“Now we are all undressed,” she said to Neal.
“He is from the company,” said Pendleton.
Lan nodded.
“They sent him to bring me back,” Pendleton continued.
“To talk to you,” Neal said. “I can’t bring you back against your will. I can’t throw cuffs on you and haul you onto a plane.”
“You’re damned right you can’t,” Pendleton said. He looked like an angry bird.
“Robert…” said Lan quietly, stroking his shoulder, calming him down.
“Just go back and talk to them,” Neal offered. “You owe them that, don’t you? At least go back and tell them you’re quitting, see if you can work things out.”
He kept talking, laying out the whole thing: It was no big deal, everything was forgiven, Pendleton wasn’t the first guy to fall in love and lose his head for a while, no sense in destroying a distinguished career. Why, Neal himself would even help Pendleton negotiate some sort of visiting arrangement. Swept away with his own eloquence, he pushed on: North Carolina is beautiful; a change of scene would help Lan grow as an artist; there is, in fact, a large Oriental community in the Research Triangle. He was so convincing he convinced himself: their life would be great, his life would be great, they would visit each other for magic evenings.
Lan turned around and started to pour three cups of tea. The movement of her shoulder blades sent another pang shooting through Neal. When she turned back and leaned over to hand Neal a cup he could see the tops of her breasts, but it was still her eyes that drew him. She seemed to be looking into his mind, maybe into his soul. She handed Pendleton a cup and then leaned back to sip her own tea.
“Maybe Neal Carey’s thought is correct,” she said.
“I’m not leaving you,” Pendleton said quickly. He sounded like a twelve-year-old.
“Will Robert have much trouble if he does not return?”
“His research is very important.”
“Yes, it is.” She smiled at Pendleton warmly, and Neal would have donated his live body to science to see that smile sent his way.
“You’re more important,” said Pendleton thickly, and Neal had the sudden impression that Pendleton was going to start crying.
“It’s not an either/or situation,” Neal said.
“‘Either/or’?” Lan asked.
“One thing or the other.”
She took another sip of tea, set the cup down, and took Pendleton’s face gently in her hands. She leaned toward him until her face was an inch from his.
“Wo ai ni,” she said softly. I love you.
It was such an intimate moment that Neal wanted to turn away. His Chinese was pretty much confined to Column A or Column B, but he knew that she had told Pendleton that she loved him.
“Wo ai ni,” Pendleton answered.
Li Lan reached out under the water and took Neal’s hand, gently folding his fingers into hers.
His heart started to race.
She let his hand go.
“We will go with you tomorrow,” she said. “Both of us.”
Pendleton’s head whipped around like he’d been jerked on a choke chain and he started to protest, but Li Lan’s hand on his stopped him.
“Your work is important,” she said.
She closed her eyes and settled into the water-the image of perfect repose.
Pendleton couldn’t let it go as easily. “Tomorrow-”
She cut him off without opening her eyes, “-is a dream. Tom and Olivia wish to speak with you now.”
It was one of those don’t-I-hear-your-mother-calling-you bits, and Neal watched as Pendleton dutifully got out of the water, wrapped a towel around his waist, and stomped into the house. So much for the submissive Oriental woman, Neal thought. Then he realized he was alone with Li Lan, and he stopped thinking altogether. They sat there for at least five excruciating minutes before she spoke.
“You will not let them hurt him?” she asked.
Hurt him?! What the fuck?
“Nobody wants to hurt him, Lan. They just want him to come back to work.” I mean, we’re talking about a research lab here, right? not the Gambino family.
“Please do not let them hurt him,” she implored.
“Okay.” Look at me like that, Li Lan, and I won’t even let them hurt his feelings.
“Promise.”
“I promise.” Should be an easy enough request to fill. They want him back so bad they’ll probably give him a raise and a bonus. Monogrammed test tubes. Fur-lined eyepiece on the microscope.
Li Lan stood up. She stood in front of Neal as if inviting him to look her over, as if she were in a lineup at a cathouse. He tried to look away, tried as hard as the booze, the steam of the tub, and his own feelings for her would let him. He felt himself swallowing hard and staring, first at her body and then at her eyes.
“I will go to speak with him,” she said.
Neal looked around for a towel but didn’t see one. “Yeah, it’s about time to get going.”
She shook her head. “No. Wait for me, please. I will come back.”
“Uhhh, would you bring a towel, please?”
“You are shy.”
“Yeah.”
She put her robe on. The silk stuck to her wet skin.
“There is no reason to be shy. I will come back to thank you.”
“Aww, shucks, ma’am. You don’t need to thank me… jes’ doin’ my job.”
He was pretty surprised when she leaned over and kissed him, quickly and softly, on the lips. “I will be back in a moment… to thank you.”
It was a whisper of a promise.
“No,” he said, more reluctantly than he felt real good about.
She looked at him quizzically.
“You don’t understand,” Neal said. “That’s not the way it works. You don’t need to buy… insurance.”
Of course, if you want to leave him and run away with me and live happily ever after, that’s another story.
“It’s not insurance. You have been very nice.”
Right. She’s not buying it. She’s still scared for him, and she’s ready to give it up to get a little added protection. Where does a painter learn about that?
“Really, Lan. No thanks.”
But please don’t ask again, Lan, because I think I’m out of no-thank-yous.
She looked confused for the smallest part of a second, then smiled and shrugged. The robe came off her shoulders with the shrug and she gave him another long look, a think-about-what-you’re-passing-up pose, and it shook him. Backlit by the light coming through the picture window, she looked unreal, unearthly-divorced from the mundane world of reality, and jobs to do, and boring ethics. She became part of a magical evening, of a different kind of life-a world in which he wanted to lose himself, float with her in the mirror mists. He told himself to get up, get out, but she froze him in place, held him in the whirlpool, trapped him in the vortex.
He leaned over to splash some water on his face and barely heard the whine of the bullet that just missed his head and smacked into the wall of the house.
He sank into the water.
4
Terror has a way of clearing the mind.
You can cloud the brain with exotic booze and plain old-fashioned lust, but then shoot a little terror at it, and it will clean right up. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.
So Neal was already thinking hard as he sank under the water. It was noisy down there, with the filters and bubblers and all, but he could hear Li Lan’s footsteps running, not walking away, and he could hear a car pull out of the driveway and screech down the street. He figured it was either his hosts or his would-be executioners, or both at the same time.
He was in no hurry to surface, though, just in case the shooter still had an eye to the crosshairs and was waiting for him. It took an act of great will for Neal to let himself rise to the surface, dead-man’s-float style, and show the back of his head on the water. He lay there holding his breath and trying not to think about that second bullet smashing into his skull, spattering bone, blood, and brains.
He hadn’t heard the bullet leave the gun, so it must have been silenced, but he sure as hell had heard it smack the wall. You can’t silence that. So he didn’t think the shooter would hang around too long, or even come check on the body. But you never knew… the shooter could be moving on him now, coming up slowly and carefully, with a pistol this time, to deliver the coup de grace. Neal knew he’d never hear him in the noise of the hot tub, never hear the shot that would kill him.