The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

13

Joe Graham stood impatiently on a narrow, cracked sidewalk on Lion Rock Road, outside one of the tenement buildings that ringed the Walled City like giant barricades. He shivered a little as he watched a “dentist” in a ground-floor stall dig into the tooth of one of his patients with a hand-powered drill.

Graham was nervous for a lot of reasons. He was dangerously close to the infamous ghetto into which Neal Carey had disappeared; he didn’t have a gun; he was there without orders from the Man. But most of all he was nervous because the smart-ass Chinese kid was late for their appointment to trade the rest of the cash for Neal Carey.

A couple of minutes later the guy showed up. He had a couple of buddies with him, but no Neal.

What’s the scam, Graham wondered. What now?

“So?” he asked the guy.

“The deal’s off,” Honcho answered flatly. Fuck it. Let the kweilo work it out.

The words hit Graham like a shot in the chest and he didn’t even flinch as the two helpers patted him down. He wasn’t carrying, anyway.

“What do you mean?” Graham asked.

Honcho shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

“I want to know.”

Of course. All the losers did.

“You were outbid.”

“I didn’t know I was in an auction.”

“Now you know.”

Graham felt himself getting hot all over. Maybe it was the wiseguy smirk-it was the same old smirk the wiseguys always had, didn’t matter what country you were in. Maybe it was the barrels of the pistols his two escorts were showing him. More likely it was the fact that he had lost Neal again.

“I’ll top the highest bid.”

“You must be awfully horny.”

“I’ll double it.”

“Sorry.”

“How much? Name it!”

“Too late.”

Graham grabbed him by his silk lapel and pulled him in tight, trapping the guy’s right arm under his own artificial one and pressing hard. He saw a glimmer of pain and fear appear in the punk’s eyes and held him tighter. See if the fuckers want to shoot now.

“Listen, asshole,” Graham hissed. “This isn’t over. It’ll never be over until I get that kid back safe.”

“Let go of me.”

“I’ll bring an army in there.”

“You do that.”

Graham shoved him hard and the punk fell against his buddies. One of them leveled his pistol at Graham.

“Do it, chickenshit. Do it.”

Honcho grabbed his boy’s wrist and started to back away.

“Go home, old man,” he said.

They left Graham standing there. He didn’t stand there for long. He went off to get an army.

The kweilo pushed the rice bowl away and pointed to the opium pipe. Old Man sighed-it was the same argument every day. The kweilo wouldn’t eat unless you gave him some opium, and when you gave him the opium, he didn’t want to eat. Old Man signaled the usual compromise, holding up the index finger of each hand. One serving of rice for one rock of opium. The kweilo nodded and wolfed down half a bowl of rice.

Neal sucked his reward down and grabbed his chopsticks to get the next mouthfuls of rice over with. He did this four more times and then he was flying out of the room again. The pain, the cramps, the aching loneliness, the fear, the godawful boredom stayed on the ground with his body as his mind flew to join Li Lan in her paintings. It never lasted long, never long enough, but it was a little bit of heaven in a whole lot of hell.

So he was real pissed off when the door came swinging open and Honcho walked in. Honcho was always a pain. Honcho didn’t want him to do too much opium. Honcho wanted him complacent, not completely stoned. Neal wanted to be completely stoned.

Honcho had his clothes.

A shaft of pure fear penetrated Neal’s opium haze.

I’ve been sold.

He saw the buyer come through the door.

“Oh, God,” Neal murmured. “You’ve come to get me.”

Then he broke down into racking, uncontrollable sobs. He was still crying as they took the pipe from him, got him dressed, and took him to the door.

Neal stopped at the doorway and stuck his stoned, teary face into Old Man’s.

“You are,” Neal said, “the Unpredictable Ghost.”

The old man nodded happily as Honcho hauled Neal out the door.

Sergeant Eddie Chang stood aside as two of his men kicked in the door. He had ten other officers with drawn guns backing him up, so he leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette.

He was pissed off. He’d spent half his life scrambling around to get out of the Walled City, and he didn’t like coming back for any reason. Especially business.

But the word had been sent from New York. And the word had come from a former Hong Kong police sergeant who had skipped out ahead of the prosecutors with only the clothes on his back and six million dollars in cash. And this old cop had bought himself a couple of new suits and the entire New York City Triad organization, so if he gave the word to give this one-armed guy anything he asked for, that’s what Eddie Chang was going to do, even if it meant paying a visit to the old neighborhood.

The old neighborhood was giving him some pretty dirty looks, too. He could feel them coming down from the tenement windows, from the alleys, and especially from the young stud who was lying face down in the dirt with his hands behind his neck and a machine-gun barrel jammed against his head.

“Pick him up,” Chang ordered.

The officer hauled the kid to his feet. Chang lit another cigarette and stuck it into the kid’s mouth.

“You’re pretty far from your turf,” Honcho said.

“I’m here from Big-Ear Fu, so shut your mouth.”

The door gave way and the two cops burst inside. The little one-armed round-eye was right behind them.

“He’s not there,” Honcho said to Eddie.

“Where is he?” Graham asked the old man who was huddled in the corner. “Where is he?!”

Graham looked around in disbelief. The place was impossibly filthy and it stank to high heavens. He looked up at the hollowed-out loft and saw the handcuffs.

It was a bad moment for Eddie Chang to bring Honcho in, because Joe Graham was going nuts. He grabbed the cuffs and swung them in a wide arc that ended abruptly at Honcho’s neck.

“Where is he?!”

“He’s gone.”

“Where?!” The cuffs hit Honcho’s face.

Eddie Chang stepped in and moved Graham away.

“He told me your friend’s an addict. Opium.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible here.”

Graham broke away and got himself a little space. Neal smoking opium? Neal a junkie like his old lady?

“Where is he?” Graham repeated.

“They sold him to some Chinese,” Chang said.

“When?” Graham asked.

Honcho smiled. “You just missed him.”

Graham grabbed Chang by the elbow. “Let’s get going. We can catch them.

“There’s no way,” said Chang. “He could be anywhere in the world by now.”

“You know junkies,” said Honcho. “Maybe he just flew away.”

Chang threw Honcho to the floor, then pulled his pistol from its holster and pointed it at Honcho’s head.

“Yes?” Chang asked, looking at Graham.

Graham thought about Neal Carey being held a prisoner here, being force-fed dope, being sold off to some Asian brothel. He looked down at Honcho.

“No,” Graham said. He had enough blood on his conscience and other things to do. Like look all over the world for Neal Carey.