The Trail to Buddha's Mirror (3 page)

He had no feel for Pendleton yet. The book on him was pretty simple. Forty-three years old, single, married to his work. Born in Chicago, B.S. from Colorado, M.S. from Illinois, Ph.D. from MIT. Taught for a couple of years at Kansas State and then went for the corporate bucks. First for Ciba-Geigy, then for Archer, Daniels Midland, and then AgriTech. Had been there for ten years before he ran into Lila. Lived in a condo, played a little tennis, drove a Volvo. No financial problems, credit hassles, debts. In fact, when you compared his salary and bonuses with his expenses, the guy should have a bunch of money in the bank. Drinks a beer on weekends. Friendly enough, but no close buddies. No women. No boys, either. Fertilizer was his life.

Jesus, Neal thought, no wonder the guy went off the deep end when he discovered sex with a gorgeous, exotic woman in a city as beautiful as San Francisco.

Neal had first gone to San Francisco back in 1970, seven years earlier, when the city was the counterculture capital. Sporting longish hair, denim, one tasteful strand of beads, and the hungry look of the fugitive, Neal was working point for Graham on your basic Haight-Ashbury runaway job. He located their particular flower child in an urban commune on Turk Street. She was the daughter of a Boston banker, and was trying hard to live down her capitalist heritage. Neal had shared a bowl of brown rice and a floor with her, gained her trust, and then ratted her out to Graham. Graham did the rest and Neal heard later that she ended up at Harvard. All betrayals should end so happily.

His next trip to the city was even easier. He was a mature twenty then, and one of the Bank’s clients wanted to film a television commercial in front of a sculpture in Battery Park. Turned out the sculpture was the work of a San Francisco artist who didn’t like to open his mail or answer his phone. Neal found A. Brian Crowe at a coffee house on Columbus. The artist dressed all in black, of course, and hid behind his cape when Neal approached him. The two thousand dollars in cash persuaded him to come out, though, and they sealed the deal over two iced espressos. A. Brian Crowe left happy. Neal hung around the city for a week, and
he
left happy, which made this an unusual assignment all around.

Neal figured you’d have to be a fool not to love San Francisco, and whatever else Dr. Robert Pendleton was or wasn’t, he was no fool. He was probably a man getting a little romance for the first time in his life and not wanting to let go of it, one of the lucky few who found a hooker who was also a courtesan, a true lady of the evening. She probably took presents instead of cash, or maybe a discreet check had been deposited in her account.

So Neal would write her another check, and that would be that.

Neal closed the file and cracked
Fathom
open. He fell asleep after a couple of chapters. The flight attendant woke him up to put his seat upright for the approach to San Francisco.

Neal had never liked the Mark Hopkins Hotel. The bill was always as large as the room was small, and the Snob Hill address didn’t impress him. But it always helps a bribery deal to look like money, and he wanted to ask Lila to a quiet drink at the Top of the Mark and have quick access to a room where he could hand her some money in privacy, so he swallowed his distaste and checked in.

He handed the Bank’s gold card to the precious clerk, confessed to having only one small bag, and found his own way to the sixth-floor room, which occupied a corner, so you could actually turn around in it without folding your arms across your chest. The windows allowed a view of the Oakland Bay Bridge and some nicely restored Victorian houses on Pine Street. Neal didn’t care much about the view, as he didn’t plan to spend a lot of time there. He wanted a slow shower and a quick meal before getting down to work.

He called down to room service and ordered a Swiss cheese omelet with a plain, toasted bagel, a pot of coffee, and a
Chronicle.
Then he stripped off his airline-grody clothes and stepped into the shower. After months of heating his own water for barely tepid outdoor baths, the steaming spray felt great. He stayed in a little too long and was still shaving when the doorbell rang.

He signed for the bill and the tip, poured a cup of black coffee, and sipped at it while he finished shaving. Then he sat down at the small table by the window to devour the food and the newspaper.

Neal was a print junkie, which he figured came with being a native New Yorker. He bypassed the front page of the
Chronicle
in favor of Herb Caen’s column, enjoyed that, and then turned to the sports section. The baseball season was about to start, and the Yankees looked pretty good for ’77. That’s one of the great things about spring, he thought. All the home teams look like they have a shot. It’s only in the sere days of summer that hopes begin to wilt, then wither and die in fall. Unless, of course, you have relief pitching.

After a thorough perusal of the sports pages, he turned to the front section to catch up on the news. Jimmy Carter really was President, wearing Ward Cleaver sweaters and treating the country like a collective Beaver. Mao was still dead, and his successors were squabbling over the remains. Brezhnev was ill. The same old same old.

Which reminded him that he had the same old job to do: find some miscreant and bring him home. He used his third cup of coffee to come up with a plan.

It wasn’t much of a plan. All he had to do was amble down to the Holiday Inn, trail them until he could find a way to contact her alone, and make his pitch. Then pick up the pieces of Pendleton’s shattered heart and check them through to Raleigh. Almost as easy as giving money to a starving artist.

That’s when he got the bright idea to let his fingers do the walking. Why drag his ass all the way down the hill and waste time following them around? Call their room instead. If he answers, hang up. If she answers, say something like, “You don’t know me, but I have a thousand bucks in cash sitting under your water glass at a table at the Top of the Mark. The name is Neal Carey. One o’clock. Come alone.” There wasn’t a hooker in the world, no matter how classy, who wouldn’t make that appointment.

Safe, simple and civilized, he thought. No point making this any harder than it has to be.

He found the hotel number in the file and dialed the phone.

“Room ten-sixteen, please,” he said.

“I’ll transfer you to the operator.”

He took a sip of coffee.

“Operator. May I help you?”

“Room ten-sixteen, please.”

“Thank you. One moment.”

It was more than a moment. More like ten moments.

“What party are you trying to reach, sir?”

Uh-oh.

“Dr. Robert Pendleton.”

“Thank you. One moment.”

Ten more moments. Long ones.

“I’m sorry, sir. Dr. Pendleton has checked out.”

Swell.

“Uuuhh … when?”

“This morning, sir.”

While I was showering, filling my face, and lounging over the spring training reports, Neal thought.

“Did he leave a forwarding address?”

“One moment.”

Did he leave a forwarding address? Your basic desperation effort.

“I’m sorry, sir. Dr. Pendleton left no forwarding address. Would you like to leave a message in case he calls in?”

“No, thank you, and thanks for your help.”

“Have a nice day.”

“Right.”

Neal poured another cup of coffee in the time it took to call himself an asshole. All right, think, he told himself. Pendleton’s checked out. Why? Maybe money. Hotels are expensive and he’s found himself a pad somewhere. Or maybe AgriTech kept bugging him, so he changed hotels. Or maybe the party is over and he’s on his way back to Raleigh. That’s the best maybe, but you can’t afford to count on it. So back to work.

Pendleton isn’t a pro, so chances are he won’t think about covering his traces. He probably doesn’t know that anyone is on his trail. And there’s only one place to pick up his trail.

Neal hustled to get dressed. He put on a powder blue button-down shirt, khaki slacks, and black loafers, slipped on a red-and-blue rep tie but left the knot open, and dumped half the stuff out of his canvas shoulder bag, leaving enough in to give it some weight. Sticking his airline ticket jacket into the pocket of his all-purpose, guaranteed-not-to-wrinkle blue blazer and shoving a ten-dollar bill in his pants pocket, he hoofed it to the elevator, which seemed to take forever to get there. He figured he was ten minutes away from his only shot at tracking Pendleton and he didn’t know if he had the ten minutes.

The Holiday Inn was on Kearny Street, a straight shot down California Street from the Hopkins. Normally he would have walked there, but the cable car was pulling up just as he hit the sidewalk, so he bought a ticket and hopped on, hanging on the side like he’d seen in the movies. It was sunny and cool out, but he was already sweating. He was in a race with the maids at the Chinatown Holiday Inn.

He got off on the corner of Kearny and California, three blocks south of the Holiday Inn. He didn’t run but he didn’t exactly walk, either, and he did the three blocks in about two minutes. Avoiding the doorman’s eyes, he headed straight for the bank of elevators, and there was one waiting for him. He caught his breath on the way up. Or almost caught it. He wanted to look a little breathless for the show.

The doors slid open and he looked at the sign—1001-1030—with an arrow pointing to the left. He trotted down the hallway and, sure enough, there were two maids’ carts sitting between rooms 1001 and 1012. So, Neal thought, it all depends on where they started.

He tried to look worried, hassled, and in a hurry. None of this required any serious level of method acting.

“I’m going to miss my flight,” he said to the maid who was just stepping out of 1012. “Did you find a ticket?”

She gave him a blank look. She was young and unsure. He stepped around her to 1016 and jiggled the handle. It was locked.

“Did you find a ticket in this room? Airline ticket?”

The other maid came out of 1011. “What you lose?”

She was an older woman. The boss.

“My plane ticket.”

“What room?” she asked, checking him out.

He knew he couldn’t give her time to connect Pendleton to the room. He hoped the good doctor hadn’t been a big tipper.

“Could you let me in, please? I have to catch a flight to Atlanta in forty-five minutes.”

“I call manager.”

“I don’t have the time,” Neal said as he pulled the ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and laid it on the edge of her cart. “Please?”

She took her key ring and slipped the key in the lock. The younger one started to speak rapidly in Chinese, but the older one shut her up with a hard glance.

“Quick,” she said to Neal. She stood in the doorway as she ushered him in. The younger one joined her, in case Neal swiped an ashtray or a TV or something.

Neal had tossed a lot of rooms in his life, but never in front of an audience with the clock running, unless he counted the endless practice sessions with Graham. This was like some sort of private cop game show, where if he passed round one he got to go on for cash and prizes. It would have helped if he knew what he was looking for, but he was just looking, and that took time.

The bed was unmade, but otherwise the room was neat. They hadn’t left in a hurry. They had even left their wet towels in the bathtub and thrown their trash in the cans.

Neal started with the bureau drawers. Nothing.

“Shit,” he said, just to give the scene realism.

He checked the nightstand beside the bed. There was one of those little hotel notepads beside the phone book and the Bible. He turned his back to the audience and stuck it in his pocket.

“I’ll never make it,” he said.

“Under bed?” the older maid suggested.

He humored her and got down on all fours and looked under the bed. There wasn’t even any dust, not to mention a bachelor sock, or a note telling him where they had gone.

“Maybe I threw it away,” he said as he got up. “Stupid.”

The maids nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

The trashcan was full, as if they’d straightened up before leaving. Polite, thoughtful people. Three empty cans of Diet Pepsi sat on some pieces of cardboard, the kind you get with your laundered shirts. A pocket map of San Francisco and a bunch of ticket stubs at the bottom.

“Jesus, how could I be so stupid?” Neal said as he bent over and reached into the trashcan. He showed his audience his butt as he slipped his airline ticket out of his pocket and into the can. Then he put the map and the ticket stubs under the ticket envelope, straightened up and showed them the ticket, then stuffed the whole mess into his lapel pocket.

“Thank you so much,” he said.

“Hurry, hurry,” said the older one.

Hurry, hurry, indeed, thought Neal.

Security picked him up in the lobby.

Security in this case was represented by a young Chinese guy who was both larger and more muscular than Neal would have preferred. His chest looked uncomfortably stuffed into his gray uniform blazer, and he had big, thick arms. He had clearly spent some quality time on the old bench-presses. Neal, who didn’t have to worry about leaving space in his jacket for his muscles, knew the guy would have no trouble pinning him up against a wall and keeping him there. The guy’s white shirt was rumpled around a waist that was beginning to go to fat, and he had a two-way radio hooked to his belt. There was probably a nightstick stuck into the belt somewhere, Neal thought, probably at the small of his back. Except nothing about this guy was small. And he seemed to want to talk.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said. There was no trace of a Chinese accent. “May I ask what you were doing in Room ten-sixteen?”

The younger maid hadn’t wasted any time calling down. So much for her five bucks, Neal thought.

“I left my—”

“Save it. That wasn’t your room.”

Neal nodded at the other guests in the lobby. “Can we do this outside?”

“Sure.”

He opened the door for Neal and let him get a good feel for his bulk. Neal knew that his next move would be to get in front of him and maneuver him to the wall. Which would be the end of the game, so it just wouldn’t do to let Benchpress here make that next move.