The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [30]
“Please identify yourself or I will have to terminate this call.”
Terminate this call?! What the hell is going on with this stupid case? Who says stuff like “terminate this call”?Security types, that’s who.
“This is the assistant manager at the Chinatown Holiday Inn,” Neal said. “Dr. Pendleton left some medication behind when he checked out, and I wanted to know if I should FedEx it, or whether regular mail would do.”
“One moment.”
They must all go to the same school, Neal thought.
“Dr. Pendleton says that regular mail will be sufficient.”
“May I confirm that with him personally, please? Company rules.”
“He’s very busy at the moment.”
“I’m sure he is. Thank you.”
Neal packed in a hurry. Suddenly he didn’t want to be in the hotel, where anyone could find him. There were too many contradictions. Joe Graham never takes vacations and hates Ireland, but he’s on vacation in Ireland. Ed Levine says that Bob Pendleton is back at work, but he isn’t, because AgriTech security relays a message from him about medication that doesn’t exist. And someone tries to kill me because I found Pendleton.
Whoever was diddling the door was doing it well, because it barely made a sound. But Neal Carey had done a lot of doors and he heard it like it was an alarm bell. Which it was.
Someone had picked up his trail and was planning something nasty in the ever-so-nice Mark Hopkins, and there was no way out of the tiny room.
Which was maybe okay, he thought.
Neal grabbed the letter opener off the desk and waited behind the door. He was scared as hell, but he was also getting a little tired of being jerked around, and whoever was coming through the door was going to get a little surprise in the form of a letter opener swung fast and hard.
Neal’s heart raced like the ball on a roulette wheel as he heard the lock click and watched the door handle come up. If the guy had a gun, he had to beat him to the punch, so to speak—put him down hard and keep him down so he could ask him a few questions.
The door came open slowly and Neal let loose. The point of the opener stuck into the intruder’s arm and quivered.
“What’s the matter? You got a babe in there, you don’t want me to come in?”
Joe Graham was staring at him curiously.
“Come in.”
Graham plucked the letter opener from his rubber arm. He looked disgustedly at the sleeve of his shirt. “This is a new shirt, Neal. I just bought it.”
Neal’s heart slowed to a mere gallop. He slammed the door shut behind Graham. Looking at the purple shirt, he said, “I did you a favor.”
Neal plunked himself down on the bed and let out a long sigh.
“You’re not happy to see me,” said Graham.
“I thought you were on vacation in Ireland.”
“Funny thing about that, son. I finished prying you out of your cave and called in. All of a sudden, Levine is nagging me about all this vacation time I got built up. Says I have to take it right now. I say okay, but then get to thinking maybe there’s a reason they don’t want me around just when they send you on a job. I get thinking maybe I should come back on the sly and check on my dearly beloved son, who might fuck up and get himself hurt without his dear old dad there to help him out. So, son, how have you fucked up and what kind of trouble are you in?”
Neal started at the top and told Graham the whole story, taking him through the search of Room 1016, his dance with Benchpress, the trip to Mill Valley, dinner at the Kendalls, Li Lan’s seductive offer, and the shot that nearly killed him. Graham sat silent for the whole monologue, except for a few tongue-cluckings and mutterings of “Shame” at some of Neal’s more egregious errors.
When Neal finished the long story, Graham asked, “So what did she look like naked?”
“What?”
“The babe. The China doll. What did she look like in the flesh?”
“Jesus, Graham.”
Graham went over to the courtesy bar and removed two of the little bottles of scotch. He wiped the hotel’s glass with a handkerchief, poured himself a double, and sipped contentedly.
“Tell me again. From the hot-tub part.”
“Graham, if you think