The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [102]
Peng nodded a hello to the boys at the table and came out on the terrace. He looked pissed off, and the sight of Wu with a beer bottle in his hand didn’t do anything to improve his mood. He spoke rapidly to Wu and then stood looking at Neal.
“He is happy you are enjoying your evening.”
Meaning exactly the opposite, Neal thought.
“If he’s happy, I’m thrilled,” Neal answered.
“He says to pack your bags tonight.”
Neal felt his heart racing. Maybe they were going to put him on a plane.
“You will be gone for three days,” Wu continued.
“Where?”
“Dwaizhou Production Brigade.”
“What’s that? A factory?”
“No. It is in the countryside, perhaps one hundred miles south of Chengdu. You would call it a commune.”
“A collectivized farm.”
“As you say.”
“It’s a tourist thing?”
Peng spoke quickly.
“Foreign guests love to see production brigades,” Wu translated. “This is one of Sichuan’s best. Highly productive.”
Swell. They’re finished displaying me in the city, so we’re taking a weekend in the country. What for? More Mr. Frazier bullshit?
“How are you going to keep me down on the farm, after I’ve seen Chengdu?”
“What?”
“Nothing. Do me a favor, Xiao Wu? Last call is coming. Go to the bar and get us three beers?”
“I don’t think—”
Peng told him to go. He and Neal stood staring at each other for a few seconds.
“Let’s cut the translation crap, okay?” Neal said.
Peng smiled narrowly. “As you wish.”
“What’s the game here?”
“I have gone to great lengths to explain that.”
“You have gone to great lengths to avoid explaining that.”
“Things are not always what they appear.”
“Grasshopper.”
“Pardon me?”
“Nothing. Come on, Peng, what’s the deal? Why are we going to the country?”
“You do not wish to go?”
“What are we talking about here?”
“Your returning home. The sooner you go on this trip, the sooner you can go home. Of course, if you wish to delay …”
“I’ll be packed and ready.”
Wu returned with the beers and stood on the edge of their conversation. He edged forward when he saw that they had stopped speaking, and offered the beers.
“I do not drink beer,” Peng said. It wasn’t a comment, it was an order.
“Yes,” said Wu, setting the beers on a table, “it is late and we must start early in the morning.”
Neal scooped up the beers. “I’ll just take them to my room, then.”
“That is against the law,” said Peng.
“Arrest me,” answered Neal. He popped Wu on the shoulder and walked out the bar. He could feel Peng’s glare on his back, and it felt great.
Peng was furious. Until his conversation with the arrogant, rude young American, his evening had been going quite well. Persuading Comrade Secretary Xao to send Carey into the countryside had been ludicrously easy.
“I think we had better bring him closer to the asset,” he’d told the secretary.
“Yes? Why? It seems he has attracted no attention at all.”
Peng had furrowed his brow and stared at the floor.
“That is just what concerns me,” Peng had said. “Perhaps they are waiting to be sure. Perhaps the young fool is even working for the opposition. He is, after all, the only one who could actually identify China Doll.”
And that was the problem. Peng would have liked to put a bullet in the back of Carey’s skull right away, or, better yet, seen how he enjoyed a decade or two in the salt mines of Xinxiang, but the rude young round-eye was the only one left who could point a finger at Xao’s precious China Doll. Or bring her out of hiding, her and her American lover.
And the beauty of his own plan, to put that fear into Xao’s head. Manipulate him into sending Carey out as a test, and find that the test would turn into the real thing. And Xao had fallen—no, not fallen, leaped into the trap.
“Yes,” Xao said. “Send Carey down to Dwaizhou—”
“Is China Doll there?” Peng tried to keep the eagerness from his tone, and prayed that Xao hadn’t noticed the trembling in his voice.
“Yes.”
“Is Pendleton with her?”
Xao took a long time to light his damned cigarette.
“No,” he finally said. “Do you think I would put them in the same place until we know that it is safe?”
Peng