Don Winslow: Way Down on the High Lonely

Actually, I can’t just get anybody, Graham thought. I need you. But we got to take this one step at a time, ease you back in while I can keep an eye on you. See if you can still do the job or whether you’re a burnout case. Three years of what amounts to solitary confinement can do strange things to even the best. And Neal Carey was the best… had been, anyway.

“Look,” Graham continued as Neal sulked, “we’ll pick up little Cody, drop him back on Mommy’s lap, and go right back to New York. You’ll have the whole summer to jerk off before you start classes.”

“What classes?”

“Weren’t you in graduass school when we last saw you? Trying to con them into giving you your masturbator’s degree? Which should be a lock, if you ask me.”

Columbia University… English department. His would-be master’s thesis, “Tobias Smollett: The Outsider in Eighteenth-Century English Literature.” It seemed like a different life. Come to think of it…

“Wait a minute,” Neal said, “I’m supposed to be dead.”

Graham nodded. “It’s an appealing fantasy, I agree. So you were dead, now you’re alive. A glitch in the computer. Nothing a little WD-40 and a contribution to the library can’t take care of.”

We have to get him back in school, Graham thought. If Neal’s finished as a detective he’s going to need a trade. Seeing as he can’t do anything useful, he might as well be a college professor, which is what he wants to be anyway.

Neal poured himself another cup of the excellent green tea. He knew it had been provided only because he had a foreign guest, so he might as well take advantage of it. He listened to the sound of the morning chants rising up from the main temple, the numbing monotony that was supposed to focus the chanter on nothingness-and did.

“So,” Neal began carefully, “all I have to do is help you pick up this kid, and then I can go back to New York and back to grad school?”

It sounded too good to be true-a life again.

Graham asked, “You think you got that now, or would you like me to repeat it again? Make up your mind; I want a cold beer and a hot steak.”

Neal laughed. “It’s a long hike down the mountain, Graham.”

Graham stared at him for a long moment. “What, you never heard of a helicopter? Honestly…”

Neal lifted his cup to his lips, thought it over, and then poured the tea on the ground.

“Do they serve coffee on this helicopter?” he asked.

“For the money we’re paying, they’d better.”

Neal stood up. “Let’s go.”

“About goddamn time,” Graham said as he got to his feet.

Then Neal Carey did a very un-Chinese thing. He reached out, grabbed Joe Graham by the back of the neck, and pulled him close.

“Thanks for coming to get me, Dad,” Neal said.

“You’re welcome, son.”

So Neal Carey came back from the dead.

Neal woke up between the cool, crisp sheets of a king-size bed. He opened his eyes and looked through the sliding glass door where the sun sat like a fat orange in the haze of a southern California morning. The air conditioner was humming happily, a cheerful reminder of the comfort that came with wealth: it may be getting hot outside the hotel, but in here it’s any temperature you want it to be.

A similarly welcoming voice lilted from the corridor, “Room service.”

Neal wasn’t quite sure that this was all real, but if it was a dream, he was willing to go along with it.

“Come in!” he called back.

A young waiter in a starched white uniform rolled in a stainless steel cart, flipped up a folding panel, opened the side doors, removed a white linen tablecloth, and laid it over the panel to form a little dining table. He placed a narrow vase with a single yellow rose on top, then the silverware wrapped in a linen napkin, then the silver coffee service, then a little silver container with slivers of butter in a small bowl of ice.

“I’m Richard,” he said. “Are you enjoying the Beverly, sir?”

“So far,” Neal answered, although he could barely remember even arriving at the Beverly. He sat up against the cushioned headboard.

“Do you want me to serve you now, sir?” Richard asked. “Or would you like to shower first?”

A shower? The closest thing Neal had come to a shower lately was a freezing waterfall.

“Shower, I think.”

“But may I pour you some coffee first?” Richard asked.

You bet, Richard, if it means that much to you. “Please,” Neal said.

Richard took out a heavy, cream-colored cup and saucer and carefully poured the coffee.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked.

“Neither.”

“All right,” Richard announced, “you have the Beverly Breakfast-coffee, grapefruit juice, scrambled eggs with bacon, and the basket with a selection of wheat toast, muffins, croissants, and Danish. I’ll keep it in here over the heater, so be very careful when you take it out, okay?”

“Okay.”

Richard placed two folded newspapers on the foot of the bed. “LA Times, New York Times…”

God bless you, Richard.

“… and if there’s anything else, you will please call and let me know. Now, sir, if you wouldn’t mind just signing here…”

Richard approached his bedside and handed him the check and a pen. Neal signed, added a tip to the already substantial service charge, and handed it back.

“May I ask you a question, Richard?”

“Of course, sir.”

“Where am I?”

Richard didn’t even blink. He was used to serving breakfasts on many mornings after the night before.

“The Beverly Hilton, sir.”

“Keep going.”

“Beverly Hills… Los Angeles…”

“Yeah?”

“California.”

“I just want to hear the words, Richard.”

“The United States…”

“Of…”

“America, sir.”

“Beautiful, Richard.”

“Far out, sir.”

Far out, indeed, Neal thought as he took his first sip of coffee. Black coffee, strong coffee. His caffeine addiction came back like an annoying old friend.

Richard left and Neal took his coffee into the bathroom, which was larger than his cell back in China. He looked at the telephone on the wall, within easy reach of the toilet, and decided that the people who stayed in this place must be busy people. He turned the shower on and reveled in the smell of clean, hot water. He opened the little cardboard box of designer soap, took the little bottle of designer shampoo, and stepped into the shower.

He scoured himself with the soap, scrubbed his hair with the shampoo, and then stood under the steaming jet for a good five minutes longer than necessary. In China he had been treated to a weekly bath in a shallow tub full of lukewarm water that had been used by at least three other men before him, so this shower was a treat.

He stepped out reluctantly, lured by the scent of coffee, the image of scrambled eggs and bacon, and the thought of a newspaper. He found a white terrycloth robe in the closet, slipped it on, and went back into the main room to investigate breakfast.

Joe Graham was munching on his toast.

“How did you get in?” Neal asked.

“I could get used to this,” Graham mumbled. “A very clean place. I got an extra key from the front desk. Can I warm that up for you?”

Neal held his cup out and Graham filled it.

“You don’t mind if I eat, do you?” Neal asked.

“Careful with the plates, they’re hot. And you have a fine selection of croissants, Danish, and muffins.”

Neal took the hot plate out of the tray’s warmer, set it on the table, and lifted the cover. The smell alone brought him close to tears, but then again, he’d breakfasted on rice gruel for the past few years, except on holidays, when he’d been allowed to add peanuts to the gruel.