Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

Levine laughed and hung up. Neal dialed another number.

“AgriTech. May I transfer your call?”

“Dr. Robert Pendleton, please.”

“One moment.”

Here we go again.

Another voice, a harsh male voice, came on the line. “Who is this?”

“Who is this?”

“Why are you inquiring about Dr. Pendleton?”

“Why are you inquiring why I’m inquiring?”

“Please identify yourself or I will have to terminate this call.”

Terminate this call?! What the hell is going on with this stupid case? Who says stuff like “terminate this call”? Security types, that’s who.

“This is the assistant manager at the Chinatown Holiday Inn,” Neal said. “Dr. Pendleton left some medication behind when he checked out, and I wanted to know if I should FedEx it, or whether regular mail would do.”

“One moment.”

They must all go to the same school, Neal thought.

“Dr. Pendleton says that regular mail will be sufficient.”

“May I confirm that with him personally, please? Company rules.”

“He’s very busy at the moment.”

“I’m sure he is. Thank you.”

Neal packed in a hurry. Suddenly he didn’t want to be in the hotel, where anyone could find him. There were too many contradictions. Joe Graham never takes vacations and hates Ireland, but he’s on vacation in Ireland. Ed Levine says that Bob Pendleton is back at work, but he isn’t, because AgriTech security relays a message from him about medication that doesn’t exist. And someone tries to kill me because I found Pendleton.

Whoever was diddling the door was doing it well, because it barely made a sound. But Neal Carey had done a lot of doors and he heard it like it was an alarm bell. Which it was.

Someone had picked up his trail and was planning something nasty in the ever-so-nice Mark Hopkins, and there was no way out of the tiny room.

Which was maybe okay, he thought.

Neal grabbed the letter opener off the desk and waited behind the door. He was scared as hell, but he was also getting a little tired of being jerked around, and whoever was coming through the door was going to get a little surprise in the form of a letter opener swung fast and hard.

Neal’s heart raced like the ball on a roulette wheel as he heard the lock click and watched the door handle come up. If the guy had a gun, he had to beat him to the punch, so to speak-put him down hard and keep him down so he could ask him a few questions.

The door came open slowly and Neal let loose. The point of the opener stuck into the intruder’s arm and quivered.

“What’s the matter? You got a babe in there, you don’t want me to come in?”

Joe Graham was staring at him curiously.

“Come in.”

Graham plucked the letter opener from his rubber arm. He looked disgustedly at the sleeve of his shirt. “This is a new shirt, Neal. I just bought it.”

Neal’s heart slowed to a mere gallop. He slammed the door shut behind Graham. Looking at the purple shirt, he said, “I did you a favor.”

Neal plunked himself down on the bed and let out a long sigh.

“You’re not happy to see me,” said Graham.

“I thought you were on vacation in Ireland.”

“Funny thing about that, son. I finished prying you out of your cave and called in. All of a sudden, Levine is nagging me about all this vacation time I got built up. Says I have to take it right now. I say okay, but then get to thinking maybe there’s a reason they don’t want me around just when they send you on a job. I get thinking maybe I should come back on the sly and check on my dearly beloved son, who might fuck up and get himself hurt without his dear old dad there to help him out. So, son, how have you fucked up and what kind of trouble are you in?”

Neal started at the top and told Graham the whole story, taking him through the search of Room 1016, his dance with Benchpress, the trip to Mill Valley, dinner at the Kendalls, Li Lan’s seductive offer, and the shot that nearly killed him. Graham sat silent for the whole monologue, except for a few tongue-cluckings and mutterings of “Shame” at some of Neal’s more egregious errors.

When Neal finished the long story, Graham asked, “So what did she look like naked?”

“What?”

“The babe. The China doll. What did she look like in the flesh?”

“Jesus, Graham.”

Graham went over to the courtesy bar and removed two of the little bottles of scotch. He wiped the hotel’s glass with a handkerchief, poured himself a double, and sipped contentedly.

“Tell me again. From the hot-tub part.”

“Graham, if you think I’m going to sit here and indulge your prurient-

“Indulge this,” Graham said, showing him precisely. “Now tell your old dad. And don’t skip a single juicy detail.”

When Neal had finished the reprise, Graham smiled, shook his head, and said, “She never was going to do you, you idiot. She was just stalling you so Pendleton could get in the car without your getting wise. She doesn’t know you like I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“She told you to wait, remember? Then, when you weren’t buying-you’re an asshole, by the way-she gave you something to keep your, uh, mind on until everyone got nice and comfy in the car. Then she ran off, leaving you holding, shall I say, the bag?”

Neal wondered if he looked as stupid as he felt.

“You don’t think she really wanted to have sex with me?”

“Well, you were naked. She probably got a good look at you.”

“What about the shot? She was setting me up!”

Graham went back to the refrigerator, found a six-dollar can of smoked almonds, and poured them on a plate. He popped the nuts in his mouth as he talked.

“Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. Could be none of them knew anything about any shot.”

“She ran away!”

“Good idea when shooting breaks out. What did you want her to do, cover you with her body? Oh, that’s right, that’s exactly what you wanted her to do.”

“Pass me an almond.”

“Get your own food.”

“That is my food.”

“Not anymore.”

Neal found a Swiss chocolate bar priced like a silver ingot.

Graham continued, “You ask me, I don’t think she even heard the shot. I think she was just running from you because that was part of the plan. Get you all hot and bothered so you weren’t thinking straight-again, they don’t know you like I do-and leave you wet and naked in the tub. No clothes, no towel. Very bright of you, by the way, son. You also ask me, I don’t think the bullet was meant for you, as appealing an idea as that might be.”

“Why not?” Neal asked, realizing he sounded almost indignant, as if suddenly he wasn’t important enough to be shot at.

“They could have whacked you anytime. The broad didn’t have to show you her stuff to do that. They could have popped you when you first got in the tub.”

“So who-” Neal started, but stopped because he couldn’t talk and think at the same time. Why had AgriTech told him Pendleton was there when he wasn’t? Maybe because they thought Pendleton was dead?

“I called Ed,” Neal said. “He told me Pendleton came back and told me to do the same.”

“So?”

“So I called AgriTech and they told me the same thing.”

“So Ed is right for a change. These things happen.”

“But Pendleton isn’t there, Dad.” He related his ruse involving the medication, then sat silently while Graham rubbed his rubber fist into his palm.

“I think,” Graham said finally, “we have to find out a little more about AgriTech.”

Something about AgriTech was wrong.

The library said so. One of the things that Neal loved about libraries was that they were all the same-not the layout or the architecture or the carpeting, of course, but the system. Once you learned the system, every library was known ground. Hunting ground.