Don Winslow - The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

Neal bought a copy of the book and a bright blue vinyl tube bag that proclaimed “I Left My ¦ in San Francisco,” and headed back to his room.

He ordered a cheeseburger from room service and started to pack the tube bag. The last bus back from Mill Valley left at 9:00 P.M. and seeing as he didn’t have any idea what he was going to do, he didn’t know if he’d be done doing it by then, so he packed for an overnight: a black sweater, black jeans, black tennis shoes, gloves, burglary kit, and two thousand dollars in cash. He took a quick shower, changed into a fresh shirt, and put his khaki slacks and all-purpose blue blazer, rep tie, and loafers back on.

The costume made him more forgettable than he was already. With his medium build, medium height, brown hair, and brown eyes, he could have been the poster boy for Anonymous Anonymous.

He wolfed down the eight-dollar cheeseburger, then took his tube bag, his paperback copy of Ferdinand Count Fathom, and his unremarkable looks and headed out to catch the two-twenty.

Like a lot of voyages, this one was born of desperation. There was no reason for him to expect that Pendleton and Lila should be in Mill Valley, and no way for him to locate them even if they were. But the tickets to Mill Valley were the only leads he had, so he might as well pursue them. The only other option was to put a call in to Friends and tell them he had blown it, and that was no option at all.

So he figured he’d just take the ride to Mill Valley, snoop around a little, and see what he could see. Maybe he’d have one of those rare instances of dumb luck and run into Pendleton on the bus. Maybe find him at the Terminal Bookstore, poring over the latest issue of Chickenshit Illustrated Maybe he’d waste an afternoon chasing a wild goose.

But there were worse fates than cruising across the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny California afternoon. After six months in the rain and fog of a Yorkshire moor, the blue sky and open vista made Neal a little giddy. His cynical heart raced a bit, his jaded New York eyes widened, and his sardonic agent-for-hire leer opened into a smile as he rolled across the bridge, the Pacific on the left, the Bay on the right.

Just a natural-born tourist on an outing, he thought as the bus pulled into Mill Valley. A chameleon, a mere ripple in the shadows: the unobserved observer.

He stood out like a hard-on in a harem.

Nobody in Mill Valley wore a tie, Neal saw, and if anyone wore a jacket, it had leather fringe on it. Everyone was wearing plaid cotton shirts with denim overalls, or denim workshirts and painter’s pants, or actual robes. And a lot of sandals, running shoes, and biker boots.

Neal, on the other hand, looked like a Young Republican in need of an enema. Like a Ronald Reagan delegate at a communist party meeting. Like a rookie insurance agent going to sell term-life to Abbie Hoffman.

As he stepped off the bus, the locals gathered around the Terminal Bookstore actually stared at him. He couldn’t have been any more conspicuous if he had been wearing a sandwich board reading, UPTIGHT, UNCOOL, NON-JOGGING, MEAT-EATING, EAST COAST, URBAN NEOFASCIST WHO DOESN’T MEDITATE. Even the mellow dogs lying under the benches pricked up their ears and started to whine with unaccustomed anxiety, as if expecting Neal to slip a leash on them or otherwise impede their freedom to revel the oneness of nature.

The intellectuals playing chess at the outdoor wooden tables paused in their deliberations to stare at Neal’s neckwear. A couple of the older, kinder ones shook their heads in the sadness of a dim memory when they themselves had been similarly encumbered. Three teenagers who were sharing a joint suddenly developed a need to scamper to the trash barrel, which was painted a deep forest green. A winsome young lady playing a wooden flute stopped her warbling and hugged her instrument tightly to her breasts, as if afraid that Neal might snatch it out of her hand and use it to beat a kitten to death.

Neal wished he were naked-he would have felt less self-conscious. But there he stood, fully clad, in beautiful Mill Valley.

And it was beautiful, set in a hollow edged by steep hills made green with pines, cedars and redwoods. Houses built from these native woods blended into the slopes, and their cantilevered decks kept watch over the village. Coffee shops, restaurants, and art studios framed the main square, which was actually a triangle, the apex of which was occupied by the Terminal Bookstore.

The fast-running brook that bordered the west side of the village provided a natural air-conditioning effect; the air was cool and crisp-even cold in the shadows-and people found spots in the sunshine to sit and consider the world. The world seemed a pretty nice place from Mill Valley, as if its citizens had gotten the Sixties right, frozen the best parts of it here, and made them work. The world seemed pretty nice, that is, unless you were wearing a button-down oxford shirt, blue blazer, and polished black loafers.

Neal sought cover in a coffee shop across the street. It had floor-to-ceiling picture windows on three sides. The walls, floors, and counters were made of polished pine, and wooden stools were set by the wraparound bar. A middle-aged blond women smiled at him as he walked in, attractive wrinkles of laughter and sunshine crinkling around her brown eyes. She was wearing a fire-engine red chamois shirt over faded denims.

“What would you like?” she asked.

“One black coffee to go,”

She stared at him sympathetically.

“What kind?” she asked.

“Black.”

She pointed at a blackboard behind her on which about a dozen brands of coffee were written.

“Uuuuhhh,” said Neal, “Mozambique Mocha.”

“Decaf?”

He felt a sudden burst of courage and defiance.

“Caf,” he said. “Double caf, if you have any.”

She came back a few moments later and handed him a Styrofoam cup.

“You really should drink decaf,” she said as she looked pointedly at his attire. “Really. You looked wired.”

“I am wired.”

“See?”

“I like being wired.”

“It’s an addiction.” “It is.”

“Try herbal,” she said with great sincerity. It was clear to Neal that she was convinced he was dying.

“Herbal coffee?” he asked.

“It’s so good.”

“And so good for you?”

“You should meditate,” she said as she poured him his poison. “Unwind.”

“Nah, then I’d just have to get all wound up again.”

He took his black, caffeinated Mozambique Mocha and sat on a bench in the square. He sipped at his coffee and wondered what to do next. He had been in Mill Valley for at least five minutes and neither Pendleton nor Lila had shown up yet. Didn’t they realize he was on a tight schedule? Oh, well, he thought, when in Mill Valley… He loosened his tie, unbuttoned his collar, set his coffee down, and leaned back, raising his face to the late-afternoon sunshine. Maybe I should meditate, he thought. Maybe if I meditate hard enough I can make Pendleton appear. Better yet, Lila.

Her name wasn’t Lila, it was Li Lan. She wasn’t a prostitute, she was a painter. And she wasn’t as beautiful as she was in the snapshot. She was far more beautiful.

Neal stared at the two photographs of her on a poster at the Terminal Bookstore. The poster promoted a showing of her paintings at a local gallery called Illyria. “Shan Shui by Li Lan,” it read, and included black-and-white photos of several paintings: large, sprawling landscapes featuring mountains mirrored in rivers and lakes. The photos of Li Lan were arranged so that in one she appeared to be contemplating her work, while in the other she stared out at the viewer. It was this image that captivated Neal. Her face was open and unprotected. All the lines of sorrow and happiness were there for him to read. Gentleness lit her eyes.