Out on the Rim

by Ross Thomas

  “I mean this afternoon.”

  “I’d kind of planned on getting kind of drunk.”

  “May I accompany you?”

  “You don’t drink, Al.”

  “I can find you cheap gin, bargain with the whores, keep the binny boys away and otherwise entertain myself.”

  “Okay,” Stallings said. “Let’s go.”

  The drunk lasted two days and three nights. When they finally said goodbye on August 28, 1945, Stallings was sure he would never see Alejandro Espiritu again.

  They knew Otherguy Overby at the Manila Hotel and his welcome was warm and effusive. As he crossed the huge rare wood and fine marble lobby, Overby handed out crisp new five-dollar bills to bellhops and porters and door-openers, greeting some of them by name. Stallings estimated Overby had parted with close to sixty dollars by the time he reached the assistant manager and another elaborate welcome.

  But when Overby turned to run a practiced eye over the lobby, the well-dressed assistant manager’s expression changed from one of welcome to the fatalistic look of someone who knows he’s about to be sandbagged.

  Overby turned from his inspection with a sympathetic smile. “What’s the occupancy rate running, Ramon?” he asked. “About forty, forty-five percent now all the excitement’s over?”

  The assistant manager shook his head. “It’s better than that, Otherguy. Much better.”

  “I sure hope so.” Overby turned, gave the lobby another skeptical look and turned back. “Tell you what we need. We need a suite for Doctor Stallings and two big rooms for Miss Blue and me. We want ’em all on the same smoking floor because even though Doctor Stallings doesn’t smoke, he’ll have guests who do.”

  The assistant manager nodded. “We’ll be happy to do that.”

  “The only other thing we need is a twenty-five percent discount for a week’s guarantee in advance, all cash, all U.S. dollars. But if you can’t handle that, Ramon, just say so and we’ll take a cab over to Makati and try the Inter-Continental or the Peninsula.”

  The assistant manager shook his head regretfully. “I can’t give you twenty-five off, Otherguy. This is still a government hotel.”

  Overby shrugged and turned to Stallings and Georgia Blue. “Let’s go.”

  “But I can give you twenty off,” the assistant manager said. “Providing it’s in dollars.”

  Overby reached into a pocket and came up with a roll of $100 bills. As he started counting them onto the mahogany counter, the impressed assistant manager picked up a pen and offered it to Georgia Blue along with a registration card. “Welcome to the Manila, Miss Blue.”

  They met three hours later in the sitting room of Booth Stallings’ fifth-floor suite. Stallings, wearing a pair of chinos and a dark blue short-sleeve shirt from Lew Ritter’s, still felt groggy from the flight. But Overby seemed rested and wide awake in his well-worn jeans, gaudy Hawaiian shirt and scuffed running shoes that he wore without socks. Stallings wondered why Overby wanted to look like a budget-bound tourist but decided not to ask.

  Georgia Blue also appeared rested and alert in her white skirt, tan cotton blouse and brown and white spectator pumps, which Stallings assumed were back in style—or would be shortly. He and Overby drank San Miguel beer out of cans. Georgia Blue sipped a vodka and tonic. The drinks had come from the room’s mini-refrigerator. On the low coffee table was a huge untouched basket of tropical fruit with a “Compliments of the Management” card.

  Stallings glanced around the big sitting room whose windows offered a view of Manila Bay and asked, “How much?”

  “Regular price is two-eighty a day, U.S.,” Overby said. “But you’re just paying two thirty-four and you can charge it off to front.”

  “Only two thirty-four,” Stallings said. “Imagine.”

  “Since we’re on money we might as well stick to it for a minute,” Overby said. “Okay?”

  “Fine,” Stallings said.

  “Georgia and I have to go see a guy who’ll try and hold me up for ten thousand, but who I’m going to beat back down to five. I need the five.”

  “This your contact?”

  Overby nodded.

  “What’s his name?” Georgia Blue asked.

  “Boy Howdy.”

  “Sounds American.”

  “Australian,” Overby said. “Except he may be Filipino now. He married one about ten or twelve years ago.”

  “What is he?” she asked.

  “A first-class asshole who owns a snakepit over in Ermita. Runs whores, beggar kids, a protection racket, does a little strikebreaking, stuff like that. He also takes messages and that’s what I use him for. Messages.”

  “Five thousand,” she said. “Must be some message.”

  “I believe it concerns the whereabouts of our other two partners,” Stallings said.

  She looked first at Stallings, then at Overby, her disbelief apparent. “You guys don’t even know where they are?”

  Overby shrugged. “They move around.”

  Something happened to Georgia Blue’s face then. It lost all animation and expression. Stallings decided it was her Secret Service look. When she spoke her lips scarcely moved.

  “Have they got names?” she said.

  Overby’s eyes wandered the room for a moment or two until they landed on Georgia Blue. “Wu and Durant,” he said.

  Stallings watched as the surprise that was almost shock struck Georgia Blue. Her eyes widened and her face paled. Her mouth opened to suck in a lungful of air. For a moment, Stallings thought she might hyperventilate. But then an angry crimson erased her sudden paleness and she used her breath to swear at Overby.

  “Goddamn you, Otherguy!”

  “What’s up?” Stallings asked.

  Overby turned an unpleasant smile on Stallings. “All four of us worked a few deals together in Mexico a long time ago. Her, me, Durant and Wu. When Georgia and I sort of broke up, Durant caught her on the bounce for a while and I guess she’s not over him yet. Right, Georgia?”

  “You shit.”

  “You can’t work with them?” Stallings said.

  “For a million I can work with anybody,” she said. “Even Overby.”

  “And Durant?”

  “Him too.”

  “A rather nice coincidence, isn’t it?” Stallings asked. “Your knowing Otherguy and also Wu and Durant.”

  Georgia Blue stared at Overby but spoke to Stallings. “Who sold you the package, Booth?”

  “A man named Howard Mott in Washington. Know him?”

  She ran the name through her memory. “Lawyer?”

  Stallings nodded.

  “I’ve heard of him but I don’t know him. Should I?”

  “He’s my son-in-law.”

  The look Georgia Blue gave Stallings was one of pure malice. “Yes, well, I can see you must be relieved that I don’t know him. Your son-in-law.”

  “Very relieved,” Stallings said. “Extremely so.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Overby worked it so that he would carry the $5,000 and Georgia Blue the small flat Walther semiautomatic. She wore it stuck down behind her jeans, concealed by the tails of the Hawaiian shirt Overby had found for her in one of the Manila Hotel specialty shops. The Walther was her own.

  It was nearly 10 P.M. when they rode the elevator down to the hotel lobby. “We’re Mr. and Mrs. Average B. Tourist,” he said. “The B is for bored and we’re out for a halfway dirty night on the town.”

  “Gosh, it’s like a disguise, isn’t it?”

  Overby sighed. “If I have to carry a chunk of money around Ermita, I want to do it so nobody notices me. And when I try and beat Boy Howdy down five thousand, I want to look as hard-up as possible.” He inspected her critically. “Trouble with you is, you can’t even look hard-up.”

  “My God,” she said as the elevator door opened. “I think you just paid me a compliment.”

  “Think again,” said Overby as he walked out of the elevator ahead of her.

  Outside the
hotel the doorman tried to sell Overby on the safety and security of a hotel limousine. When Overby refused, the doorman shrugged, whistled up a taxi, wrote something down on a small pad, tore it off and gave it to Overby who passed it to Georgia Blue without a glance.

  The slip had the name of the hotel printed at the top. Below was the cautionary statement: “Dear Guest: For your Safety and Convenience the vehicle you are now taking bears the following information.” After that the doorman had written the taxi’s name and plate number.

  “In case we get banged on the head and dumped in the bay, right?” Georgia Blue said.

  Overby nodded as the five-year-old Toyota taxi pulled up to a stop and they climbed into its rear. When Overby said he wanted to go to Boy Howdy’s in Ermita, the driver offered to take them to a much nicer place, his cousin’s, where they wouldn’t be cheated nearly as much. Overby had to decline the offer twice before the driver put the taxi into gear and crept down the hotel drive to Roxas Boulevard.

  The trip was short in distance but long in time because of heavy traffic and the sin and sex customers who jammed the short narrow one-way street in Ermita. At the street’s far end was a big flashing pink neon sign that spelled out Boy Howdy’s name. At least a dozen clubs lined the block and outside each of them was a barker, hawking the delights that lay within. About half of the barkers were Australians in their forties and fifties with mean mouths and disappointed eyes.

  Prospective customers included Japanese businessmen, wearing stylish sports clothes and foolish grins; American servicemen, all of them young and many of them drunk, and a scattering of European males who seemed torn between apprehension and desire. The rest of the crowd was made up of adult and child prostitutes of both sexes plus a variety of pimps, beggar kids, transvestites, pickpockets, all-purpose grifters and a sprinkling of middle-aged American tourists who looked as if they had bought the wrong guidebook.

  When the taxi was fifty yards from Boy Howdy’s, it became stuck in a traffic jam. Overby paid off the driver. Once his passengers were out of the taxi, the driver switched off his engine, rolled up the windows, locked the doors and resigned himself to a steam bath of indefinite duration.

  Overby led the way with Georgia Blue slightly behind him and to his left at curbside where the trouble, if any, would come from. Overby ambled along, sticking to his tourist role, his eyes wide and a know-it-all grin plastered across his face.

  The trouble came from a big drunken American sailor who wore a T-shirt that read, “All-American Fuckup.” He grabbed Georgia Blue by her right wrist, proclaiming: “Just can’t help it—I’m in love!”

  Overby turned to watch impassively as Georgia Blue allowed herself to be spun around. She almost laughed when the sailor told her that tall women turned him on. But then her left hand darted to the big right hand that still clutched her wrist. Her fingers sought and found the nerve that lay just below the pad of his thumb. She clamped down on it. The sailor yelled. He kept on yelling as she forced him to his knees, released him and walked away. A small crowd quickly gathered to discuss whether the kneeling man was damaged enough to roll.

  “Durant taught you that, didn’t he?” Overby said as Georgia Blue rejoined him.

  “Did he?”

  “I saw him do it in Bangkok once to some big special forces ape.”

  “I’m just fine, Otherguy, but it was sweet of you to ask.”

  Overby gave her a quick puzzled glance. “I wasn’t worried, if that’s what you mean. It’s what you fucking well do.”

  She nodded slightly, looking away, and said, “You’re right. It’s what I fucking well do.”

  The barker outside Boy Howdy’s was a jockey-size Australian with too few teeth and a loud-hailer voice. He had one good eye and one milky one. He turned the good eye on Overby.

  “Been a while, mate,” the barker said.

  “Tell him I’m here.”

  “Tell him yourself.”

  It wasn’t quite tar black inside Boy Howdy’s because of the pink light that came from a small stage where three nude women—two Filipinas and one Chinese—were engaged in a listless, vaguely aerobic orgy. Below the stage a three-piece band, consisting of piano, drums and saxophone, played “Moon River.”

  There were two walls of booths, a long packed bar and two dozen very small tables where restless bar girls prowled in search of prey. The place was a little more than half full and most of the customers were Japanese men who watched the show and giggled into their Coca-Colas and Scotch.

  A Filipino with an acromegalic chin and thick black hair down to his shoulders stepped up to Overby and nodded. He was a smallish giant of six-seven or eight and wore the confident air of a veteran bouncer who still delights in his trade. Three jagged scars ran down his right cheek like badges of office.

  “Who’s she?” the bouncer said, using his brickbat chin to indicate Georgia Blue.

  “Wanda Mae,” Overby said.

  The bouncer frowned. “Boy didn’t say nothing about no Wanda Mae.”

  “She’s all night and all paid for and I don’t want her to skip,” Overby explained.

  That was something the bouncer could understand. He jerked his head toward the rear. “Come on.”

  Overby and Georgia Blue followed him down a short hall that had two doors leading to toilets. At the end of the hall was a third door made of metal. The bouncer turned to Overby. “Raise your arms.”

  Overby raised them. The bouncer started at Overby’s armpits and patted his way down. When he reached the knees, Overby said, “That’s far enough.”

  The bouncer looked up, shook his big head, and would have kept on going if Georgia Blue hadn’t stuck the Walther into his left ear. “He said that’s far enough,” she told him as he slowly rose, the muzzle still partly buried in his ear.

  Overby examined the bouncer. “If we go in with that thing growing out of your ear, you’ll look pretty silly. So why don’t you just open the door and we’ll go in and you can stay out here and keep an eye on things. Okay?”

  Because of the gun in his ear, the bouncer could only nod a fraction of an inch.

  “What do I do,” Overby asked, “ring the bell?”

  “One long; two short,” the bouncer said.

  Overby pressed a black button as instructed. A moment later the unlocking buzzer sounded. Overby opened the door a crack and waited until he felt Georgia Blue’s back against his. “Okay?” he said.

  “Okay,” she replied, using the Walther to wave the bouncer back down the short hall.

  Overby opened the metal door wide and stood there, momentarily shielding Georgia Blue. She turned quickly, facing Overby now, and stuck the Walther back beneath her Hawaiian shirt.

  The room they entered was no larger than a large rug, about ten by fifteen feet. All of its furniture seemed to be made from plastic, chrome and leather. There were no windows. One wall was painted a flat black and boasted a large acrylic-on-velvet painting of an idealized tropical beach with lots of coconut palms and a fat tiger stalking an even fatter carabao.

  Boy Howdy stood in front of a chrome and plastic desk, wearing a long-sleeved barong tagalog that revealed an old-fashioned net undervest. Red chest hair going gray poked and curled its way through the vest.

  At least six-one or two, Howdy had a street brawler’s thick sloping shoulders and loose-hanging arms. His face seemed to be made out of pink knobs. One ear, his right, had had its lobe bitten off. Small blue eyes, a bit faded, burrowed back into his head beneath thick red bushy eyebrows that were also going gray. The hair on top of his head was short and wiry and seemed to have been crimped into place. It was much redder than his eyebrows and Overby guessed he was dyeing it.

  “Who’s she?” Boy Howdy said by way of greeting in a voice that always sounded to Overby like a wood file’s first bite.

  “Georgia Blue.”

  Howdy grinned, revealing two gold teeth. “That anything like Sweet Georgia Brown?”

  “You know, that’s never come u
p before,” she said.

  “I bet,” Howdy said and made an awkward gesture. “Well, sit down—anywhere.”

  Georgia Blue chose a chrome and leather chair. Overby took a straight-backed one—the only one in the room. He sat with his feet planted firmly on the floor, his arms folded across his chest. He looked around and nodded at the acrylic painting. “That’s new,” he said.

  “Sort of says it all, don’t it?” Boy Howdy said.

  “Sums it up.”

  “Well, what’ll it be, Otherguy? A drink and some business, or some business and then a drink?”

  “Business.”

  Boy Howdy nodded and leaned his rear against the desk. “I don’t mind telling you I went to a terrible lot of trouble and expense to locate your two mates. Terrible trouble and beaucoup expense.”

  “I’d guess two phone calls and maybe fifty pesos to a bellhop.”

  Howdy turned a coconspirator’s smile on Georgia Blue. “Ever notice what a fast lip old Otherguy has?”

  “Frequently.”

  “But I did it, Otherguy. It cost me time and it cost me money but I ran ‘em to earth and talked to ’em both.”

  “What’d Durant say? Hello and goodbye?”

  “Just because Durant and I rub each other wrong don’t mean we can’t do a bit of business.”

  “Boy,” Overby said. “Listen. Durant won’t talk to you. I know it and you know it. So what did Artie say?”

  Howdy forced a measure of warmth into his reply. “Old Artie. Offer me the choice of who to do business with and I say give me a Chinaman every time. They tell you something, you can stick it in the bank. So when I tell Artie about all the time and expense it cost me to find him, he says he appreciates my efforts and would fair take care of me himself personally, except he ain’t got any deal with you yet, Otherguy, and he figures my share’ll have to come out of your share.”

  “Sounds like Artie.”

  “So I says, ‘Artie, what d’you think I should ask old Otherguy for? Name me a fair price,’ says I, ‘one that’ll send him away humming to himself.’ And Artie says he thinks a fair, rock-bottom price’d be ten thousand U.S.”