Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

“I’m sorry about that,” Neal said as they got into the elevator.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does! It matters a-”

“Let’s just get shit-faced.”

The noodle bar surprised Neal. It had an almost Western feel of the dreaded decadence. The lights were low, the small tables had red paper covers and lanterns, and the entire south wall was composed of windows and sliding glass doors to give a spectacular view of the Nan River and the city beyond. A wide-open terrace had tables and scattered lounge chairs, and you could lean over the balcony railing to see the street fourteen floors below. The bar itself ran at least half the length of the large room, and it looked like a real bar. Glasses hung upside down from ceiling racks, bottles of beer cooled in tanks of ice, liquor bottles glistened on the back wall, and wooden stools provided plenty of spots to belly up. Off to the side, a cook fried noodles on a small grill, but the whole noodle bit was clearly just a gimmick to get past the bureaucracy. The operative word in “noodle bar” was Bar.

There weren’t many customers. A few cadre types were smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and having a quiet conversation at one table, while a few Japanese businessmen sat silently at the bar. The tone was subdued but not sullen. It had the feel of any late weeknight in any bar in any city in the world, and Neal had to remind himself that it was only ten o’clock. The place closed at ten-thirty.

Neal dragged Wu to the bar, lifted a finger to the bartender, and said, “Two cold ones.”

The bartender looked to Wu.

“Ar pijiu.”

The bartender popped open two bottles and set them on the bar. Neal tossed some Chinese bills down. Wu retrieved a couple and handed them back to Neal.

“Plenty,” he said.

“Let’s go out on the terrace.”

“Okay.”

They stood against the balcony wall and looked out at Chengdu. Lack of electric power made the city lights relatively dim, but their low glow made the night soft and somehow poignant. A few old-style lanterns shone in the windows of the stucco houses of the old neighborhood, while behind them the low electric lights in the new prosaic high-rise apartments made geometric patterns in the night sky. Just across Hongxing Road the Nan River made a lazy S-curve, and the lamps of a few houseboats reflected in the water.

The soft night took the edge off Neal, and the urge to get drunk left him as suddenly as it had come. He felt a little ashamed, too, about leading Wu into trouble. Better just to have a couple of beers, talk a little Mark Twain, and leave it at that.

Anyway, he thought, the kid isn’t used to alcohol, and you’re not in drinking shape anyway. Maybe they’ll let you take a scotch back to your room.

He knocked back a long slug of the domestic Chinese beer and found that it wasn’t bad. Wu didn’t seem to mind it, either, sipping at it steadily as he drank in the view.

“Can we see your house from here?” Neal asked him.

“Other direction.” He was still smarting from the scene at the door, nursing a grudge along with the beer.

Maybe that isn’t all that bad, Neal thought. If I were him, I’d have a hell of a grudge, too, and it might be better to nurse it than to forget it. Come to think of it, I do have a hell of a grudge, and I’m not going to forget it either.

“Beautiful city,” Neal said.

“Fuck yes.”

“You want another beer?”

“I’m not finished this one yet.”

“You will be by the time I get back.”

Neal held up his empty bottle in one hand and two fingers in the other. The bartender responded with the requisite two brews and even made change for Neal. The cadres at the one table stopped their conversation to stare at Neal as he walked past.

“Hi, guys,” he said.

They didn’t answer.

Neal handed Wu his fresh bottle. “Here’s to Mark Twain.”

“Mark Twain.”

“And Du Fu.”

“Du Fu.”

“And here’s to Mr. Peng, who’s coming through the door.”

Peng nodded a hello to the boys at the table and came out on the terrace. He looked pissed off, and the sight of Wu with a beer bottle in his hand didn’t do anything to improve his mood. He spoke rapidly to Wu and then stood looking at Neal.

“He is happy you are enjoying your evening.”

Meaning exactly the opposite, Neal thought.

“If he’s happy, I’m thrilled,” Neal answered.

“He says to pack your bags tonight.”

Neal felt his heart racing. Maybe they were going to put him on a plane.

“You will be gone for three days,” Wu continued.

“Where?”

“Dwaizhou Production Brigade.”

“What’s that? A factory?”

“No. It is in the countryside, perhaps one hundred miles south of Chengdu. You would call it a commune.”

“A collectivized farm.”

“As you say.”

“It’s a tourist thing?”

Peng spoke quickly.

“Foreign guests love to see production brigades,” Wu translated. “This is one of Sichuan’s best. Highly productive.”

Swell. They’re finished displaying me in the city, so we’re taking a weekend in the country. What for? More Mr. Frazier bullshit?

“How are you going to keep me down on the farm, after I’ve seen Chengdu?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Do me a favor, Xiao Wu? Last call is coming. Go to the bar and get us three beers?”

“I don’t think-”

Peng told him to go. He and Neal stood staring at each other for a few seconds.

“Let’s cut the translation crap, okay?” Neal said.

Peng smiled narrowly. “As you wish.”

“What’s the game here?”

“I have gone to great lengths to explain that.”

“You have gone to great lengths to avoid explaining that.”

“Things are not always what they appear.”

“Grasshopper.”

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing. Come on, Peng, what’s the deal? Why are we going to the country?”

“You do not wish to go?”

“What are we talking about here?”

“Your returning home. The sooner you go on this trip, the sooner you can go home. Of course, if you wish to delay…”

“I’ll be packed and ready.”

Wu returned with the beers and stood on the edge of their conversation. He edged forward when he saw that they had stopped speaking, and offered the beers.

“I do not drink beer,” Peng said. It wasn’t a comment, it was an order.

“Yes,” said Wu, setting the beers on a table, “it is late and we must start early in the morning.”

Neal scooped up the beers. “I’ll just take them to my room, then.”

“That is against the law,” said Peng.

“Arrest me,” answered Neal. He popped Wu on the shoulder and walked out the bar. He could feel Peng’s glare on his back, and it felt great.

Peng was furious. Until his conversation with the arrogant, rude young American, his evening had been going quite well. Persuading Comrade Secretary Xao to send Carey into the countryside had been ludicrously easy.

“I think we had better bring him closer to the asset,” he’d told the secretary.

“Yes? Why? It seems he has attracted no attention at all.”

Peng had furrowed his brow and stared at the floor.

“That is just what concerns me,” Peng had said. “Perhaps they are waiting to be sure. Perhaps the young fool is even working for the opposition. He is, after all, the only one who could actually identify China Doll.”

And that was the problem. Peng would have liked to put a bullet in the back of Carey’s skull right away, or, better yet, seen how he enjoyed a decade or two in the salt mines of Xinxiang, but the rude young round-eye was the only one left who could point a finger at Xao’s precious China Doll. Or bring her out of hiding, her and her American lover.