Free The Adventures Of Indiana Jones by Campbell & Kahn Black

Indy by the elbow and escorted him through a doorway and out onto the street—where the wind, a savage, demented thing, came howling out of the mountains and scoured the street as if it were bent on an old vengeance. They moved into a doorway, the small Chinese still holding Indy by the arm.
    “I am glad to see you again,” Lin-Su said in an English that was both quaint and measured, and rusty from lack of use. “It has been many years.”
    “Too many,” Indy said. “Twelve? Thirteen?”
    “As you say, twelve . . .” Lin-Su paused and looked along the street. “I received your cable, of course.” His voice faded as his attention was drawn to a movement in the street, a shadow crossing a doorway. “You will pardon this question, my old friend: Is somebody following you?”
    Indy looked puzzled. “Nobody I’m aware of.”
    “No matter. The eyes create trickery.”
    Indy glanced down the street. He didn’t see anything other than the shuttered fronts of small shops and a pale light the color of a kerosene flame falling from the open doorway of a coffeehouse.
    The small Chinese hesitated for a moment, then said, “I have made inquiries for you, as you asked me to.”
    “And?”
    “It is hard in a country like this to obtain information quickly. This you understand. The lack of lines of communication. And the weather, of course. The accursed snow makes it difficult. The telephone system is primitive, where it exists, that is.” Lin-Su laughed. “However, I can tell you that the last time Abner Ravenwood was heard from, he was in the region around Patan. This much I can vouch for. Everything else I have learned is rumor and hardly worth discussion.”
    “Patan, huh? How long ago?”
    “That is hard to say. Reliably, three years ago.” Lin-Su shrugged. “I am very apologetic I can do no better, my friend.”
    “You’ve done very well,” Indy said. “Is there a chance he might still be there?”
    “I can tell you that nobody had any knowledge of him leaving this country. Beyond that . . .” Lin-Su shivered and turned up the collar of his heavy coat.
    “It helps,” Indy said.
    “I wish it could be more, naturally. I have not forgotten the assistance you gave me when I was last in your great country.”
    “All I did was intervene with the Immigration Service, Lin-Su.”
    “So. But you informed them that I was employed at your museum when in fact I was not.”
    “A white lie,” Indy said.
    “And what is friendship but the sum of favors?”
    “As you say,” Indy remarked. He wasn’t always comfortable with Oriental platitudes, those kinds of comments that might have been lifted from the writings of a third-rate Confucius. But he understood that Lin-Su’s Chinese act was performed almost professionally, as if he were speaking the way Occidentals expected him to.
    “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 Citroën. 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