The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [52]
Neal decided that he would hit the galleries on Hong Kong Island the next day. It was time to become a slower prey and let the predator catch his scent. If anyone was out there sniffing the air, they could hardly miss it. Just to make sure, he turned east along Salisbury Road and headed for the Peninsula Hotel. If there was a place to see and be seen in Kowloon, it was the Peninsula.
The Peninsula Hotel had once been the end of the road, a place where weary travelers stayed before boarding the Orient Express for the long trip back to the West. Its architecture was classic British colonial: a broad veranda, large columns, and white paint. The veranda, now enclosed in modern glass, sheltered a tearoom and featured a view of the bay and Hong Kong Island. The locals who were jaded to that panorama came for a vantage point from which they could observe just who was taking tea with whom, and what romantic liaisons or commercial conspiracies could be inferred from the comings and goings in the Peninsula lobby.
Neal paused halfway up the broad steps to the Peninsula and stood gawking at the view, which was his way of announcing to Chin, the boys, and whoever else was interested, “Hello! I’m going into the Peninsula Hotel now!”
The waiter sat him at a single table in the middle of the enormous tearoom. Neal ordered a pot of coffee, an iced tea, and a chicken sandwich and then settled in to do what everybody else was doing, surreptitiously checking each other out.
It was a well-heeled crowd, the prices at the Peninsula being somewhat steep, and the room had a self-congratulatory air that added to the incestuous feeling. The customers were mostly white, with a sizable minority of conservatively dressed Chinese who had yet to lose the slightly defensive expression inherited from the days when they had been welcomed only as waiters. A large tourist contingent, mostly gray-haired Europeans, rounded out the crowd. The chatter was subdued and desultory; people were too busy looking over their companions’ shoulders to engage in any really direct conversation.
Neal could just make out the Doorman loitering in the outer lobby, and he didn’t so much as lift an eyebrow when Mark Chin took a single table nearby and began to ogle every woman in the room who looked like she might be under eighty years of age.
Neal polished off the meal, paid the exorbitant check, and took his sweet time getting up and leaving. He hit five more shops on his way back to the Banyan Tree. Li Lan’s name didn’t ring a bell in any of them, not a tinkle or a chime.
He worked his way back to the Banyan Tree. He wasn’t surprised to see the Doorman lurking in the hallway outside his room.
“How are you doing?” Neal asked him.
The Doorman nodded and smiled shyly.
“Okay,” he said, trying out the word.
“Okay.”
Jesus, Neal thought, he looks about twelve years old.
Then it occurred to him that he had been younger than that when he started working the streets for Friends.
The Doorman was still standing there, as if he wanted to say something but was afraid.
“You want to come in?” Neal asked.
The Doorman smiled. He didn’t understand a word.
“A drink? Uhhh … Coca-Cola?”
The Doorman tapped his wrist and then pointed at Neal’s. Neal looked at the inexpensive Timex watch he had bought at least three years ago.
“The watch? You like the watch?”
The Doorman nodded enthusiastically.
Neal took it off his wrist and handed it to the Doorman. Apparently the Doorman didn’t rate a watch in the peculiar pecking order of the gang. The Doorman strapped it to his wrist and held it up to his face to admire it.
Shit, why not?
“Listen,” Neal said. “I need it now. I’ll buy one tomorrow and you can have this one. Or you can have the new one, okay?”
He held out his hand for the watch. The Doorman took it off his wrist and put it in Neal’s hand. He looked fucking heartbroken.
“Tomorrow,” Neal said. Hell, how do I explain? He traced his index finger along the dial of the watch and moved it in a circle twelve times. “Tomorrow?”
The Doorman grinned and nodded.