The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [53]
Neal pointed at the Doorman’s wrist. “Tomorrow it’s yours. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. I’m going to grab some sleep.”
The Doorman bowed and backed off around the corner. Neal went into the room and made himself a scotch. He sipped at it while he tried to read some Fathom and then gave up and flopped down on the bed. He was beat.
The phone woke him up. The digital clock on the radio said it was four-twenty in the afternoon.
“Hello,” he said.
“Stop it.”
“I haven’t even started, Lan.”
“Stop it. You do not know what you are doing.”
“Why don’t you come here and tell me?”
There was one of those long silences he was getting so used to on this gig.
“Please,” she said. “Please leave us alone.”
“Where are you?”
“Someone will get hurt.”
“That’s why I’ve been trying to find you. At first I thought you set me up for a bullet in the old hot tub the other night. Now I think maybe the shot was meant for Pendleton.”
He didn’t get quite the reaction he expected, a gasp of horror or a gush of gratitude. It was almost a laugh.
“Is that what you think?” she asked.
“Maybe it’s what I hope.”
“I am asking you again—please leave us alone. You are only helping them.”
“Helping who?”
“Stop this stupid searching you are doing. It is too dangerous.”
If he hadn’t been half asleep, he could have mumbled something really slick like, “Danger is my business, baby,” but instead he asked, “Dangerous for who?”
“All of us.”
“Where are you? I want to talk to you.”
“You are talking with me.”
Oh, yeah.
“I want to see you.”
“Please forget us. Forget me.”
No, Li Lan, I can’t do either of those things.
“Lan, I’m going to start again tomorrow. I’m going to hit every gallery and shop in Hong Kong. I’m going to pass your picture around the entire city and I’m going to make a spectacle of myself doing it unless you agree to meet me tonight.”
Pause, pause, pause.
“Wait one moment,” she said.
He waited. He could hear her speaking, but could not make out the words. He wondered if she was talking to Pendleton.
“The observatory on Victoria Peak at eight o’clock. Can you be there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me to come alone?”
“You are foolish with me. Yes, come alone.”
She hung up.
Neal felt his heart racing. If this is love, he thought, the poets can keep it. But three and a half hours sure seems like a long time.
He ordered a wake-up call for six o’clock and lay awake until the phone rang.
Getting to Victoria Peak wouldn’t be too tough, Neal thought. Getting there alone would be impossible. That’s what Ben Chin had told him, anyway.
“No way,” Chin had said, with a firm shake of the head. He knocked back a hit of Neal’s scotch with equal firmness.
“My checkbook, my rules, remember?”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Neal had a scotch of his own sweating on the side table, untouched after the first sip.
“You weren’t putting your butt on the line. Cousin Mark would be really pissed if I let you get killed.”
“I’m not going to get killed.”
“Why does she want to meet you at the Peak? Why not here at the hotel?”
“She’s afraid and she doesn’t trust me. She wants to meet in a public place.”
“Let her meet you on the ferry, then.”
“You can’t run away on a ferry.”
“That’s what I mean.”
Neal sat down on the bed and slipped into his loafers.
“I’m not going up there trailing your whole crew.”
“You’ll never know we’re there.”
“I told her I’d be alone.”
“Did she tell you she’d be alone?”
Good point.
“No, I think she’ll be with her friend.”
“I think she’ll be with a whole bunch of friends. You should be, too.”
Neal stood up and put on his jacket.
“No.”
“Okay. Just me.”
“No.”
“How are you going to stop me from following you?”
There was always that.
“Okay, just you.”
Chin smiled and polished off his drink.
“But,” Neal said, “you stay in the background, out of sight and out of earshot. I want to talk to her alone. Once we make the meet and you see that it’s safe, you back off. Way off.”
“Whatever you say.”
“So are you ready to go?”
“It’s only six-thirty. We have plenty of time.”
“I want to get there early.”
“Love is