The Trail to Buddha's Mirror - Don Winslow [73]
The kid, on the other hand, was delighted. He stared unabashedly at Neal, and dropped two or three grains of rice onto the black sports shirt he wore over denim cutoff and rubber sandals. His grin showed bad, crooked teeth, and his eyes looked milky and runny. Infected. Neal figured the kid to be maybe twelve, the old man about a hundred and twelve.
The kid reached under his shirt and came out with a comic book, which he held up to Neal’s face.
“Hulk!” he screamed, then screwed his face up and hunched over, growling and showing teeth. “Hulk! Hulk!”
“That’s pretty good,” Neal said, trying to be friendly.
He reached for the comic book to express admiration, but the kid snatched it back. Then he pulled himself up, threw out his chest, put his hands on his hip, and flashed a confident, macho smile.
“Superman?” Neal asked.
The kid shook his head, then hit him with the smile again.
“Batman,” Neal said.
“Batman! Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da … Batman!”
“You’re good.”
“Marvel Comics. Ding hao! Marvel!”
Honcho pointed to the horizontal telephone booth above them with deliberate nonchalance. “Ma Bell,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”
Pendleton had flopped down in a corner, head in hands. He was done in. Li Lan stood in the center of the room, looking at nothing, expressionless, waiting for the next thing to happen. Neal knew that the next thing was to call Simms and arrange to get the hell out of here. Wherever here was.
“Are you guys ready to do this?” he asked Li and Pendleton.
Tough shit if you’re not, he thought, because we are definitely doing this.
Pendleton kept his head in his hands, but nodded.
Li Lan said, “Yes, we are ready.”
“It’s a local call,” Neal said to Honcho as he climbed the ladder.
“Doesn’t matter,” Honcho answered. “We don’t pay.”
The loft was the size of a baker’s oven and about as hot. There was no room to stand up, and Neal had to bend over, even sitting on the stool. The phone cord came through a small hole that had been drilled in the wall.
It’s a nice scam they have going here, Neal thought. Stealing phone service. Wonder how much they charge the locals to make a call. He dug in his pocket for Simms’s number.
Great. There was no fucking dial tone.
“I think I’m not doing this right,” he said.
Li Lan came up the ladder and leaned into the loft. Even in this sewer she looks gorgeous, Neal thought. Absolutely killer. And she was looking into his eyes so deeply he thought for a moment that he actually might die.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be sorry. Just show me how to use the phone.”
She reached over and gently pulled the cord. It fell out of the hole.
“Is not real,” she said.
A dummy phone for the dummy.
“Why?” he asked.
This time the eyes were angry. As cold and hard as ice.
“You can see all this,” she said, sweeping her arm around to indicate the neighborhood, “and ask why? Why I am a communist? Why I fight for the people? The question you should ask is why you are not, why you do not. You created all this, you made it. Now you can live in it.”
He couldn’t breathe. His chest felt like it was in a vise. Live in it? Live in it?! She can’t mean what I think she means. Jesus God, please, no.
He could barely make himself ask the question, and it came out in a hoarse whisper. “Are you leaving me here?”
“Yes.”
Not even a hint of regret. Cold, hard, and straight.
She started down the ladder. He grabbed the top of it and held on, then twisted himself onto the ladder. He stopped when he felt the blade press against the tendons of his knee. He looked down to see the boy, all of his bad teeth showing in an immense and joyful grin, holding the chopper to his leg. The message was clear: