More Deaths Than One (9 page)

Kerry shivered. “Maybe his enemies are your
enemies.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Bob said slowly,
“but the men I saw in my room were Caucasian, and definitely
American. You’ve got me thinking. I wonder if someone got wind of
Hsiang-li’s gold Buddha and figured I know where to find it.”

Kerry’s eyes grew enormous. “Gold Buddha? It
sounds to me as if your life wasn’t so quiet and uneventful after
all.”

“This isn’t my story,” Bob reminded her.
“It’s Hsiang-li’s.”

“Well, do you know where to find the
Buddha?”

“No, and neither does Hsiang-li, but he sold
his restaurant and went in search of it.”

“All by himself? If you were so close, I
would have thought you’d go with him.”

“He wanted to go alone. A personal quest.
Also, I have the feeling that one way or another he doesn’t plan on
returning to civilization.”

“Jeez. Where did he go to look for the gold
Buddha?”

“In the jungles of Northern Thailand and
Burma.” Bob closed his eyes. “I dream of the jungle sometimes.
Hsiang-li is lost, and I have to find him. As I push my way through
the foliage, vines strangle me, snakes entwine themselves around
me, clouds of insects envelop me. Then I’m hurt, I don’t remember
how, and I have to pull myself along on my belly, but the jungle
goes on forever.”

He rose and paced the room. A minute, two
minutes ticked by.

Finally, Kerry patted the couch next to her.
“Why don’t you come back here. Maybe if you finish telling the
story, you can get it out of your system and out of your dreams. I
know he’s your friend and you’re worried about him, but he made his
choice.”

Bob’s steps slowed. A minute later he settled
beside her. She took one of his hands in both of hers, and he felt
her warmth seep into him.

“Two months ago we were in the secret room.
We had sold off Hsiang-li’s inventory and all that remained were
the tan and sepia figurines I mentioned. ‘I found these figurines a
long time ago during a period of great sorrow,’ he said, and
explained that he had not been prepared for such sadness. He’d
lived in Ch’engtu, the largest city in Szechuan Province, which is
the most densely populated province in China, but his own world was
tiny, centered around his family’s restaurant. He went on to tell
me about his robust baby boy, about his beautiful wife who had a
laugh like the tinkling of bells, and about how happy and complete
they made his life.

“Then a high-placed friend warned him about
his name on Mao’s purge list, and his wife decided they should
escape. They hired a guide to take them through the mountains and
across the border into Burma, then on into Thailand. Although
Thailand curtailed Chinese immigration, Hsiang-li figured they
could blend into the Chinese community there with no one being the
wiser. Before they left, his wife set her pet finch free. She could
no longer stand the idea of any creature living in captivity.”

Feeling Kerry moving restlessly next to him,
Bob said, “Maybe I should tell you the story some other time, let
you get some sleep.”

She shook her head; strands of her hair
brushed against his cheek. “This is daytime to me. Normally, I’d be
in the middle of the bar rush, being run off my feet. Besides, no
one’s told me a story since I was a little girl sitting on my
grandfather’s lap.” Kerry moved closer to Bob and curled up against
him. “You don’t smell the same, though. He smelled of pipe tobacco
and horses and old leather. You smell like Rimrock’s meatloaf. You
don’t feel the same, either. He felt safe and secure. Settled. You
feel . . .”

“Feel what?” Bob asked when she didn’t
finish.

“Dangerous.” She spoke in a voice so low it
barely qualified as a whisper.

He wanted to put his arms around her, assure
her everything would be all right, but he couldn’t lie to her. No
matter how much care a person took, things still happened.

“All went well for Hsiang-li at first,” he
said. “They actually made it into Burma, maybe even Thailand. One
evening Hsiang-li went off to collect firewood while the others
remained behind to prepare camp. He returned to find his wife, his
son, the guides all dead, knifed by bandits for the pittance they
had managed to bring with them.”

Kerry sucked in a breath. “Oh, that poor
man.”

Bob nodded, remembering the pain in
Hsiang-li’s eyes while he spoke of his grief, and the way his voice
rasped, as if the words scraped the sides of his throat.

“The next morning he started to dig their
graves. He had no tools, only rocks, sticks, and his hands. He dug
for many days, wanting to be certain the bodies would be safe from
the ravages of animals.”

“His poor hands must have been raw and
bleeding,” Kerry said. Then, in an even softer tone, “I wonder what
it would be like to love someone that much.”

“I don’t know,” Bob said, but he was getting
an inkling. “Hsiang-li had dug a very deep hole when suddenly the
earth gave way, and he fell into a cave, or so he thought. As his
head cleared and his eyes adapted to the dim light, he realized he
had fallen into a man-made chamber.”

“A treasure house?” Kerry asked
breathlessly.

“No. An ancient kiln. Fragments of broken
pot-tery littered the floor of the room. He also found many intact
jars on long stone benches and a cache of—”

“Figurines,” Kerry cut in. “The little
ceramic creatures. No wonder he got so sad every time he looked at
them.”

Bob nodded his agreement. “Hsiang-li lowered
the bodies into the kiln and laid them on the stone benches. He
stuffed a backpack with the figurines, crisscrossed branches over
the opening to the kiln, and refilled the hole he’d dug. Then,
staggering under the weight of the pack, he left. He didn’t get far
when he came face to face with an immense sitting Buddha, perhaps
twenty feet tall.”

“The gold Buddha,” Kerry exclaimed.

Bob smiled at her eagerness. “It makes me
wonder who actually told the stories when you were a child. You or
your grandfather.”

She laughed. “I never like waiting for the
ending. I want everything in a single gulp. Beginning, middle, and
end all at once.”

“Maybe I should stop here. Make you beg to
hear the end.”

“You can’t stop! Not until you get to the
part about the gold Buddha.” Snuggling closer, she took his arm and
draped it around her shoulders. She smiled at him, her eyes
dancing, as if daring him to move it away.

He fell silent for a moment, savoring the
feel of her tee shirt- and jeans-clad body next to his. She smelled
clean and fresh, like cucumber, or melon, or pear.

“Roots of a strangler fig enveloped the
Buddha.” Hearing a slight huskiness in his voice, he cleared his
throat and continued. “The tree’s foliage concealed it further. The
dark green algae or fungus coating the Buddha added to its
appearance of ageless wisdom and serenity. Hsiang-li thought it
would watch over his family until he could return.

“Beyond the Buddha, barely visible through
the dense foliage, he saw a building almost swallowed by the
jungle. Hsiang-li found an open, vine-covered doorway and pushed
his way inside. The beauty of the room he had entered awed him.
Luminous golden brown tiles overlaid the floor. The walls and
ceiling were also tiled, but in a pale green that shimmered in the
shadowy light of the jungle. Except for patches of discoloration
from a fungus, the room was remarkably well preserved.

“At the far end of the room sat a crude
stucco Buddha about five feet tall that seemed at odds with the
elegance of the place. Out of curiosity, he scraped off a piece of
the lichen-encrusted stucco and discovered the glimmer of gold.
With a pounding heart, he went outside for some mud to hide the
scratch.”

“Why was it covered in stucco?” Kerry
asked.

“I don’t know. He thought he had stumbled on
a lost city, one, perhaps, that had been destroyed by Mongol
hordes. In the days of Kublai Khan, gold Buddhas had often been
stuccoed to hide then from the invaders.”

Kerry sat upright and stared at him. “Are you
telling me Hsiang-li discovered a lost city?”

“No. There were four buildings, one of which
lay in ruins. He decided the place must be a monastery compound
that had been long abandoned.”

“But why would they leave the Buddha
behind?”

“He didn’t know and didn’t care. He just knew
it now belonged to him. He made his plans. He would find his way
back to civilization, sell the figurines for the funds to mount an
exhibition, then return.”

Kerry settled back into Bob’s embrace.

“Unfortunately,” he said, continuing with the
story, “things did not work out according to plan. First, he had no
idea where he was or where he was going. Because of the vaulted
canopy of the jungle, he could not even tell where the sun rose or
set to give him a vague idea of direction.

“Second, there were no distinctive landmarks
to tell him where he had been. All around him, everywhere he
looked, he saw the same soaring tree trunks, giant ferns, tangled
roots, dangling vines, and huge orchids.”

An image of the jungle formed in Bob’s mind.
It seemed so real, he felt as if he were in that shadowy gloom with
its suffocating aroma of moist, decaying vegetable matter, and the
deafening din of insects, birds, tree frogs, and monkeys. He
shuddered at the thought of a lone man lost in such an inhospitable
place.

“Bob?”

Hearing his name, Bob gave a start and saw
Kerry peering anxiously at him.

She touched his cheek. “You got so still, I
thought you were in the jungle of your nightmares.”

Bob laid a had on top of hers. “I was.”

“Then let’s get you out of there. Finish the
story.”

“Hsiang-li didn’t know how long he wandered,
alone, starving, half-mad with grief, before he stumbled on a
hunting party of Lahu. They fed him and showed him a trail to Mai
Hong Son, a half-day’s journey away. He sold a figurine, getting
enough money to get to Bangkok where he sold a few more. By then he
realized it could take years—and a small fortune—to find the
abandoned monastery again, so he put the money into a restaurant
instead.”

“Then he met you,” Kerry murmured, “and found
contentment once again.”

Bob swallowed. “Yes. After he finished
telling me the story of the figurines, he said a consortium of
Japanese executives had approached him. They wanted The Lotus Room
for a conference center, and he decided to sell it to them. He said
his dreams of looking for the gold Buddha had faded, but he wanted
to find the remains of his wife and child, and give them a proper
burial. ‘I am getting old,’ he said. ‘If I don’t do it now, I never
will.’”

Bob grew silent, thinking about the last time
he’d seen Hsiang-li. They were at Bangkok Hua-lompong Station;
Hsiang-li had decided to travel north by train instead of airplane
because he wanted one last look at rice paddies and open skies
before disappearing into the jungle to begin his search. He bowed
under the weight of the backpack containing the figurines, which he
planned to restore to their rightful place.

Hsiang-li pulled an envelope out of his
pocket and handed it to Bob. “This is for you, my son,” he said
quietly. Without waiting for a response, he swung into the train
and was lost in the crowd.

Bob watched the train pull out of the
station, then left to prepare for his own journey into the
past.

Hearing a sigh, Bob turned his head to look
at the woman in his arms. She slept, a peaceful expression on her
face. He watched her for a minute, then closed his eyes. Soon he
too fell asleep.

He did not dream.

Chapter 8

Bob’s left arm, entwined around Kerry’s
shoulders, was asleep, but the rest of him was awake and rested,
with only the tiniest twinge in the back of his skull to remind him
of his problems.

Kerry stirred. Her eyelids fluttered and
popped open. She lifted her head, looked around the living room,
then up at Bob.

She smiled. “And you were saying?”

He disentangled himself from her. “I’m not
telling any more stories. All I do is put us to sleep.”

“You slept?” she asked. “No nightmares?”

“No nightmares.”

She stretched. “I had such a delicious dream,
hacking my way through jungles, finding lost cities and golden
Buddhas.” Two vertical lines appeared between her brows. “Was the
story true? You weren’t stringing me along?”

Shaking life back into his arm, he said, “I
didn’t make it up, if that’s what you’re asking. I told you the
same story Hsiang-li told me.”

“In that case, it has to be true. I doubt
he’d have closed his restaurant and left his adopted son for
anything less. Wow! A gold Buddha, five feet tall. No wonder
someone is looking for you. I bet they think Hsiang-li gave you a
treasure map and directions how to find the abandoned monastery,
and those are the papers they’re looking for.”

“You’re forgetting one thing—Hsiang-li and I
were alone in his secret room when he told me the story.”

She waved a hand in a dismissive gesture. “If
those thugs in business suits are as powerful as you say, they
could easily have bugged the place to make sure Hsiang-li got out
of the antiques business.”

Bob stood and arched his back while he
considered the possibility. If true, could they have also followed
Hsiang-li to the train station and seen him handing over the
envelope? But why wait a month before trying to nab it? Could it
have taken them that long to understand the implications of what
they’d seen and heard? It didn’t make any sense, but neither did
anything else that had been happening.

“How much do you think the gold Buddha is
worth?” Kerry asked.

Bob shook his head, a faint smile playing on
his lips. “I should never have told you about it. The next thing I
know, you’re going to be tramping through the jungles of Thailand
and Burma looking for the Buddha yourself.”