Mrs. Pollifax and the Hong Kong Buddha Read online

  1

  It was raining—a driving spring rain that slashed at the windows—and Mrs. Pollifax hoped that it was not raining in the wilds of Vermont, where Cyrus had gone for a ten-day bird-watching expedition that would find him crouching for hours in the shrubbery or ensconced in a tree with field glasses. She had remained behind—quite wisely, she thought now—to deal with the carpenters swarming over the old house they'd bought, and to which they were adding a greenhouse for her geraniums, a bird-watching balcony for Cyrus and a bay window that was to be placed slightly off-center, a decision that deeply pained Mr. Lupalak, the contractor, a man who liked to dot every i and cross every /. Indeed from the part in the exact center of his dark hair it was plain that symmetry was a passion with him; Mr. Lupalak was a man to be watched.

  Standing at the window and staring out at the very green, very wet landscape, Mrs. Pollifax wondered for the first time if she were really going to like the country. She could admire the sweep of green lawn—wet; the curve of road beyond—empty; the spire of a church barely visible above a dripping willow tree; but it was certainly a scene that lacked movement, sound and drama. When the carpenters left—they were making a great deal of noise in the basement this morning, cutting beams for the balcony—she wondered if it were not going to seem, perhaps, a trifle . . . unoccupied? She knew that out there in the grass and among the hollows there was a teeming wildlife—mice, toads, ants and there were rumors of a hedgehog behind the stone wall—but what the scene plainly lacked, she thought, was people.

  Mrs. Pollifax enjoyed people of all shapes, sizes, types and temperaments.

  And then quite suddenly, as if the fates had eavesdropped, there was movement in that placid landscape as a car drove down Route 2, stopped, backed, turned and raced up the driveway toward her, sending plumes of water into the air as it hurtled through puddles to come to a stop near her front door.

  "Now who . . .?" murmured Mrs. Pollifax.

  From the car emerged a very pleasant-looking young man wearing a boisterous glen-plaid suit and matching vest, and carrying an attaché case: a man very familiar and dear to her who reminded her at once that her past included not only the growing of prize-winning geraniums but a great deal of drama, excitement, danger and people.

  She had opened the door to him even before he reached it. "Bishop!" she cried. "What a surprise! How on earth—!"

  "Devil of a time finding you," he said, giving her an exuberant hug. "I hear the sound of buzz saws from somewhere—are they building you an ark?"

  She laughed. "It doesn't always rain in the country and if you'd only called first I could have given you terribly efficient directions. I'll put on some coffee. Oh, it's good to see you, come and look at our house."

  "Love to," he said. "Where's Cyrus?"

  "He left three days ago; he's in Vermont."

  "Uh-oh," said Bishop.

  Mrs. Pollifax gave him a quick, attentive glance. Not a social call, she thought, and felt a curious little stirring of anticipation and excitement, "Now that's a strange reaction," she told him.

  He ignored this. "Put the coffee on and show me around—unless you charge for a guided tour. I've not much time," he added parenthetically as He dropped his attaché case on the pink-and-red flowered couch.

  Mrs. Pollifax led him from room to room: upstairs to the three gabled bedrooms, two of them with fireplaces; downstairs through the kitchen into the dining room with its flagstoned terrace just beyond, and then into the greenhouse, which as yet lacked glass. She took him into the basement and introduced him to Mr. Lupalak, who regarded Bishop's plaid suit with something approaching awe, and to everything Bishop responded with exactly the right words, but Mrs., Pollifax felt that his mind was elsewhere, and she wondered.

  They arrived back in the dining room at last, where Mrs. Pollifax poured coffee for them both, brought out napkins, sugar, a plate of macaroons, and sat down to face him across the polished trestle table. Behind Bishop the wind and rain attacked the sliding glass doors, the flagstoned terrace glistened wetly and one lone forsythia bush struggled bravely to brighten the scene with color.

  "And how is Carstairs?" inquired Mrs. Pollifax, nibbling on a macaroon.

  "Fine," said Bishop. "Considering the sedentary life he leads, full of stress and tension, I regard him as a medical phenomenon. He resists running, jogging and even walking, and in effect defies every known law of health. And how is Cyrus?" he asked with equal politeness.

  "Bird-watching."

  He nodded. "And you're still Mrs. Reed-Pollifax?"

  "Defying every known law of convention, yes," she responded, "Cyrus insisted."

  An interesting silence fell between them as Bishop eyed her speculatively and she in turn waited patiently. "All right, Bishop," she said at last, smiling. "You can't possibly expect me to believe that you just happened to be in the neighborhood."

  "No," he said, eating his third macaroon.

  "No what?"

  He swallowed. "No I didn't happen to be in the neighborhood," he admitted cheerfully. "I needed a plane, a taxi, a limousine and a rented car to reach you. Except I'd expected Cyrus to be here."

  "He isn't," she pointed out.

  "No, but we thought this time, now that you're married and all—however, it can't be helped. The thing is," he said, "we need you. Need you badly, and at once."

  "For what?" she asked, "and what does 'at once' mean?"

  He put down his cup of coffee. "If you can help us," he said quietly, "it means now. No time to call or collect Cyrus, no time for anything. You'd leave with me now, within the hour." With a glance at his watch he added, "By twelve noon."

  Mrs. Pollifax glanced at her own watch: it was exactly five minutes after eleven. "Bishop! And you took fifteen minutes to tour the house!"

  He smiled sheepishly. "I had some thinking to do— reassessing—and damn it I can't help my having been brought up to be polite and all that sort of thing—and we did expect Cyrus to be here, but his absence doesn't change our needing you. Actually rather desperately,"" he admitted.

  Of course it was quite impossible, she told herself, she was too involved—and there was the bay window, and Cyrus not knowing—"Why me?" she asked. "And where?"

  "Hong Kong," said Bishop.

  Hong Kong ... the sun shone in Hong Kong, she remembered. Brilliantly.

  "You remember Sheng Ti?" asked Bishop.

  She did indeed remember Sheng Ti. Not many months ago she had sat under a culvert with him in a Chinese town called Turfan, and after hearing how he was hai fen, or a "black person" in China, living without paper or home or identity, she had persuaded her co-agent to smuggle him out of China along with the man named Wang Shen whom they'd been sent into the country to rescue.

  She nodded. "Of course I remember Sheng Ti—a very intelligent young man, his talents absolutely wasted as an outcast, or hooligan, as they call it."

  "You're aware that he's in Hong Kong?"

  "You told me so at our wedding. It sounded," she added tartly, "as if you didn't know what else to do with him and he was simply dumped there."

  Bishop said dryly, "Well, no one had anticipated your largesse, you know; we'd expected two men to come over the mountains and through Kashmir, not three. Except he wasn't exactly dumped in Hong Kong, as you phrase it—you do us a disservice there—he was placed there. With one of our agents."

  "Oh!" she said.

  "Yes, and to put it in a nutshell, my dear Mrs. Pollifax—because the hands on that clock behind you are relentlessly in motion—we are growing very very worried about that agent, and your friend—your friend Sheng Ti—is the only person in a position to give us some clues."

/>   "What would he know?" she said doubtfully.

  "He works for the man, he's on the premises, we know that much from our Hong Kong contacts. The agent's name is Detwiler, he's a Eurasian, his cover a business called Feng Imports, Ltd., a small business importing diamonds and gems of all kinds. Old Feng runs the shop, Detwiler handles the importing, and Sheng Ti is one of two employees in the shop."

  "And you're worried about Detwiler . . .?"

  "I can't tell you how worried," said Bishop. "The man knows too much, he has a lot to offer. He went too far in his last report, the information he sent the department so patently false that we went back over previous ones and discovered that beginning about two months ago he's been feeding us doctored information. In a word, something's up, he's double-crossing us, and we suspect he's into something self-serving, nefarious and quite detrimental to our interests. Certainly he's no good to us anymore and we have every intention of finding out why, who he's working for now, what information he's been selling elsewhere and what the hell's going on. What's more," he added, "someone's put the fear of God—or Satan, perhaps—into your friend Sheng Ti."

  Startled, she said, "How do you know that?"

  He countered with, "Why do you think it's you we need so urgently? Because we sent two people into Feng Imports to try and approach Sheng Ti—you know, friendly conversation, the suggestion of a beer after work, a movie, a girl—no dice, the verdict was 'This is a guy who's terrified and in a panic' Which, I might add, only confirms our suspicions of something very wrong at Feng Imports."

  "And you feel that Sheng Ti might talk to me," said Mrs. Pollifax.

  Bishop nodded. "He knows you. After all, it was thanks to you that he was smuggled out of Turfan and China; he trusts you, you're a familiar face." He stopped and glanced at his watch again. "There's more to this, of course, but that's the rough sketch of the situation. You're the only person who can get through to Sheng Ti, and we need what he can give us. We must know what's going on at Feng Imports."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Pollifax.

  Bishop looked at her and said gravely, "It could, of course, be dangerous—there's that, too—if you can't find Sheng Ti and have to sniff around Feng Imports."

  Mrs. Pollifax nodded, considered his words for a moment and then stood up and carried the pot of coffee into the kitchen. "It's just eleven twenty-five," she told Bishop. "If you'll rinse out these cups and empty the coffee grounds—"

  "You'll go!" cried Bishop joyously.

  She turned, smiling at him. "It isn't raining in Hong Kong, is it? Yes I'll go, and now, if you'll excuse me—" She hurried upstairs, snatched her suitcase from the closet and crammed into it slacks, skirt and blouses, toothbrush, walking shoes and pajamas. Into her purse she tucked her passport, quickly changed into a purple wool suit, chose a pink shirt and placed on her head a hat that was a garden of brilliant red and pink roses. She then sat down at the desk and reached for a pen to write Cyrus a hasty note. There's no way to reach you, she wrote, this is all terribly unexpected. Bishop is here—he hoped you would be, too—I'm off to Hong Kong in fifteen minutes, will phone, or you phone. I'll be . . . "Bishop," she called, "where will I be staying and for how long?"

  "Give it a week," Bishop shouted back, "and we've booked you in the Hong Kong Hilton."

  . . . at the Hong Kong Hilton, back in a week, don't forget how dear you are, love love love Emily.

  She read it over and added P.S. DO not allow Mr. Lupalak to center bay window! and then for just a moment she allowed herself to contemplate Cyrus's reaction when he found her gone and read the note. She had promised never again to work for Carstairs without Cyrus going with her; on the other hand Cyrus had insisted that she never forfeit another assignment because of him.

  "Won't have you caged, m'dear," he'd said. "Waited too damn many years for someone as full of surprises as you are. Don't want to change anything about you."

  Dear Cyrus, she thought, how fortunate she'd been to meet him in Zambia, where he had been traveling with his daughter, Lisa, and where she had been looking for an assassin. Cyrus had saved her life, and then she had saved his, which at once provided grounds for a warm friendship, except that from the beginning Cyrus had made it clear that he had much more than friendship in mind.

  This thought was interrupted by Bishop's words it could be dangerous—there's that, too, and she nodded: yes there was always that. Finding and talking with Sheng Ti sounded a relatively small assignment but so had her trip to mainland China a year ago, except that no one had expected the KGB to be involved, nor had Carstairs envisioned murder, a runaway horse, a broken wrist or the long hours of interrogation she'd undergone by the Chinese Security Police. Still, it had all ended well, she reminded herself cheerfully; her wrist had mended nicely, Wang Shen had been smuggled safely across the mountains and out of that adventure had come the realization that Cyrus Reed was absolutely vital to her future and not to be put off any longer.

  And now she had been married to Cyrus for ten months and she smiled as she looked around a room that was filled with a sense of his presence. She could only hope that he would understand that she was needed.

  "I'm needed, " she said aloud, and resolutely folded the note and moved to lock her suitcase.

  It was ten minutes to the hour when she carried her note and suitcase down the stairs, and seeing her, Bishop whistled.

  "Do you water those roses every night? What a hat," he marveled, "What a hat!"

  "Thank you," she said demurely, and proceeded down into the basement to explain to an astonished Mr. Lupalak that she was leaving and would not be back that afternoon, or for quite a few afternoons, that he must tell Mr. Reed there was a note for him in the usual place, and would he please not fail her about the bay window, it was to be slightly off-center. She returned to Bishop sighing. "I'm sure he thinks I'm leaving Cyrus," she said. "For that matter I don't believe anyone in the neighborhood believes that we're married, what with me being Mrs. Reed-Pollifax."

  Bishop grinned. "I could whip down and tell him I was at your wedding."

  Mrs. Pollifax gave him a mischievous smile. "No— everyone needs a bit of mystery in their lives, don't you think? Let Mr. Lupalak believe what he likes." With this she tucked the note for Cyrus in the refrigerator, removed her raincoat from the coat closet and at precisely twelve noon walked out into the rain to the car with Bishop, thoroughly prepared now for Hong Kong and wondering what it might hold for her in the way of adventure.

  2

  Monday

  BOARDING THE PLANE IN SAN FRANCISCO FOR THE second leg of her trip, Mrs. Pollifax found herself astonished once again by the hordes of people hurrying from point A to point B—or C or D—with such enormous fixity of purpose; a world one forgot, she remembered, as soon as one triumphantly arrived. She tried to think of a similar world outside and beyond ordinary life, urgent and capsulated and shed like a skin once left behind. Perhaps a hospital, she mused, where people also shared a great fixity of purpose and where they also, she thought wryly, moved from point A to point B—or C or D—experiencing a life totally removed from the outside world . . .

  "Oh—I beg your pardon!" she said, treading on the heel of the man in front of her. He turned and gave her a chilling look; refusing intimidation, she said pointedly, "You did stop very suddenly,"

  The man's glance was like an assault, rendering her a mere object that had affronted him. Tall, thin, immaculately dressed, a lean and hungry face with pockmarked cheeks and cold eyes—not a pleasant young man she decided as he turned into seat 21-A and she proceeded down the aisle to 48-B, relieved to see that 48-A was already occupied, and by a far more pleasant-looking gentleman.

  The plane took off, banking over a sapphire blue harbor to head into the setting sun, and presently her seat companion turned to her and said, "Would you care to see my copy of Newsweek ?''

  By the second hour they had exchanged names—his was Albert Hitchens—and shortly after dinner they settled down to a long talk about psy
chic phenomena, for Mr. Hitchens, it turned out, was a psychic.

  "It's my dharma," he said simply.

  He was not a prepossessing man; he was scarcely taller than her own five feet five; his complexion was swarthy, his features nondescript and for a man in his forties his clothes were casual in the extreme—he was wearing faded jeans, a knit shirt and sneakers—but his eyes were penetrating and a very curious silver in color, which the darkness of his skin accentuated and turned almost translucent.

  Mrs. Pollifax, adept at karate, experienced in Yoga and very familiar with Zen, merely nodded at the word dharma. "Although," she admitted, "I do have trouble with the differences between karma and dharma."

  "Ah yes," he said, nodding. "Dharma, you know, is the essence of one's individual existence—one's work, you might say—whereas karma, of course, is the force generated from past lives that determines our destiny in this one."

  The slightly pedantic tone apparently came from the many lectures he gave; he was, to her surprise, a professional psychic, having written several books about it and having taught courses at colleges in the Boston area and having done considerable work for the Boston police in finding missing persons.

  "Which," he explained, three hours into their flight, "is why I'm going to Hong Kong. One of my former students at Boston University, a delightful young man of Chinese origin, cabled and telephoned from Hong Kong several days ago pleading for help in finding a missing relative of his."

  "And do you think you can?" Mrs. Pollifax asked with interest.

  He said firmly, "There will be something. "

  Mrs. Pollifax, glancing into his face, conceded that he was probably right because there was certainly something very unusual, almost otherworldly, about Mr. Hitchens's eyes. "But how do you do it?" she asked. "I've only once met someone with such a gift—a gypsy—and there wasn't time to ask. How do you begin? What happens?"

  "It's a matter of impressions," he explained. "I can hold an object belonging to the missing person and it will tell me whether he's alive or dead ... Or sometimes I go into trance, perhaps, and receive impressions—pictures, actually—of where he can be found."