The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [62]
“Right.”
Right.
It was two in the morning and there were still people on the street. The lost souls of the small hours lingered on the edges of the light pools thrown by the streetlamps, or hovered around the fires set in trashcans. Vagrants slept on cardboard sheets in the middle of the wide sidewalks or crouched in the doorways of closed shops. Most of the night clubs and gambling joints were still open, their neon lights reflecting brightly off the puddles in the gutters. A few prostitutes too old or too ugly for the tourist trade farther down the road stood stoically outside the gambling halls, hoping to rent a celebration to the winners or solace to the losers. Here and there a slice of darkness broke the neon glow, and each niche was like a cave that sheltered a human being—a scraggly kid too weak to join a gang, a dull-eyed opium addict lost in his private dream, a psychotic woman babbling her outrage at omnipresent enemies, a hungry mugger waiting for the improvident drunk to stumble by at the right moment—each a player in the slow game of musical chairs that makes up the urban food chain.
The YMCA was on Waterloo Road, two blocks west of Nathan. Neal waited on the steps while Ben talked to the nervous night clerk. The place reeked of good intentions and bad bank statements. Metal screens shielded the broken glass in windows and doors. The pea-green high-gloss paint was cheap and easily cleaned, and the smell of disinfectant overpowered the aroma of the musty mud-brown carpet.
It was the sort of place that offered anonymity and Neal knew that Li Lan or her handlers must have chosen it quite deliberately.
Chin’s conversation didn’t take long.
“Room three-forty-three,” he said to Neal, as if it were an offering.
“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll wait down here.”
“No.”
“Dangerous neighborhood this time of night.”
“Go home.”
Chin shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”
“That’s what I say.”
Chin turned around and went out the door. Neal watched until he had turned the corner on Nathan Road.
Neal was surprised that the elevator had an operator, an old man with withered legs and a grotesquely distorted face. Neal held up three fingers and the man leaned forward on his stool and used a lever to shut the door. The elevator whined with age as it crawled up the three floors.
The third-floor corridor was narrow, and covered in old green carpeting. Neal stood outside of 343 for a full two minutes and listened. He couldn’t hear anything. It’s just another gig, he told himself as he took his AmEx card from his wallet and slipped it behind the bolt. The lock gave up quicker than a French general, and Neal was in the room just as quickly.
A shaft of light from a streetlamp pierced the thin curtain and outlined her in a golden glow where she lay sleeping on the bed. Pendleton lay beside her, his back toward the door. Neal shut the door behind him, just the way Graham had taught him to, keeping the knob open until the bolt was aligned and then slowly letting the knob turn shut. Then he squatted next to the bed, brought his right arm over her head, and clapped his hand over her mouth as his thumb and index finger pinched her nostrils shut. He put his left hand under her jaw and pressed his thumb and index finger under the two joints. Her eyes popped open and she stared at him in fright. He slowly shook his head back and forth, and she accepted this warning to keep quiet. He stood up slowly and lifted her by the jaw. She grabbed his wrist and he squeezed harder. Her eyes widened in pain. He lifted until she was perched on her toes and then walked her to the bathroom door and set her down on the edge of the bathtub. He closed the door behind them, then turned on the light.
“Hi,” he whispered. “Bet you didn’t think you’d see me again, huh?”
She didn’t answer.
“The CIA is looking for you, but I guess you already know that.”
She shook her head.
“Right. Anyway, they have a pretty good deal to offer you. I think you should take it. We can wake