"How do I get to Patan?"
Lin-Su raised one finger in the air. "There I can help you. In fact, I have already taken the liberty. Come this way."
Indy followed the little man some way down the street. Parked against a building there was a black car of an unfamiliar kind. Lin-Su indicated it with pride.
"At your disposal I place my automobile."
"Are you sure?"
"Indeed. Inside you will find the necessary map."
"I'm overwhelmed."
"A small matter," Lin-Su said.
Indy walked round the car. He glanced through the window and looked at the broken leather upholstery and the appearance of springs.
"What make is it?" he asked.
"A mongrel breed, I fear," Lin-Su said. "It has been put together by a mechanic in China and shipped to me at some expense. It is part Ford, part Citroen. I think there may be elements of a Morris, too."
"How the hell do you get it repaired?"
"That I can answer. I have my fingers crossed it never breaks down." The Chinese laughed and handed a set of keys to Indy. "And so far it has been reliable. Which is good, because the roads are extremely bad."
"Tell me about the roads to Patan."
"Bad. However, with any luck you will avoid the snows. Follow the route I have marked in the map. You should be safe."
"I can't thank you enough," Indy said.
"You will not stay the night?"
"I'm afraid not."
Lin-Su smiled. "You have . . . what is that word? Ah, yes. A deadline?"
"Right. I have a deadline."
"Americans," he said. "They always have deadlines. And they always have ulcers."
"No ulcers yet," Indy said, and opened the car door. It creaked badly on its hinges.
"The clutch is stiff," Lin-Su said. "The steering is poor. But it will take you to your destination and bring you back again."
Indy threw his bag onto the passenger seat. "What more could a man ask from a car, huh?"
"Good luck, In-di-an-a." It was like a Chinese name, the way Lin-Su pronounced it.
They shook hands, then Indy pulled the car door shut. He turned the key in the ignition, listened to the engine whine, and then the car was going. He waved to the small Chinese, who was already moving down the street, beaming as if he were proud to have loaned his car to an American. Indy glanced at the map and hoped it was accurate because he sure couldn't expect highway signs in a place like this.
He drove for hours along the rutted roads Lin-Su had marked on the map, aware as darkness fell of the mountains looming like great spooks all around him. He was glad he couldn't see the various passes that swept down beneath him. Here and there where snow blocked the road he had to edge the car through slowly, sometimes getting out and scraping as much snow from his path as he could. A desolate place. Bleak beyond belief. Indy wondered about living here in what must seem an endless winter. The roof of the world, they said. And he could believe it, except it was a mighty lonesome roof. Lin-Su apparently could stand it, but then it was probably a good place for the Chinaman to have his business, the importing and exporting of lines of merchandise that were sometimes of a dubious nature. Nepal-it was where all the world's contraband came through, whether stolen objects of art, antiquities or narcotics. It was where the authorities turned eyes that were officially blind and forever had their palms held out to be slyly greased.
Through the margins of sleep Indy drove, yawning, wishing he had some coffee to keep him going. Mile after dreary mile he listened to the springs of the mongrel car creak and squeal, to the squelch of tires on the snow. And then unexpectedly, before he could check his destination on the map, he found himself on the outskirts of a town, a town that had no designation, no sign, no name. He pulled the car to the side of the road and opened the map. He switched on the interior light and realized he must have reached Patan because there wasn't any other sizable community marked on Lin-Su's map. He drove slowly through the straggling outskirts of the place, dismal huts, constructions of windowless clay shacks. And then he reached what looked like the main thoroughfare, a narrow street- little more than an alley-of tiny stores, passageways that led off at sinister angles into shadows. He stopped the car and looked around him. A strange street-too silent in some way.
Indy was suddenly conscious of another car cruising behind him. It passed, swerved as if to avoid him, picked up speed as it moved. When it disappeared he realized it was the only other car he'd seen all the way. What a godforsaken hole, he thought, trying to imagine Abner Ravenwood living here. How could anybody stand this?
Somebody moved along the street, coming toward him. A man, a large man in a fur jacket, who swayed from side to side like a drunk. Indy got out of the car and waited until the man in the fur jacket had come close to him before speaking. The man's breath smelled of booze, a smell so strong that Indy had to turn his face to the side.
The man, like somebody expecting to be attacked, stepped suspiciously away. Indy held his arms out, hands upturned, a gesture of harmlessness. But the man didn't come any closer. He watched Indy warily. A man of mixed heritage, the shape of the eyes suggesting the Orient, the broad cheekbones perhaps indicating some Slavic mix. Try a language, Indy thought. Try English for a start.
"I'm looking for Ravenwood," he said. This is absurd, he said to himself: the dead of night in some deserted place and you're looking for somebody in a language that probably makes no sense. "A man called Ravenwood."
The man stared, not understanding. He opened his mouth.
"Do. You. Know. Somebody. Called. Ravenwood?" Slowly. Like speaking with an idiot.
"Raven-wood?" the man said.
"You got it, chum," Indy said.
"Raven-wood." The man appeared to suck the word as though it were a lozenge of an exotic flavor.
"Yeah. Right. Now we stand here all night and mumble, I guess," Indy said, cold again, tiredness coursing through him.
"Ravenwood." The man smiled in recognition and turned, pointing along the street. Indy looked and noticed a light in the distance. The man cupped one hand and raised it to his mouth, the gesture of a drinker. "Ravenwood," he said over and over, still pointing. He began to nod his head vigorously. Indy understood he was to go in the direction of the light.
"Much obliged," he said.
"Ravenwood," the man said again.
"Yeah, right, right," and Indy moved back to the car.
He got in and drove along the street, stopped at the light the man had indicated, and only then realized it emerged from a tavern, outside of which, incongruously, hung a sign in English: the raven. The Raven, Indy thought. The guy had made a mistake. Confused and drunk, that was all. Still, if it was the only joint open in this hick burg, he could stop and see if anybody knew anything. He got out of the car, aware of the noise coming from inside the tavern now, the rabbling kind of noise created by any congregation of drinkers who've spent their last several hours devoted to the task of wasting themselves. It was a noise he enjoyed, one he was accustomed to, and he would have liked nothing better than to join the revelers inside. Uh-uh, he said to himself. You haven't come all this way to get loaded like a lost tourist checking the local lowlife. You've come with a purpose. A well-defined purpose.
He moved toward the door. You've been in some weird places in your time, he told himself. But this takes the blue ribbon for sure. What he saw in front of him as he stepped inside was an odd collection of boozers, a wild assortment of nationalities. It was as if somebody had picked up a scoop, dipped it into a jar filled with mixed ethnic types and spilled it here in the mad, lonely darkness of the wilderness. This one really takes the cake, Indy laughed to himself. Sherpa mountain guides, Nepalese natives, Mongols, Chinese, Indians, bearded mountain climbers who looked like they'd fall off a stepladder in their present condition, various furtive kinds of no obvious national origin. This is Nepal, all right, he thought, and these are the drifters of the international narcotics trade, smugglers, bandits. Indy shut the door behind him, then noticed a huge stuffed raven, wings spread viciously, mounted behind the long bar. A sinister memento, he thought. And something troubled him, the odd similarity between the name of Abner and the name of this bar. Coincidence? He moved further into the room, which smelled of sweat and alcohol and tobacco smoke. He detected the sweet, aromatic scent of hashish in the air.