Don Winslow: The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

He never should have opened the door.

Neal Carey knew better, too-when you open a door, you’re never really sure what you’re letting in.

But he had been expecting Hardin, the old shepherd who came every day at teatime to sip whiskey with him. It was raining-had been raining for five solid days-and by all rights Hardin should have arrived for “a bit of wet to take the chill off.”

Neal pulled his wool cardigan tighter around his neck, edged his chair a little closer to the fire, and hunched down lower over the table to read. The fire was waging a brave but losing battle against the cold and damp, which was miserable even for March in the Yorkshire moors. He took another hit of coffee and tried to settle back into Tobias Smollett’s Ferdinand Count Fathom, but his mind just wasn’t on it. He’d been at it all day, and now he was ready for a little conversation and a spot of whiskey. Where the hell was Hardin?

He looked out the small window of the stone cottage and couldn’t see a thing through the mist and driving rain, not even the dirt road that climbed up from the village below. His was the only cottage on this part of the moor, and on this afternoon he felt more isolated than ever. He usually liked that-he only hiked down to the village every three or four days to pick up supplies-but today he wanted some company. The cottage usually felt snug, but today it was suffocating. The one electric lamp didn’t do much to brighten the general gloom. Maybe he just had cabin fever; he had been up there for seven months, alone save for Hardin’s visits, with only his books for company.

So he didn’t stop to think when he heard the knock. He didn’t look out the window, or ease the door open, or even ask who was there. He just got up and opened the door to let Hardin in.

Except it wasn’t Hardin.

“Son!”

“Hello, Dad,” Neal said.

That’s when Neal Carey made his second mistake. He just stood there. He should have slammed the door shut, braced his chair against it, jumped out a back window, and never looked back.

If he had done those things, he never would have ended up in China, and the Li woman would still be alive.

Don Winslow

The Trail to Buddha's Mirror

PART ONE The China Doll

Don Winslow

The Trail to Buddha's Mirror

Graham looked miserable and ridiculous standing there. Rain sluiced off the hood of his raincoat and down onto his mud-caked shoes. He set his small suitcase down in a puddle, used his artificial right hand to wipe some water off his nose, and still managed to give Neal that grin, that Joe Graham grin, an equal measure of malevolence and glee.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he asked.

“Thrilled.”

Neal hadn’t seen him since August at Boston’s Logan Airport, where Graham had given him a one-way ticket, a draft for ten thousand pounds sterling, and instructions to get lost, because there were a lot of people in the States who were real angry at him. Neal had given half the money back, flown to London, put the rest of the money in the bank, and eventually disappeared into his cottage on the moor.

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

“Come in.”

Graham eased past Neal into the cottage. Joe Graham, five feet four inches of dripping nastiness and guile, had raised Neal Carey from a pup. Taking off his raincoat, he shook it out on the floor. Then he found the makeshift closet, pushed Neal’s clothes aside, and hung up the coat, under which he wore an electric blue suit with a burnt orange shirt and a burgundy tie. He took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, wiped the seat of Neal’s chair, and sat down.

“Thanks for all the cards and letters,” he said.

“You told me to get lost.”

“Figure of speech.”

“You knew where I was.”

“Son, we always know where you are.”

The grin again.

He hasn’t changed much in seven months, Neal thought. His blue eyes were still beady, and his sandy hair was maybe a touch thinner. His leprechaun face still looked like it was peeking out from under a toadstool. He could still point you to the pot of shit at the end of the rainbow.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Graham?” Neal asked.

“I don’t know, Neal. Your right hand?”

He made the appropriately obscene gesture with his heavy rubber hand, which was permanently cast in a half-closed position. He could do almost everything with it, except Neal did remember the time Graham had broken his left hand in a fight. “It’s when you have to piss,” Graham had said, “that you learn who your friends are.” Neal had been one of those friends.

Graham made an exaggerated pantomime of looking around the room, although Neal knew that he had absorbed every detail in the few seconds it had taken to hang up his coat.

“Nice place,” Graham said sarcastically.

“It suits me.”

“This is true.”

“Coffee?”

“You got a clean cup?”

Neal stepped into the small kitchen and came back with a cup, which he tossed into Graham’s lap. Graham examined it carefully.

“Maybe we can go out,” he said.

“Maybe we can cut the dance short and you can tell me what you’re doing here.”

“It’s time for you to get back to work.”

Neal gestured to the books stacked on the floor around the fireplace.

“I am at work.”

“I mean work work.”

Neal listened to the rain dripping off the thatched roof. It was odd, he thought, that he could hear that sound but not recognize Graham’s knock on the door. Graham had used his hard rubber hand, too, because he had been holding his suitcase in his real hand. Neal Carey was out of shape and he knew it.

He also knew it was useless trying to explain to Graham that the books on the floor were “work work,” so he settled for, “Last time we talked, I was ‘suspended,’ remember?”

“That was just to cool you out.”

“I take it I’m cooled?”

“Ice.”

Yeah, Neal thought, that’s me. Ice. Cold to the touch and easy to melt. The last job almost chilled me permanently.

“I don’t know, Dad,” Neal said. “I think I’ve retired.”

“You’re twenty-four years old.”

“You know what I mean.”

Graham started to laugh. His eyes squinted into little slits. He looked like an Irish Buddha without the belly.

“You still have most of the money, don’t you?” he said. “How long do you think you can live on that?”

“A long time.”

“Who taught you how to do that-stretch a dollar?”

“You did.”

You taught me a lot more than that, Neal thought. How to follow a mark without getting made, how to slip in and out of an apartment, how to get inside a locked file cabinet, how to search a room. Also how to make three basic, cheap meals a day, how to keep a place clean and livable, and how to have some respect for myself. Everything a private cop needs to know.

Neal had been ten years old the day he met Graham, the day he tried to pick Graham’s pocket, got caught, and ended up working for him. Neal’s mother was a hooker and his father was an absentee voter, so he didn’t have what you’d call a glowing self-image. He also didn’t have any money, any food, or any idea what the hell he was doing. Joe Graham had given him all that.

“You’re welcome,” Graham said, interrupting Neal’s reverie.

“Thanks,” said Neal, feeling like an ingrate, which was exactly how Graham wanted him to feel. Joe Graham was a major-league talent.

“I mean, you want to go back to gradu-ass school anyway, right?” Graham asked.