why I’m calling. The tattoos on the ankles, could you read them?”
    “Yes, it’s gross. I have a dead guy’s feet on my phone.”
    “Well, you can delete it as soon as you tell me what the tattoos mean. I know you study that stuff in school.”
    “I’m not going to delete it. I’m showing my friends. They’ll think it’s cool.”
    “No, don’t do that. It’s part of a case I’m working and nobody else should see it. I sent it to you because I thought you could give me a quick translation.”
    “You mean in all of the LAPD you don’t have one person who can tell you? You have to call your daughter in Hong Kong for such a simple thing?”
    “At the moment, that’s about right. You do what you have to do. Do you know what the symbols mean or not?”
    “Yes, Dad. They were easy.”
    “Well, what do they mean?”
    “It’s like a fortune. On the left ankle the symbols are
Fu
and
Cai,
which mean ‘luck’ and ‘money.’ Then on the right side you have
Ai
and
Xi,
which is ‘love’ and ‘family?.’”
    Bosch thought about this. It seemed to him the symbols were the things that were important to John Li. He had hoped that these things would always walk with him.
    Then he thought about the fact that the symbols were located on either side of Li’s Achilles tendons. Perhaps Li had placed the tattoos there intentionally, realizing that the things he hoped for also made him vulnerable. They were also his Achilles heel.
    “Hello, Dad?”
    “Yeah, I’m here. I’m just thinking.”
    “Well, does it help? Did I crack the case?”
    Bosch