I was making some, albeit minimal, progress, telling myself how much fun I would have in Taiwan with Rob and Jennifer, when I was joined by two other visitors. That I should know them, in fact know anyone in Xi’an other than Burton, came as a surprise.
“Lara!” Dr. Xie exclaimed when he saw me. “What a pleasant surprise! You know Mira Tetford, of course. May we join you?”
“Hello, Dr. Xie, Mira,” I said. “Please do. It is an unexpected pleasure for me, too.”
“I left a message for you at your hotel in Beijing this morning before I flew down. They said you were still registered. Did you get it?” Mira asked. “And what brings you to Xi’an?”
“The terra-cotta warriors, of course,” I said, without missing a beat. “I decided I couldn’t leave China without seeing them. They are as fabulous as everyone says they are.” I’d seen them on my previous visit many years earlier, but why bother to mention that small detail?
“They are one of the wonders of the world,” Dr. Xie agreed.
“And how about you two? What brings you to Xi’an?” I asked.
“I have a manufacturing facility here,” Dr. Xie said. “I come here frequently. I have an apartment in town, in fact. And Mira is helping me with an acquisition of a company in this area. We meet with the company representatives tomorrow, and have been working on our strategy all day. I have promised Mira that I will take her to one of our famed dumpling buffets. I insist that you join us. My car and driver are right outside to take us when we’re ready.”
I did join them. It’s difficult to imagine a buffet where your meal consists of a choice of twentysomething different Chinese dumplings, but in fact, it was delicious. I tried not to think about either Burton or the silver box, but there was a floor show with song and dance from the T’ang dynasty, which as interesting as it was, I’d just as soon have skipped under the circumstances.
It was on the way back that something interesting happened. My seatbelt had slipped down between the top and bottom of the seat. When I managed to pull it up, something unpleasant-feeling came up with it. I held it up to find a surgical glove.
“Has Burton Haldimand been in this car by any chance?” I asked, wiggling it.
“It would be difficult to think it would be anyone else,” Dr. Xie said, smiling at the glove. “I had my driver take Burton sightseeing this afternoon. He wanted to see the imperial tombs west of the city and tours do not regularly go there this time of year. Not,” he added, “that Burton seems a tour kind of person.”
“I thought I was going to meet him here,” I said, stretching the truth just a tad. “But he doesn’t seem to be in the hotel any longer.”
Dr. Xie spoke to his driver, whose English name was Jackie, chosen for his hero Jackie Chan apparently. “Jackie says that he dropped Burton at the train station at the end of their tour.”
“The train station? I guess he’s not going back to Beijing.”
“That would not be the ideal way to get there, no.” Dr. Xie spoke to the driver again. The man shrugged at first, and Dr. Xie looked about to tell me Jackie had no idea, when the man spoke again.
“The driver thought Burton a little odd,” Dr. Xie said.
“I can’t imagine why,” I muttered.
“Burton told him that the trip to the tombs had been most educational, and that now he was going to see the Jade Women, something about meeting someone where the Jade Women live. No accounting for tastes, but Burton’s a grown man, and he can do whatever he wants. I’d be happy to have Jackie take you to see the imperial tombs tomorrow. They are worth seeing, and I’m sure you would enjoy them as much as Burton did.”
“Thank you, but I can’t accept your kind offer. You will need the car.” Actually, the new me wasn’t going to look at anything that would get the silver box back on my personal agenda, nor did I think that anything that Burton might like would appeal to me in the slightest.
“Nonsense. I insist. Here is my telephone number in Xi’an, and my mobile as well. I’ll have Jackie take Mira and me to our meeting in the morning, and he will show you around the rest of the day.”
“Thank you,” I said. It seemed churlish to refuse such a gracious offer.
The desk clerk at the hotel called out to me when I came through the doors, having said good night to Mira and Dr. Xie. “Your fax from Beijing is here,” he said. I’d completely forgotten about it.
I opened it in the room. Based on my chance meeting with Dr. Xie and Mira, I had already concluded it was from Mira, telling me she was traveling to Xi’an for a day or two. Instead it was a message from Burton.
Lara, I hope you weren’t waiting for me too long at Panjiayuan Market. My apologies! No doubt you were standing in the cold, cursing my name. I have good news, however. I have received some information about the whereabouts of the silver box. It was too late to call you because you would already have left for the market, hence this note. I am flying out to Xi’an today if I can get to the airport in time for the flight, and will call you from there. Burton.
He’d got the cursing part about right, but the rest of it left me dazed. In fact, I read it three times to make sure I’d understood it correctly. Having concluded that there was only one possible interpretation, I reached two obvious conclusions. The first was that Burton had not intended to lie to me about Panjiayuan Market, and the second was that in this instance the slug was not Burton, but a certain antique dealer.
I called the Beijing hotel again and asked to be put through to my voice mail. Burton had said he would call me. Had he done that as well?
Yes, he had, as had Mira, just as she said. As expected, her call was merely to say she was out of town for a couple of days, but if I needed anything to feel free to call Ruby. There were three messages from Burton. In the first, he said he hoped I’d forgiven him for the Panjiayuan business, and that he would call again. The second indicated that he was making progress, and thought he knew who had the silver box. The third was considerably more unsettling. As soon as I heard it, I headed for the business center and looked up the Jade Women. Apparently they were Immortals who protected alchemical texts, and probably the alchemists, too, and who dispensed cups of the sacred elixir of immortality to those of us below deemed worthy. They awaited the arrival of adepts on the top of the Western Mountain, one of the five sacred mountains that held up the sky. They also came down to Earth from time to time. Apparently they were recognizable because of a tiny grain of yellow jade above their noses.
So where was this sacred Western Mountain? It is now called Hua Shan or Flower Mountain, and it is about seventy-five miles east of Xi’an. I called Dr. Xie. Thirty minutes or so later, Dr. Xie and I were hurtling through the darkness toward Hua Shan in his Mercedes.
The train from Xi’an had come and gone. It was dark, though, so I was almost certain Burton would not yet have headed up the mountain. In the village of Hua Shan, there were a few not-so-choice hotels. That had to be where he was staying.
You wouldn’t think hotels would reveal whether they had a guest by the name of Burton Haldimand, but Dr. Xie is a persuasive, indeed imposing, man. It was at the third cheap hotel near one of the entrances to the route up the mountain that we found Burton. There were no phones in the room. Dr. Xie spoke sharply to the man at the desk. “I’ve told him it is a patient of mine who has called for assistance. As soon as another staff member comes to accompany us, we will go up.”