Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon_v4

by Finding Moon v4(lit)

  Mr. Preda cleared his throat and pushed away from the wall. "It is about used up, all the time you have. You have to go pretty quick now."

  "Back to the subjects of moats and draw-bridges," Rice said, voice urgent. "Getting across.

  "What was the blueprint you had in mind?" "We don't have any," Moon said.

  "I do," Rice said. "You good at memorizing?" Moon nodded.

  "Eighty-one. Ninety. Twenty-two. You got it?"

  "Eighty-one, ninety, twenty-two," Osa said. "The man's name is Gregory. He does the same thing a robin does. Or a crow. Or a seagull. Tell him the aviary for the robin will be at the end of the Puerto Princesa runway." Rice paused. "What day is today?"

  "April twenty-third," Moon said, feeling sick as he said it. "But wait a minute now."

  "April twenty-fifth, then," Rice said. "In the wee wee hours. The witching hour."

  Moon said, "Hold on now. We-"

  Mr. Preda said, "Now we go." He put his hand on Rice's shoulder, nodded to Osa. "Have a good day."

  Rice, moving toward the door, turned suddenly. "At Imelda's?"

  Osa said yes.

  Rice said, "Until the wee hours." And to Moon he said, "Across the moat and I can find that little girl for you."

  MANILA, April 22 (UPI)-The U.S. Navy has assembled a fleet of five aircraft carriers, eleven destroyers, four amphibious landing craft and other vessels off the coast of South Vietnam for a possible evacuation mission, a well-informed source at the Subic Bay Naval Base said today. The Thirteenth and the Fourteenth Day April 25-26, 1975 IT DEPENDED ON HOW you looked at it. You could call it a coup. A stroke of good fortune. Gregory, whoever he might be, would fly in from wherever. They'd get George Rice aboard undetected. Gregory would transport them across the South China Sea to the R. M. Air repair hangars on the Mekong. There Rice would fire up a copter, they'd fly away to the Vinhs' village and pick up Mr. Lee's urn, hop up to the Reverend Damon van Winjgaarden's mission to collect him, and then out of there. Safely. Then Rice, the old Asia hand, would talk to the right people, -pull the right strings, find where Lila had been dropped off. They'd make another copter flight, snatch up the kid, and away they'd go.

  On the other hand, it could be an unmitigated nightmare, which is the way it seemed to be working out, with Osa and he doing about twenty years, plowing rice paddies, for scheming to break a convict out of a Philippine prison. Having had plenty of time to think about it, Moon sat in the dim moonlight behind Imelda's hotel wondering how he could have been so stupid.

  Recognizing the stupidity had been quick enough.

  "You know what we've done?" he asked Osa as soon as the log gate had been pulled across the road behind them and they were jolting away from the Palawan prison. "We have conspired to commit a felony."

  Osa put a finger to her lips and signified the cabbie with her other hand.

  "Okay," Moon said. "So we don't need another witness against us. But you know what I mean?"

  "Of course I know," Osa said. "Exactly, I know. But what else could we do?"

  Moon had thought of several things they might have done by the time the jeepney dropped them off at the hotel. But instead of doing any of them, he had just sat there like a ninny and let Rice take charge of the conversation.

  Now it was almost dawn, a day and half after the conversation, and no sign of George Rice. if Moon had enough optimism left to hope for any luck, he would have been hoping that Rice had fallen fatally down a cliff or become victim to whatever predators Palawan Island's jungles provided. Probably snakes, at least. But Moon's optimism was all used up. Rice would appear, probably at the worst possible time, and they'd have to talk him into going right back to the palm-log gate and turning himself in. And what if he wouldn't?

  There was nothing else they could do with him. Except perhaps strangle the bastard and drag his body out into the bushes.

  They'd placed the call to Gregory from the telephone in Moon's room, checking first with the desk to be sure making a connection across the Sulu Sea on a Filipino telephone required no special skill. It didn't.

  The telephone made the expected ringing sounds, then clicked. A woman's voice said, "What number were you calling?"

  Moon told her the number, and waited, trying not to think about how dreadful this was going to be if- "I'm sorry, sir. That number is no longer in service.

  "What?" Moon said. "You mean it's out of order?"

  "No, sir. That number has been disconnected."

  "Could you try again? Could you check? Maybe he just left the receiver off the-"

  "Of course."

  Moon waited, listening to the sounds telephones make during this sort of operation, thinking there would be no one named Gregory flying in to make George Rice disappear.

  "I'm sorry, sir. That number has been disconnected."

  "When?"

  "I'm sorry, sir. You will have to check with our business office for that information. Shall I transfer your call?"

  "No. Thanks. Just let it go," Moon said. He put down the phone.

  "He wasn't there," Osa said.

  "The telephone has been disconnected," Moon said. Osa would say maybe he just wasn't in. Osa would say maybe he left the telephone off the hook. Osa would ask- Osa raised her eyebrows, made a wry face, said,

  "I don't think Mr. Rice gave us the wrong number. I think Mr. Gregory moved away." She paused, staring past him, deep in thought. She grimaced. "Now, what to do with Mr. Rice? The prison people, I think they will come looking for him." She paused. "And looking for us."

  "How about we kill him and bury him?" Moon said.

  "He won't want to go back," she said. "I don't think so. He'll want us to hide him somewhere." She shook her head, gave Moon a wry smile, tapped her purse. "I can't fit him in here."

  They sat side by side on Moon's bed. The sound of the lobby television drifted up through the floor. Canned laughter, then drums, then music, then what seemed to be a life insurance commercial.

  Osa put her hand on his knee.

  "Don't worry, Mr. Mathias. You've had too much to worry about. Your mother. Your poor little niece. And back home there must be the job you had to leave so quickly. Too much to worry about. Don't worry about this."

  Surprised, he looked at her. He saw nothing but total sympathy. Her eyes glistened with it. She was ready to cry for him.

  Moon wasn't sure what emotion this provoked in him. Whatever it was, it caused him to give a shout of laughter, thrust his arm around her shoulder, and hug her to him. "Mrs. van Winjgaarden," he said. "Osa, you are absolutely something else." He laughed again. "What do you mean, don't worry about this? We're standing here on the edge of the cliff, and it's crumbling under our feet, and Osa van Winjgaarden is advising me not to worry."

  "Ooh," Osa said. "Too tight. You hug too strongly."

  "We have a magazine in the States," Moon said. He eased his grip. "Mad magazine, with this stupid guy grinning on the cover and saying, `What? Me worry?' It's the American symbol for craziness."

  Osa was free now. "Well," she said. "The Italians have a useful phrase. Che sara sara. You know it?"

  "It's the same in Spanish," he said. "And I guess they're both right."

  And so he had picked up the telephone again and repeated the process with the number Rice had given them. The operator was different but the results were the same: disconnected.

  "I think you should be calling me Osa," she said. "Mrs. van Winjgaarden is too long. And you never get it quite right."

  "And everybody calls me Moon."

  Then he called information and got the number of the Pasag Imperial Hotel in Manila.

  Mr. Lum Lee was in.

  "Ah, Mr. Lee," Moon said. "I think I know now the location of your urn of bones."

  He heard the sudden sound of Mr. Lee sucking in his breath.

  "We found a man named George Rice. He

  worked closely with my brother. Rice told us that the day Ricky was killed he called in on his radio and said he had picked u
p the urn someplace up north in Cambodia. He said he was leaving it off at the home of Eleth Vinh's parents. The name is Vin Ba and it's a tiny little village in Cambodia near the Vietnam border."

  "Ah," Lum Lee said. "Mr. Mathias, this is very kind of you. Very generous. It is difficult for a Westerner- for anyone who is not a Buddhist-to understand how important these bones are for our family."

  "I've read about it," Moon said. "But I'm afraid this information will be too late. I hear the Khmer Rouge are taking over everything. We may not be able to get there. And it may be gone if we do."

  "But this is most generous of you, this kindness to a stranger."

  "It is a family responsibility," Moon said. "You contracted with my brother-"

  Mr. Lee gave him a moment, decided the sentence wouldn't be finished, said, "But that was an accident," cleared his throat, and went on. "I myself was not able to reach Mr. Rice. I was informed he was in prison. In the south."

  "He's in the Federal Correction Unit on Palawan Island," Moon said. "Our embassy arranged for me to talk to him."

  "Of course," said Mr. Lee, and Moon heard a wry chuckle. "I think the Taiwan embassy would not know me, and the mainland China embassy would not find favor in the present Philippine foreign office. You are there now? On Palawan?"

  "At Puerto Princesa," Moon said. "At the Puerto Princesa Filipina hotel."

  "And from there you are going over to Vietnam? Or you come back to Manila?"

  "I don't know," Moon said. "I have no plans made. But if I can find the urn I will bring it to you. Where? At your hotel in Manila?"

  "Yes," Lee said. "They know me here. And where will you be?"

  Probably in prison, but no use getting into all those details. "I'll be here for a day or two." Or however many years it takes to serve out a criminal conspiracy term.

  And that had been more or less that. A few more expressions of gratitude on Mr. Lee's part, and disclaimers by Moon.

  The next call had been to the cardiac ward in Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. He'd asked the nurse who answered how his mother was doing.

  "Morick," the nurse said. "Oh, yes. Dr. Serna has been trying to reach you in Manila. Just a moment while I page her."

  Moon waited, uneasy. Dr. Serna calling him in Manila couldn't be good. It wasn't.

  "Ah, Mr. Mathias," she said. "I haven't been able to reach you. The hotel number you gave us in Manila-"

  "Is she worse?"

  "We couldn't wait," Dr. Serna said. "We tried an angioplasty. Usually they're effective. This one wasn't. So we-"

  "Is she dead?"

  "She's alive. Her condition is stabilizing. But we must do bypass surgery right away. How soon can you get to Los Angeles?"

  "Ah," Moon said. "I don't know. I'm at Puerto Princesa. Little place way down at the wrong end of the Philippines. I'll have to find a way to get back to Manila and then-"

  He stopped, thinking of George Rice in the jungle, of the police surely watching the airport. He'd never get to Manila. And if he did, the police there would grab him the minute he showed his passport.

  "Look," he said. "I'll get there as soon as I can. Do the surgery. You have my permission. Do whatever you have to do to save her life."

  "We can declare it a medical emergency," Dr. Serna said. "Because it is."

  "Can I talk to her?"

  "She's sedated."

  "Would you tell her for me that I love her. And tell her I'm going to find her granddaughter if I can."

  Osa and he had decided that they couldn't risk Rice's simply walking up to the hotel and asking for them. They'd split the night watch into shifts, one prowling the grounds while the other slept, hoping to spot him the moment he arrived. Moon had insisted that Osa take the early watch. Being nervous, he'd shared much of it with her. Now it was almost dawn. He'd memorized the night sky of spring ten degrees north of the equator, identifying the familiar constellations and trying to guess the names of those new to him. He'd sorted out the night sounds, lizards, birds, frogs, mammals. He noticed how the mating symphonies and the hunting calls fell almost silent when the moon went down and rose again just before the eastern horizon lightened. But he neither saw nor heard any trace of escaped convict George Rice. Not on the potholed road. Not on the fringes of jungle beyond the hotel grounds. Not anywhere.

  Above and behind him a sudden flash of light:

  the window of Osa's room. A few moments later, it went off. Bathroom call, he thought. He needed one himself and strolled across the grass to a nearby bush. It was flowering, surrounding him with blossoms the size of baseballs, the aroma overpowering the thousand smells of the night.

  When he emerged from the bush, Osa was sitting on the ledge under the hotel wall, looking toward the jungle.

  She'll say, Have you seen him? Or she'll say, I couldn't sleep.

  She patted the ledge beside her, inviting him to sit, and said, "What are we going to do?"

  Moon sat, thought about how to answer.

  She rephrased the question. "What are you going to do?"

  "If Rice doesn't show up?"

  "Yes. Or if he does get here. Either way."

  "I don't know," Moon said. "I know I have to figure out some way to get to L.A. But it looks impossible. How about you?"

  "I'll keep trying," she said. "I don't know exactly how to do it, but there must be a way." She touched his arm. "Anyway, there's nothing you could do there but pace the floor and wait. You said you had found a good doctor and a good hospital. All you can do is wait."

  Moon found himself thinking that he'd liked What are we going to do? better than What are you going to do? But he thought of no way to express that thought. So he said, "if Rice is coming, it should be about now. When it's just light enough so he can see what he's getting into. See if we're out here waiting for him."

  "He'd come out of the jungle, you think? Not down the road?"

  "I would," Moon said. "I'd be scared to death. But I'd be more scared of getting caught than of getting snake-bit."

  "I don't think so," Osa said.

  "Don't think what? That I'm not scared of snakes?"

  "Not scared of anything," she said. "Anyway, not scared to death. Ricky told us you didn't seem ever to be very frightened."

  "Well, now you know better," Moon said.

  "Know better? That means like I know more strongly?"

  "No. It means you know you were wrong about me. I'm easy to scare. I'm scared about the trouble I got us into here. I'm scared about going to Cambodia."

  She sighed. "As you said to me last night, I don't blame you. I'm scared too."

  "But you would go?"

  The pause was so long Moon thought she would ignore the question. But she said. "Yes. Sure. So would you."

  Moon didn't answer. She was probably right, and that made his stomach feel uncomfortable.

  "Why would I?"

  "Because it's the way you are. You think of your mother, sick back there in that hospital. You want to bring a granddaughter for her to see. You think of that little girl. Your brother's daughter. In Asia people are very proud. They don't like those of other races. The Khmers don't like the Laotians, and the Laotians don't like the Thais, and the Vietnamese don't like the Montagnards, and nobody likes the people who are mixed."

  Moon couldn't think of an answer. He said, "People are people."

  In the dimness he could see her shaking her head. "They had it in the papers about how badly the Vietnamese treated the children left behind by your army. Half white or half black. Half Vietnamese."

  He had read it. In fact, he had written a headline on an AP story reporting that. He couldn't forget it. That was part of his problem.

  "Things get exaggerated," Moon said. "I'm in the news business. I know."

  She was silent, staring into the jungle. It was light enough now to make out the shape of trees, shades of color. Somewhere in the night a water buffalo bellowed.

  "I was a child in Java when they tried to overthrow the Sukarno g
overnment," she said. "There was supposed to be an assassination first and then a coup. The Communists were working with the dissidents, and so was part of the army, but something went wrong."

  "Were you in danger?" he asked, wondering why she had shifted to another subject. But she hadn't.

  "There was probably a betrayal," she said. "Usually there is a betrayal. And there was much fighting, and the Suharto people won and then told the people in Malaysia that the Chinese Communists were behind it all, and then the killing of the Chinese began. People in Asia always find a reason to kill the Chinese. The Chinese work hard and save their money and start their little shops and loan people money, so other people envy them. They blame them for things."