The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [101]
“I’m sorry about that,” Neal said as they got into the elevator.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes it does! It matters a—”
“Let’s just get shit-faced.”
The noodle bar surprised Neal. It had an almost Western feel of the dreaded decadence. The lights were low, the small tables had red paper covers and lanterns, and the entire south wall was composed of windows and sliding glass doors to give a spectacular view of the Nan River and the city beyond. A wide-open terrace had tables and scattered lounge chairs, and you could lean over the balcony railing to see the street fourteen floors below. The bar itself ran at least half the length of the large room, and it looked like a real bar. Glasses hung upside down from ceiling racks, bottles of beer cooled in tanks of ice, liquor bottles glistened on the back wall, and wooden stools provided plenty of spots to belly up. Off to the side, a cook fried noodles on a small grill, but the whole noodle bit was clearly just a gimmick to get past the bureaucracy. The operative word in “noodle bar” was Bar.
There weren’t many customers. A few cadre types were smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and having a quiet conversation at one table, while a few Japanese businessmen sat silently at the bar. The tone was subdued but not sullen. It had the feel of any late weeknight in any bar in any city in the world, and Neal had to remind himself that it was only ten o’clock. The place closed at ten-thirty.
Neal dragged Wu to the bar, lifted a finger to the bartender, and said, “Two cold ones.”
The bartender looked to Wu.
“Ar pijiu.”
The bartender popped open two bottles and set them on the bar. Neal tossed some Chinese bills down. Wu retrieved a couple and handed them back to Neal.
“Plenty,” he said.
“Let’s go out on the terrace.”
“Okay.”
They stood against the balcony wall and looked out at Chengdu. Lack of electric power made the city lights relatively dim, but their low glow made the night soft and somehow poignant. A few old-style lanterns shone in the windows of the stucco houses of the old neighborhood, while behind them the low electric lights in the new prosaic high-rise apartments made geometric patterns in the night sky. Just across Hongxing Road the Nan River made a lazy S-curve, and the lamps of a few houseboats reflected in the water.
The soft night took the edge off Neal, and the urge to get drunk left him as suddenly as it had come. He felt a little ashamed, too, about leading Wu into trouble. Better just to have a couple of beers, talk a little Mark Twain, and leave it at that.
Anyway, he thought, the kid isn’t used to alcohol, and you’re not in drinking shape anyway. Maybe they’ll let you take a scotch back to your room.
He knocked back a long slug of the domestic Chinese beer and found that it wasn’t bad. Wu didn’t seem to mind it, either, sipping at it steadily as he drank in the view.
“Can we see your house from here?” Neal asked him.
“Other direction.” He was still smarting from the scene at the door, nursing a grudge along with the beer.
Maybe that isn’t all that bad, Neal thought. If I were him, I’d have a hell of a grudge, too, and it might be better to nurse it than to forget it. Come to think of it, I do have a hell of a grudge, and I’m not going to forget it either.
“Beautiful city,” Neal said.
“Fuck yes.”
“You want another beer?”
“I’m not finished this one yet.”
“You will be by the time I get back.”
Neal held up his empty bottle in one hand and two fingers in the other. The bartender responded with the requisite two brews and even made change for Neal. The cadres at the one table stopped their conversation to stare at Neal as he walked past.
“Hi, guys,” he said.
They didn’t answer.
Neal handed Wu his fresh bottle. “Here’s to Mark Twain.”
“Mark Twain.”
“And Du Fu.”
“Du Fu.”
“And here’s to Mr. Peng, who’s coming