The Trail to Buddha's Mirror by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online

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    The costume made him more forgettable than he was already. With his medium build, medium height, brown hair, and brown eyes, he could have been the poster boy for Anonymous Anonymous.
    He wolfed down the eight-dollar cheeseburger, then took his tube bag, his paperback copy of Ferdinand Count Fathom, and his unremarkable looks and headed out to catch the two-twenty.
    Like a lot of voyages, this one was born of desperation. There was no reason for him to expect that Pendleton and Lila should be in Mill Valley, and no way for him to locate them even if they were. But the tickets to Mill Valley were the only leads he had, so he might as well pursue them. The only other option was to put a call in to Friends and tell them he had blown it, and that was no option at all.
    So he figured he’d just take the ride to Mill Valley, snoop around a little, and see what he could see. Maybe he’d have one of those rare instances of dumb luck and run into Pendleton on the bus. Maybe find him at the Terminal Bookstore, poring over the latest issue of Chickenshit Illustrated Maybe he’d waste an afternoon chasing a wild goose.
    But there were worse fates than cruising across the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny California afternoon. After six months in the rain and fog of a Yorkshire moor, the blue sky and open vista made Neal a little giddy. His cynical heart raced a bit, his jaded New York eyes widened, and his sardonic agent-for-hire leer opened into a smile as he rolled across the bridge, the Pacific on the left, the Bay on the right.
    Just a natural-born tourist on an outing, he thought as the bus pulled into Mill Valley. A chameleon, a mere ripple in the shadows: the unobserved observer.
    He stood out like a hard-on in a harem.
    Nobody in Mill Valley wore a tie, Neal saw, and if anyone wore a jacket, it had leather fringe on it. Everyone was wearing plaid cotton shirts with denim overalls, or denim workshirts and painter’s pants, or actual robes. And a lot of sandals, running shoes, and biker boots.
    Neal, on the other hand, looked like a Young Republican in need of an enema. Like a Ronald Reagan delegate at a communist party meeting. Like a rookie insurance agent going to sell term-life to Abbie Hoffman.
    As he stepped off the bus, the locals gathered around the Terminal Bookstore actually stared at him. He couldn’t have been any more conspicuous if he had been wearing a sandwich board reading, UPTIGHT, UNCOOL, NON-JOGGING, MEAT-EATING, EAST COAST, URBAN NEOFASCIST WHO DOESN’T MEDITATE . Even the mellow dogs lying under the benches pricked up their ears and started to whine with unaccustomed anxiety, as if expecting Neal to slip a leash on them or otherwise impede their freedom to revel the oneness of nature.
    The intellectuals playing chess at the outdoor wooden tables paused in their deliberations to stare at Neal’s neckwear. A couple of the older, kinder ones shook their heads in the sadness of a dim memory when they themselves had been similarly encumbered. Three teenagers who were sharing a joint suddenly developed a need to scamper to the trash barrel, which was painted a deep forest green. A winsome young lady playing a wooden flute stopped her warbling and hugged her instrument tightly to her breasts, as if afraid that Neal might snatch it out of her hand and use it to beat a kitten to death.
    Neal wished he were naked—he would have felt less self-conscious. But there he stood, fully clad, in beautiful Mill Valley.
    And it was beautiful, set in a hollow edged by steep hills made green with pines, cedars and redwoods. Houses built from these native woods blended into the slopes, and their cantilevered decks kept watch over the village. Coffee shops, restaurants, and art studios framed the main square, which was actually a triangle, the apex of which was occupied by the Terminal Bookstore.
    The fast-running brook that bordered the west side of the village provided a natural air-conditioning effect; the air was