Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

Am I becoming a clean freak, he wondered, like Graham?

He likewise let the shower run while he sat on the closed toilet seat and drank coffee. When he saw steam rise over the shower curtain, he stripped off the silk pajamas and stepped in. He winced as the water stung the raw skin on his wrists, which had been bandaged until just the day before. He spent at least ten minutes scrubbing himself with the sandalwood soap and shampoo before carefully stepping out. He had to sit down for a few minutes before he was strong enough to dry himself off. Then he put his robe back on, carried his tray to the round table by the window, and sat down to eat.

Food seemed like a miracle to him. It all seemed like a miracle.

At first he thought she had come in a dream like all the other dreams. He knew that when he came to, he would still be lying in his cave, handcuffed in his own filth and misery. But this dream was different.

He became terrified when they blindfolded him, even though it was her hand leading him through the maze of the Walled City. He had settled down when he felt himself being eased into a car, and it seemed like a short trip before he was being led along what felt like a gently rocking dock and onto a boat. He realized vaguely that he was being taken below, and then she took the blindfold off.

It was Li Lan, of course. She had come for him, and he didn’t ask why-he didn’t care why. All he knew was that she was his Kuan Yin, his goddess of mercy, and she had taken him out of hell, and now she was giving him another bowl of opium.

He drifted in and out of sleep as the boat eased along the coast. They gave him another pipe before putting the blindfold on, and he had only the haziest memory of being carried onto land and lifted into the back of a truck. She took the blindfold off again when the truck was all closed up, and it seemed as if they drove for days, and it also seemed as if the pipes were smaller and fewer.

He remembered being taken out of the truck in the middle of the night, remembered seeing soldiers, remembered seeing her face, lined with concern, as he felt a sharp jab in his arm.

“I will see you again,” she said.

Then he remembered nothing until he woke up in the clean bed with the stiff, white sheets.

And she was gone again.

In her place were doctors and nurses, murmuring in the careful, professional tones that they affect everywhere. They murmured over him, made him sip tea, massaged his sore back, rubbed salve on his wrists and bandaged them, then made him into a human porcupine.

As the days went by, he needed less attention, until he was down to the daily ministrations of the waiter, a masseuse, and one visit from the doctor.

His curiosity rose with his strength. As he emerged from the fog of illness, malnutrition, fear, and opium, the large questions began to strike him: Where am I? Who’s in charge here? What happens next?

Nobody would tell him anything. In fact, so far he hadn’t met anyone who spoke English, expect for the waiter’s obviously rehearsed “Good morning. Breakfast.” From his ground-floor window he could see only a rectangular, gravel-surfaced parking lot cut off from the street by a tall gate. A ten-foot high fence, topped by strands of barbed wire and delicately screened by shrubs, stretched to the left into a copse of trees. To the right, it ran into another wing of the building.

Neal knew he was in a city because he could hear traffic noises, although it took him several days to recognize the late-afternoon cacophony as the jingling of thousands of bicycle bells. He heard few cars but more trucks, and occasionally the uniformed guard at the gate would swing it open for a delivery truck or an official-looking car.

So, as for where he was, he knew he was in a city somewhere in China.

Who was in charge? Who had him? He tried to put it together. If Li Lan was, as it seemed, a Chinese spy, then it must be the Chinese intelligence service. But why? Why dump him in the Walled City and then come back for him? Why all the TLC and the first-class treatment-silk pajamas, for Christ’s sake? Why did the door lock behind the waiter, the nurse, and the doctor? Why was he in this luxurious solitary confinement?

These musings led to the not-unrelated question of what would happen next. What the hell did they want from him? What did they want him to do? The pleasant thought that they were cleaning him up to send him home occurred to him, but he didn’t allow himself to dwell on it. Better to concentrate on getting well, and just see what happened. Besides, what choice did he have?

And there was still another question: Where was Li Lan?

He pushed that thought from his head and dug into his eggs. They really weren’t bad at all, almost as if the cook were used to making Western breakfasts, although they had been fried in some kind of oil he couldn’t identify. And he had grown quite fond of the mantou, the fist-sized steamed bun they served in place of toast. He was chewing on it when the first nonmaterial need he had felt since he could remember hit him: a newspaper.

God, how he suddenly yearned to have a newspaper. Hell, it was a natural. Newsprint went with breakfast like bacon with eggs, and he longed-longed-to find out what was happening in the world, and maybe read a little sports news. Sports. Was it still baseball season? Or football? Or that fantastic time of the American calendar when both were in full swing, so to speak?

I must be getting healthy, he thought.

The opium jones had been tough, but not that tough, he considered. Maybe it was because he didn’t do enough for long enough to get really addicted, or maybe it was because the Chinese know how to treat it, but he hadn’t felt the agonies of withdrawal he had observed in others, including his own sainted mother. Every once in a while, particularly as he recovered enough to feel actual boredom, a pang of need-no, it was more like want-struck him, and he would muse on how nice it would be to drift off on an opium cloud. But he was enjoying the real pleasures of real food and real comfort too much to become seriously obsessed with the smoke and mirrors of a dope high. He’d take a good cup of coffee any day, thank you. Now if he could just get a newspaper.

Of course, a newspaper couldn’t answer some of the other small questions that niggled at him during his wealth of spare time. Why did everyone call him Mr. Frazier? Why was the closet full of clothes for Mr. Frazier? Why did these clothes have labels from Montreal, Toronto, and New York? Why did they all fit him perfectly? Who was this Mr. Frazier, who had the same size shirts, the same size shoes, the same inseam as his? Neal was strictly an off-the-rack guy, but Mr. Frazier obviously had a close relationship with a pretty good tailor. Neal had never dressed so well in his life.

All dressed up and nowhere to go, Neal thought.

Silk pajamas.

He tried to work up a little indignation about the whole thing, but he was just too tired. He took another sip of coffee, pushed back his chair, and slipped back to bed. He needed more sleep, his head was getting fuzzy, and somewhere in the back of a still-muddled brain, he knew he would need more rest to handle… what? He let himself drop into sleep. The waiter would wake him with lunch.

It was a setting for two, and it came early.

Neal knew a hint when he saw one, and changed from his robe into some of the clothes made for the mysterious Mr. Frazier: tan slacks, a light blue sports shirt, and cordovans. He shaved carefully, his shaky hand nicking him only once, and brushed his hair. He had just finished when he heard a timid knock.

A young man stuck his head in the door.

“May I come in?” he asked. His English had only a slight accent.

“Yes. Please.”

He was in his early twenties, about five-seven, maybe 120 pounds if he had a lot of change in his pockets. He wore gray trousers that looked like polyester, a stiff white shirt, and a dark brown jacket. He had thick glasses with heavy brown frames. His black hair was thick, parted at the side, and just touched the tops of his ears. His smile looked nervous but warm, and he blushed with shyness.