Eliot Pattison - Beautiful Ghosts

“No,” Shan said, lifting his head to gaze at the stars. “All we can hope for is to keep them from the treasure, keep them from hurting the lamas. Get them out of Lhadrung,” he added, realizing as he spoke them that the words echoed those of Colonel Tan.

“Things can be different,” Yao said. “I mean for you and Ko.”

“I can’t see how.”

“When I get back to Beijing I’m going to see people I know. Judges. I can convince them. People who disappeared can also be brought back to life. I can bring you back to life, get you a fresh start in Beijing. You’re one of the best investigators I know. I can get you work, maybe create a new job in my office for you. Once that happens we can find Ko, together.”

“You’re going to have enough problems in Beijing without me.”

Yao gazed at Shan in silence, then seemed to force a grin. “What, that recall? It happens every year or so. Not the first time. I’ll go home, have a few candid exchanges of views, and all will be forgotten.”

“Not the recall. The fact that you ignored it.”

The inspector’s silence lasted longer this time. “I don’t let criminals go free. That’s not what I do.”

“Go home,” Shan said. “Let me find a way.”

“And steal all my glory?”

“No,” Shan said, and looked away. “Because I don’t want you to become like me.” He spoke to the darkness.

Yao didn’t speak for a long time. “You and I, if we had met in Beijing, we would have become good friends.”

Shan pointed to a shooting star.

“Two things I promise you,” Yao said in a determined voice. “I will get Ming. And I will rehabilitate you. It’s how you can save Ko. We can save Ko.”

In the stillness that followed Shan replayed the conversation in his mind. Yao wanted to take Shan back, to start over in Beijing. He remembered he was supposed to be on a retreat, because he had cried out in delirium he wanted to go home. Strangely, he wondered where the cave was that Gendun had selected for him. He needed a month of silence, needed time alone to settle the unfamiliar emotions that had been surging through him since the festival day.

He did not know how long had passed when he turned to find Yao gone. He felt in his pocket and found a box of stick matches, which he put in front of him on a rock. He tore the top edge off the airline ticket envelope in his pocket, the only paper he could find, and pulled a pencil stub from his pocket. Father, he wrote in the moonlight, My fear for my son wakes me up, shaking. I used to laugh when I was a son. He stared at the words, blinking, awash in memories of his joyful youth, then lifted the pencil once more. Show me a way to make them take me, instead of him, he finished, then folded the paper. He made a little fire of the matchsticks and set the message on it, watching the ashes float skyward, sending his message to the heavens. Suddenly he smelled ginger and somebody was sitting beside him. But when he dared to look, no one was there.

The last day arrived in a tempest, one of the rare midsummer storms that broke across the Himalayas into Tibet. Wind tugged at the flaps of the tent Dolan had erected, rain put out the cooking fire before breakfast could be prepared, and thunder shook the frail, crumbling walls around them. Gendun had disappeared without a trace, and Lokesh was standing in the rain when Shan found him in the foregate, looking into the sky. “It won’t be much different below,” the old Tibetan said to Shan, awe in his voice. “The earth is speaking today.”

Dolan raged like a storm himself, full of fury, with no sign of the strange hesitation that he had shown the night before, no sign of what Lokesh had called the gasping of his deity. Ko, too, seemed like a changed person, his own brooding uncertainty replaced with a fawning attention to Dolan. Shan heard him explain to the American that they could escape the storm by going below, that he knew the way to the third level even if the others would not tell Dolan, that he would show Dolan little treasures in the chapels along the way.

“He has the checks,” Corbett muttered. “Two hundred thousand dollars. He figures maybe he has a way out after all.”

The checks. Shan had forgotten how Ko had retrieved the checks from the ground after the others had left them there.

Shan watched his son in dismayed confusion as they descended into the underground palace, leaving Lokesh in prayer by the cairn. Ko would not return his gaze, and seemed eager to keep Dolan or Khan between him and Shan and the others, even joked with Khan about the little golden Buddha Ko had stolen and given him. By the time they had climbed out of the tunnel chipped into the first level Ko had convinced Dolan to send Khan with the others to the third level while Ko showed Dolan the chapel treasures. Dolan readily agreed, letting Ko lead, holding a light while the American carried a sack into which he began stuffing altar pieces even as the others watched. Yao and Shan exchanged a weary glance.

No one spoke as they climbed first the stair of pegs then the narrow passage up to the mask room. As they reached the third level Shan silently led the group to the amban’s quarters and lit several butter lamps. He was examining the old paintings on the walls when a low, haunting moan rose from outside the door. Warning them not to leave the chamber, Khan stepped into the corridor. Through the darkness a moment later came a groan. Corbett leapt out the door and seconds later reappeared, holding Khan’s feet. The man was unconscious. Ko, holding his arms, cast a victorious glance at his father, then set Khan into the chair. As Yao began tying him to the chair with his own bootlaces, Ko retrieved the rifle from the hallway, handing it to Corbett.

“Where is Dolan?” Yao asked.

“He carried a load outside,” Ko said in a hurried voice. “We must leave before he gets back.”

“Where is Dolan?” Shan repeated.

“He’s not a problem for us now.”

Shan searched his son’s turbulent face. “You left him in the maze,” he said with sudden realization. “You took the light and you left him in the blackness.”

“He isn’t so smart for being so rich. He let me hold the only light. I didn’t hit him hard, just enough to knock him down.”

“You planned it,” Corbett said. “It’s why you told him about the chapels, why you befriended him this morning.”

Ko did not seem to hear. He just stared at his father with challenge in his eyes. “You wanted justice. This is justice. I told him her body was in there with him, in one of the chapels. McDowell’s.”

“He could die in there,” Shan said.

“He killed Punji,” Ko shot back. “When it was over he was probably going to kill all of us. But then I saw how scared he was when he found those dead monks. That’s when I saw what should happen to him. We should go now. Into the mountains. Back to Lhadrung if that’s what you want. Leave him to rot.”

Khan began to stir. He struggled against his bindings, emitted a loud roar, like a caged beast. Corbett knocked the butt of the gun against his head and the man slumped forward, unconscious again. Corbett looked at the gun and shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, as if the weapon had moved on its own, then leaned the rifle against the shelves.

Shan and Yao turned back to their examination of the room, looking at the peche, studying paintings again, trying to understand the last puzzle of the mandala palace.

“We have to go,” Ko urged again after several minutes.

“We have to understand,” Shan said.

“Then I’ll leave alone,” Ko said, challenge back in his voice.

Before Shan could reply, Lokesh tumbled into the room, propelled toward the bed by a violent shove from the back. Behind him entered Dolan, a pistol in one hand, a butter lamp in the other.