Beautiful Ghosts by Eliot Pattison Page B

certain no patrols were near, and approached the open window of the car.
    “You gave an apple to a friend of mine,” he said quietly, in English. “Thank you.”
    The woman looked up with a thin smile. “I tried to give it to him. I’m not sure he even saw it.” Her voice was sad but her grin remained. “Can you speak with Surya? Maybe he needs to speak with someone he knows better.” A small Tibetan boy appeared, squeezing around Shan, handing the woman a bottle of orange drink.
    “Thuchechey,” the woman said, thanking the boy in Tibetan as she handed him a coin worth four times the cost of the drink. The boy grabbed it and darted away with a cry of glee.
    “He can’t be reached right now,” Shan said.
    “Sounds like you were trying to phone him up,” the woman said. He could not place her accent. She did not sound American.
    “I mean—”
    “I know what you mean. It’s bloody awful. Please, do you really know him?” She gestured to the seat beside her. “Get in. Please. If you care for him we should speak.”
    Shan looked about, half suspecting to see soldiers closing in. The crowd was applauding again, and a woman was on the stage, presenting something to their visiting celebrity.
    He studied the woman a moment. She knew Surya. But that was impossible. “Did you meet with him in the mountains?” Shan asked as he slipped in beside her.
    “Once. I wasn’t on every visit,” she said. Her voice was soft and refined, well-educated. “My name is McDowell. Elizabeth McDowell. My friends call me Punji, like the sharp bamboo stick.”
    Shan did not offer his own name. “What visits? Why go to the ruins?”
    “It’s Director Ming’s annual summer seminar. His workshop for graduate students. He’s doing an inventory of ancient sites. Students are helping for the summer, and some of his assistant curators.” On the seat beside McDowell were several papers, including some oversized envelopes, all with the return address of the Tibetan Children’s Relief Fund, at a street in London.
    “Surya needs to go back into the mountains,” Shan said, “to be with his friends.”
    “He denies his name is Surya,” McDowell reminded Shan. “He says Surya died.”
    As Shan tried to inconspicuously study the loose papers under the envelopes, the door behind him opened and someone climbed inside. McDowell dropped her book on the envelopes, switched on the engine and eased the car into the street.
    “He’s had a terrible shock,” Shan said. “Someone died. He is … inexperienced. His whole life has been his art.”
    “Study only the absolute,” a smooth voice interjected from the rear seat. Shan turned to see Director Ming smiling at him.
    “He knows our friend Surya,” McDowell announced to Ming, keeping her eyes on the road.
    “I didn’t mean to interfere,” Shan said, and began looking for a safe place to leap from the car.
    “Where can I take you?” McDowell asked with an oddly mischievous tone.
    “Nowhere. I’ll get out here,” Shan said, his hand on the door handle. “Please.”
    “Nonsense. How do you know Surya? Is he really a monk? And if you don’t tell me where you are going you’ll wind up at the old brick factory south of town.”
    Shan settled back in his seat. “The brick factory will be fine,” he said uneasily. The dilapidated building was less than two miles from the foot of the mountains.
    Ming leaned forward, suddenly interested. “You know how to make the old monk talk?” He spoke as if he wanted Surya to confess something, something other than murder. He studied Shan a moment. “You were the one with Tan this morning.”
    “Surya has sometimes gone a month without speaking,” Shan said truthfully.
    “But he knows so much that needs telling,” Ming said in a disappointed voice. “It could be worth a lot to get him to speak with us again.”
    Shan could not make up his mind about the earnest young Han. He would not have become the youngest director of one of the