The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [28]
Maybe I imagined the whole damned thing, he thought. Then he remembered the sight of Li Lan standing naked on the deck wearing only that smile, and he could hear the sound of that bullet like it was through a headset, and he knew he hadn’t imagined anything. Someone had tried to take him out of the game permanently, and he didn’t have a clue who or why. He waited for another half hour to see if anything more interesting developed. It didn’t, so he let himself down from the tree.
Well, he thought, they suckered me with the oldest combination known to man, booze and a woman. I guess I put one over on them: They wasted their money on the booze.
He moved cautiously but at a steady pace, using the sides of the streets to walk from tree to tree. He knew it would get trickier as he got closer to town, and standing at a phone booth would be the riskiest part, but that was a chance he had to take. He remembered that there was a convenience store on the other side of town, and he headed there. His route would take him through Terminal Square and right past the bookstore and the gallery. It was too much open ground, so he cut north of the square and worked his way toward the sound of running water. He let himself down into the creekbed and followed it south. There was more creek than bed, so he spent most of the walk sloshing through ankle-deep running water—or falling into ankle-deep running water—and it took him an hour to make it to where he thought the convenience store was. He crawled to the edge of the creekbed and peeked out. He had overshot the store by about a quarter of a mile, but there, glistening in the modest parking lot, was a phone booth.
Neal walked back up along the bed, came up to the lip again, checked that the road was empty, and crossed over to the telephone.
He dialed the number he had found in his wallet.
A grumpy voice answered on the eighth ring. “What!”
“Crowe?”
“Who else?”
“It’s Neal Carey. I need your help.”
“Are you having an aesthetic crisis?”
“Sort of.”
Crowe’s Porsche 911—black, of course—rolled into the parking lot just before sunrise. Neal, huddled and shivering in the wet grass on the edge of the creekbank, scrambled across the road and jumped into the passenger seat.
“Drive,” said Neal, “and turn the heat on.”
Crowe put the car in gear, pumped up the heat, and glanced at Neal’s black clothes and black face.
“I can understand a philistine like you trying to emulate Crowe, but do you think you have perhaps taken it a bit too far?”
“Crowe, how do you feel about harboring a fugitive?”
“Are you in trouble with the law?”
“The cops are probably looking for me.”
Crowe’s face broke into a huge grin as he shifted the car into high gear. “A fugitive from the law seeking refuge in the Crowe’s nest! And we thought the Sixties were over! What are you doing?”
Neal crouched down on the car floor. “Hiding. At least until we get over the bridge.”
“Far out.”
Crowe’s Nest occupied the top floor of a three-story house overlooking the Bay from Telegraph Hill.
“A pleasant stroll,” the artist explained, “for Crowe to visit the cafés, bistros, dim-sum places and Italian restaurants that contribute to the overall splendor of Crowe’s existence.”
Neal sat down in a canvas deck chair beside a gigantic sculpture created from the remains of a 1962 Plymouth Valiant, the tailpipe of which was positioned in a fairly impressive phallic display. The walls were decorated with masks—African masks, Chinese opera masks, harlequin masks, even hockey goaltenders’ masks. The walls, the carpet, and all the furniture were stark white.
“The monochromatic color scheme makes Crowe stand out all the more,” said Crowe. “Now please go and