Part 2 (1/2)

I heard a rustle of coa.r.s.e sheets, and Caroline was beside me-her warm, familiar skin, the soft s.h.i.+rt she slept in when we traveled. ”Sam, I'm so sorry,” she said. She held me, her strong warm arms around my neck, and suddenly I was sorry, too, to see, for the first time, what I had become.

It looked like the dead of night when Stuart roused us. Loudspeakers filled the streets, blaring some awful, tinny wake-up music accompanied by saccharine female singing. The street lights were a stark, fluorescent white. We sat on an empty bus, sat and sat, waiting for it to fill. As the first light streaked the sky, we finally started to move.

Caroline and I were in opposite seats, Kylie beside me, Melissa next to her. Stuart sat directly in front of me. By now he felt like family, somehow-enough to eliminate the need for talk at this hour. At last the bus swung out of town. The sun came up. Peasants got on, some carrying chickens, one clutching a pig. Most were folded into sleep the instant they sat down. My girls slept. After a while Stuart slept, too, his head back against the window, mouth open slightly. I got a long, close look at his face in profile, studied his pores and Adam's apple, and found myself wondering who the h.e.l.l he was. He looked like anyone. I tried to remember Cameron Pierce at Harry's party, but the vision of him that had haunted me these past two years was gone. So then, how did I know this guy was the one? I tried to put myself back in Kunming, where I'd recognized him. Eyes? Chin? But that encounter, too, was murky now. Stuart was a guy sleeping inches away, his expression not much different from my daughters'. And then I was terrified: of having put my family in the hands of a total stranger-not the man who had robbed me.

By the time we hit the wooded hills, the sun was up. The land looked unkempt, trees pus.h.i.+ng and shoving against each other like people fighting their way through lines in China. Stuart woke and glanced at me, then turned to the window. ”Almost there,” he said.

We got off near a cl.u.s.ter of flimsy kiosks that marked the beginning of a path into the hills. The kiosks apparently doubled as overnight shelter for their proprietors, who were just beginning to stir. I heard more wake-up music from somewhere, but a powerful wind gushed through the trees and drowned out most of it. I was filled with a sense that something was about to happen. As Stuart led the way uphill, I took Caroline's hand. I saw Kylie reach for Stuart's hand-she's confused, I thought; she thinks he's me. But Stuart took her hand, and they walked together so naturally that I was sure he had a daughter, and a wife, too. He must have all this, somewhere. My legs burned as we climbed.

At the top of the hill, we came upon the base of a towering wall of sheer cliff, red-tinted like clay, pocked with rows of small openings that had to be the caves. A scaffolding of sorts had been erected for scaling this vertical surface, and we mounted a set of stairs and began to climb, Stuart first, still holding Kylie's hand, then Caroline and me. Melissa came last, looking tired and unsteady. I decided then to end my campaign against her.

We got off the stairs at the very top. There, beyond a series of curved openings in the rock, were the caves, their walls stained with bright, extraordinary colors, ma.s.sive painted wooden Buddhas and Buddha-like attendants towering within each. ”My Lord,” Caroline said. Kylie and Melissa just stared.

My wife and daughters went ahead. I let them go, stopping before three caves that had been linked to accommodate one ma.s.sive Buddha lying horizontally. He was half sleeping, it seemed, his almond-shaped eyes just slightly open, his head wider than the length of me. For a long time I stared at the Buddha. Then I turned to lean over the railing and look back down the mountainside.

Stuart joined me. ”Well, here it is,” he said. ”As promised.”

”You outdid yourself.”

”So. What happens now?”

”Good question,” I said, and laughed. ”Now I go to jail.”

There was a startled pause, then Stuart laughed, too. ”h.e.l.l,” he said, ”don't do that.”

”They've got me.”

”I don't think you'll go to jail,” he said.

He was probably right-the publicity would be too damaging. Something quiet and equitable was more like it: pay up, then f.u.c.k off. But our lifestyle would suffer, no question.

”Anyway,” Stuart said, looking down the mountain, ”I don't see any SEC here.”

”The world isn't that big.”

”It's big enough.”

The sounds of Caroline and the girls were just sc.r.a.ps, tossed up by the wind, then washed away. I leaned over the railing, feeling the calm weight of the Buddha behind me. ”You ripped me off,” I said. ”Twenty-five grand. In San Francisco.” I was afraid, almost whispering. But I wanted him to know the world wasn't as big as he thought.

”Wasn't it fifty?” he said.

I stared at him, a part of me thinking, Of course. ”You knew? All this time, you knew?”

”Pretty much. Once or twice I started thinking I might be nuts.”

”I don't believe this,” I said. ”Why didn't you run?”

”From what?”

”But I mean-why help me? Why bring us all the way here?”

”Bring you!” he said, and laughed. ”You begged to come. f.u.c.king chased me to Xi'an.”

I said nothing. What a horse's a.s.s I'd been.

”Why?” Stuart asked, and in the silence I felt the p.r.i.c.kle of his curiosity. He moved closer. ”Why follow me? What did you want?”

”I was afraid you'd get away.”

Stuart laughed, perplexed. ”I am away.”

And of course this was true, he'd got away two years ago. And ever since, I'd been filled with disgust at the waste of my life.

”It's my daughters,” I said. ”They've done me in. Drained me dry.”

”They're good kids,” Stuart said quietly.

I listened for them, as I'm always half listening for my family. But I couldn't hear them anymore, not a wisp of their voices or laughter.

”How does it feel, doing what you do?” I asked.

Stuart laughed. ”Like everything feels when it's you,” he said. ”Like nothing.”

I turned to him. He looked small-one small man, alone in the middle of China. And I thought I saw in him some diminishment or regret-as if Stuart's fortunes, too, had slipped since our previous meeting. I thought, He has nothing but his freedom.

”Where are they?” I asked, anxious for my family.

”Gone,” he said. ”You drove them away.”

I grinned, uneasy. ”f.u.c.k you.”

”f.u.c.k you, too.”

”I believe you did.”

The wind blew away our laughter.

Stuart walked us back to the bus. Then, to our surprise, he said he wasn't going with us.

”Why?” cried the girls, with such keen disappointment that I felt a flicker of jealousy.

”Going to hang out here a little,” he said. ”Do some communing with the Buddhas.”

”Do you ever get to San Francisco?” Caroline asked.

Stuart grinned at me. ”Now and then.”