The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [69]
Li Lan paid the driver and gestured for the men to get out.
“Where are we?” Neal asked.
“Wong Tai Sin Temple,” Li answered. “We are coming to thank Kuan Yin.”
“Who’s Kuan Yin? Your case officer?”
She shook her head and laughed. “Kuan Yin is goddess of mercy. She has been very kind to us tonight.”
“Goddess? What kind of communist are you?”
“A Buddhist communist.”
“And this is a twenty-four-hour temple?”
“Gods do not sleep.”
“Mao wouldn’t like hearing this.”
“The Chairman is dead. He has met the Unpredictable Ghost.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Unpredictable Ghost guards the next world. He guides souls to the next world.”
“Which next world? Heaven or hell?”
“You don’t know. That is why he is called unpredictable. I will show him to you in the temple.”
“No thanks.”
She laughed again. “Sooner or later you will meet him. Better to know him sooner.”
“Better later.”
“As you think. Come. First we get our fortunes told.”
“You really do make a shitty Marxist.”
She led to them to where an old man sat behind a tiny, ramshackle booth on the outside of the temple. She handed him some coins and he handed her a bright red cup with holes in its cover. She held the cup up to her ear, tipped it upside down, and shook it. A stick fell out. She caught it in her other hand and gave it to the old man, who studied it intensely and then began to talk to her in rapid Chinese. She smiled broadly and answered. Then she bought another cup and handed it to Pendleton.
“Do one, Robert. Prayer stick. It will tell you your fortune.”
“I know my fortune. I’m going to live happily ever after with a beautiful woman whom I love very much.”
“Thank you, Robert.”
Neal thought he might throw up, and it wasn’t his ribs.
“What’s your fortune?” he asked.
“To go inside the temple.”
“Listen, we have to get hold of Simms. He’s probably at the Y right now, going nuts.”
“Just quickly thank Kuan Yin.”
“Quickly.”
They went up the steps past elaborately carved railings. A large screen was set in the middle of the entrance, leaving a narrow passage on either side.
“What’s this for?” Neal asked.
“Bad spirits can only move in straight lines,” Li Lan explained. “Therefore they cannot get into the temple.”
Every bad spirit I know is absolutely incapable of moving in a straight line, but never mind, Neal thought.
They stepped around the screen, presumably leaving any bad spirits behind, and into an enormous chamber. Dozens of shrines lined the two side walls, each shrine an altar presided over by a statue of its particular spirit. Even at this hour of the day, some pilgrims knelt at the altars, praying, and other devotees had left burning sticks of incense, small piles of apples and oranges, or coins as offerings or invocations. Rich red fabrics hung from the walls and large rectangular lamps hung from the ceilings, which, combined with the burning candles and sticks of incense, cast the room in a dark golden light.
The shrine at the front wall dominated the room. A large statue of a young woman sitting in the full lotus position occupied a broad platform. Her face was alabaster white, her eyes almond-shaped, her smile beatific. She wore a diaphanous gown slung over one shoulder, a headpiece of gold laminate, and black-lacquer hair piled high on her head. The effect was a strange combination of garishness and benevolence.
“Kuan Yin,” whispered Li Lan.
Li Lan knelt at the railing below the platform. She touched her head to the floor three times, then repeated the series twice more. She stayed hunched over, and Neal could see her lips moving. She was speaking to her goddess. Neal and Pendleton stood awkwardly behind her.
When she got up, she went to Neal and said, “We must see to your injuries.”
“We must call Simms.”
“How can we call him if he is at the Y, going nuts?”
“We call the Y and have him paged.”
“I am not waiting out in the open for your Simms to arrive. Too dangerous.”
She had a point. A five-year-old kid can keep