Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

But that’s okay, he thought, because I’m going to be the first bait in history that catches both the fish and the fisherman.

“Chengdu is the best place to eat in China,” Wu said. He had tossed back more than one maotai. “And the Hibiscus is the best place to eat in Chengdu.”

Neal wouldn’t argue with that. The decor wasn’t much; in fact, it looked like any Chinese restaurant you might wander into in Providence, Rhode Island, if you were more interested in getting laid than in getting moo goo gai pan. You walked in a narrow doorway off the street into a minuscule lobby. A door to the right led to a large dining room packed with round tables with plastic covers. Neal started through that door, but Wu explained that the room was only for Chinese citizens; foreign guests ate in private dining rooms upstairs.

“What’s the difference?” Neal asked.

“Privacy.”

Yeah, right. Privacy and the prices. Not that he really cared, the Chinese having given him the money to be Mr. Frazier in the first place.

So they climbed the stairs to a room about the size of a large den. There were three tables, but only one of them had been set. A white linen tablecloth set off the black dishes, and black enameled chopsticks with blue and gold cloisonne were set on the plates. Linen napkins were rolled in black rings, and small black china cups completed the setting. The walls had been whitewashed recently, and several charcoal sketches of bamboo leaves and hibiscus blossoms on framed rice paper had been hung. The plank floor had been painted in black enamel, and someone had gone to some trouble to carry out a “theme” with limited means. Neal didn’t think the rat that scurried across the shiny floor was part of the theme, but he pretended not to notice it and took his seat in the black wooden chair offered by the waiter. Anyway, he thought, nobody from New York had any right to be picky about rats in restaurants.

And rats always seem to know the best places, because the food was fantastic. The banquet started with a single cup of a tea that Neal had never tasted before, followed by a shot of maotai. Neal could see that Wu wasn’t much a drinker, because his face turned scarlet and he had to work hard to suppress a coughing fit. Neal hadn’t had a taste of booze in four months, and it felt good-like getting a letter from an old friend.

The drinks preceded a parade of hors d’oeuvres: pickled vegetables, small mantou with meat centers, dumplings filled with pork, and several other items that Neal didn’t recognize and was afraid to ask about. Wu exercised the proper protocol by selecting the best tidbits and putting them on Neal’s plate, a task that became more complicated as the shots of maotai went south. The last appetizers were the little pastries of red bean paste that Neal remembered from Li Lan’s dinner.

Then came the main courses: sliced duck, chunks of twice-cooked pork, a whole fish in brown sauce, steamed vegetables, a bowl of cold noodles in sesame sauce… the courses interspersed with small bowls of thin broth that cooled the mouth and cleared the palate. Somewhere in there, two or three more maotais sacrificed their lives for the greater good, and then the waiter brought out a dish of chicken with red peppers and peanuts-another one of Li Lan’s greatest hits. Neal was beginning to pray that the Hibiscus didn’t have a hot tub when the waiters brought out a tureen of hot and sour soup and then a big bowl of rice.

Neal watched Wu scoop up globs of the sticky rice and rub them in the sauces of the previous dishes. He did the same and found it was a delightful recap of the whole meal, a gustatory album of a recent memory. Wu looked as happy as a politician with a blank check.

Wu polished off his rice, leaned across the table, and said, “I have a secret to tell you.”

“You’re really a woman?”

Wu giggled. He wasn’t drunk, but he wasn’t sober either. “That is the best meal I have ever eaten in my whole life.”

“I won’t tell your mother.”

“That is not the secret.”

“Oh.”

“The secret is-I have never eaten here before.”

“That’s okay. Neither have I.”

Wu broke up on that one, but when he stopped laughing he turned terribly earnest. “Why must a foreign guest come before a Chinese can eat like this?”

“I don’t know, Xiao Wu.”

“It is an important question.”

“You could eat downstairs, right? Same food.”

Wu shook his head angrily, then looked around to see if anyone was listening. “I cannot afford it. Only party cadres can afford it.”

“Home cooking is better anyway, right?”

“Do you think we can afford to eat like this at home?” Wu asked indignantly. “We have no money for pork, for duck. Even good rice is very expensive. This food is for festivals only, sometimes for a birthday…”

He trailed off into silence.

“Let’s go get blasted, Xiao Wu.”

Wu was still smoldering in resentment. “Blasted?”

“Blasted. Hammered. Spiflicated. Shit-faced.”

“Shit-faced?!”

Wu was fighting a grin and losing.

“Shit-faced. Bombed. Intoxicated.”

“Shit-faced?!”

He was off and giggling.

“Drunk.”

“It is frowned upon.”

“Who cares?”

“Responsible persons.”

“No. Cocksuckers and motherfuckers.”

That did it. Wu was doubled over in his chair, gasping for air and mumbling, “Shit-faced.”

“Where can we go?” Neal asked.

Wu suddenly got serious. “We have to go back to the hotel.”

“Is there a bar there?”

“On the roof. There is a noodle bar.”

“I don’t want any more noodles, I want us to get shit-”

“They serve beer.”

Neal signaled the waiter. “Check, please!”

Dinner should be surprises, Neal recalled as he and Wu finished off the last cup of tea at the Hibiscus Restaurant.

The meal wasn’t surprising. Li Lan had made several of the same dishes in the Kendalls’ kitchen in Mill Valley, although not as well.

“Were all these dishes Sichuan specialties?” Neal asked Wu.

“Oh, yes. Very distinctive. In fact, Chengdu is the only place in the entire world where you can eat some of these dishes.”

Not exactly, Wu, Neal thought. You can suck down this home cooking in Kendall’s dining room in Mill Valley, provided your chef is Li Lan.

They walked the two blocks back to the hotel. A cop stopped them at the entrance. More accurately, he stopped Wu, and spoke to him brusquely.

“What’s up?” Neal asked.

“He wants to see my papers.”

“What for? I’m the foreigner.”

“Exactly. It is natural you would be in the hotel. Not natural for Chinese.”

The cop was starting to look impatient, annoyed. It was the same imperious look that Neal recognized from small-minded cops everywhere.

Neal asked, “But you’ve been here all week, right?”

“Through the back door.”

Neal saw the look of painful embarrassment on Wu’s face. He was being humiliated, and he knew it. He fumbled in his wallet for his identification card.

“He’s my guest,” Neal said to the cop.

The cop ignored him.

Neal got right in his face. “He’s my guest.”

“Please do not cause trouble,” Wu said flatly as he handed the cop his card. The cop took his sweet time looking it over.

“It’s no trouble,” Neal said.

“It is for me.”

Right, Neal thought. I’m going home. Maybe.

“You mean to tell me you can’t walk into a hotel in your own country?”

“Please be quiet.”

“Does he understand English?”

“Do you?”

The cop shoved the card at Wu and nodded him in. No apology, no smile of recognition, just a curt nod of the imperial head. Wu’s own head was down as he walked through the lobby. Neal knew that he had just seen his friend lose face, and it made him furious and sad.