“I talked with some who liberated this place,” he said. “Americans. They told me that this was the first time they learned to hate. When they came here and saw the condition of their countrymen and realized how long they had suffered they knew what they were fighting for.”
He paused and shook his head. “It was bad here. Very bad. Yet Bilibid has had its uses. Last summer we had Jap prisoners here.” He pointed to a walled-off section on the left. “We kept them there,” he said. “Also Yamashita was here before his trial and that was good. Pardon me,” he said as someone called to him from below. “They are here now,” he added presently. “Miss Kane and Miss Dizon.”
Lynn Kane wore another linen dress, natural color this time, and everything else was as Rankin remembered, the slim brown legs, the tawny skin and hair, the violet eyes that looked right through him when she answered his good morning.
Marie Dizon looked different as she sat by the window. By daylight her hair was not black but mahogany, her complexion a coffee-with-cream shade. Her eyes, slightly elongated and long-lashed did not seem hostile but neither did they smile. She had a folded piece of paper in her hand and she spoke rapidly in Spanish to Esteban before she gave it to him.
For five seconds Esteban studied the paper, then he looked at Rankin, his black gaze steady and intent. It remained fixed as he held out the paper and Rankin, not knowing what was coming, had a sudden hunch that somehow the news was bad.
“You know of this?” the sergeant said.
Rankin knew, all right. One look was enough to tell him that this was a carbon copy of Ulio’s will, properly signed and witnessed. Apparently Ulio had mailed it the day they arrived in Honolulu and it had traveled on the same plane they did though it had not been delivered until this morning.
“I have the original,” he said.
“You had it last night.”
“Not when I talked to you,” Rankin said and explained how Ulio had given him the envelope. “I opened it last night when I got to my room.”
“Umm.” Esteban folded the will and returned it to Marie. “On the face of it, this seems to bear out what Miss Maynard said last night—that you were close friends. Also it gives a motive we did not have before.”
He paused as though he expected Rankin to say something. “Friends have killed friends before. In sudden anger or the heat of argument.”
Rankin made no reply to that either. He was uncomfortable under Marie Dizon’s continuing scrutiny and spoke to her, asking if there had been any letter with the will.
She said there was a letter. “He said he was sending me a copy for safe-keeping,” she added. “In case anything happened.”
“Does that sound to you like a man who was afraid something might happen?”
She considered this. “Yes.”
“You accompanied him here as an act of friendship, Mr. Rankin?” Esteban asked.
“Not exactly.” Rankin paused, feeling for a proper explanation. “He wanted help and he thought I could give it.”
“What did he intend to pay for this help?”
Rankin felt a stir of exasperation which mounted quickly when he realized there was no clear answer to this. How could he explain it? They were friends and there was an unspoken agreement that Ulio was to pay him. What and how he had not asked.
“When we got the mine business cleaned up I was going to work along with him, maybe as a partner.” He groped for something else, knowing how vague he sounded. “But first,” he said, “Ulio wanted sort of a bodyguard”—he knew that sounded crazy too—“and he thought I’d be good at it. He was scared, damn it! Of Pascual Sanchez.”
Lynn Kane made a contemptuous unladylike sound and Rankin turned on her.
“And he was right, wasn’t he? Being afraid? He’s dead, isn’t he?”
He was sorry instantly and felt a revulsion at himself for the outburst, but it was too late. Lynn Kane was on her feet. So was Marie. Lynn said, “Are you ready, Marie?” and continued to Esteban. “Marie came to me with the will and we thought it best to show it to you.”
Esteban said he appreciated it and suddenly Rankin knew he couldn’t let her go like this. He had to talk to her and try once more to explain the things that Ulio had felt.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper,” he said. “Would you mind giving me a lift—if there’s room?”
The girl did not bother to look at him, nor did she turn. “Certainly,” she said over her shoulder. “I’d be glad to.”
Esteban cleared his throat. He said he would like a word with Rankin if Miss Kane would not mind waiting a minute in the car. When they left he went to a desk and took out the two automatics he had taken from Rankin the night before, asking which one was his.
Rankin explained how Ulio had supplied both guns and indicated the one he had chosen the night before. Then, to his amazement, Esteban handed it over. “I should not like it known that I have done this but—” He broke off and a frown marred his broad face.
“I have not made up my mind about this murder,” he said. “If I can prove you did it I shall do so, and the opportunity and motive are there. I do not know whether it is you or Pascual Sanchez who lies but I can tell you I hope it is Sanchez.” He paused, his gaze speculative and his voice still soft.
“We do not like Pascual Sanchez very much here in Manila but it would be unwise to underestimate his position. So”—he gestured with one hand—“if you are telling the truth and if you persist in trying to prove it, I must tell you that it may prove dangerous. Manila is not like San Francisco. We have a young doctor here, hardly more than a girl, who has performed eight autopsies in one day. We have had as many as twenty-three violent deaths in one twenty-four hour period.”
He smiled thinly. “It is much better now but there are many places in this city that are not safe for one who is alone. A shot in the dark or a knife in the back is many times a hard thing to trace. A man is found dead with the sign Collaborator on his chest and we find the killer was the man across the street who wanted his shop. So you see, if anyone wished to have you removed it would not be too difficult.”
Sobered, moved by the man’s manner and his words, Rankin took the gun. He said, “Thanks. I know it doesn’t mean you’re on my side,” he said. “At least until I’m in the clear. But I’m on yours, chum. Thanks a lot.”
Lynn Kane sat behind the wheel of a shiny and not-too-old sedan with Marie Dizon beside her and Rankin climbed in back and said, “Thanks for waiting.”
Lynn said Marie had to get back to Austin’s office and she’d drop her first if Rankin didn’t mind. He said that was fine and leaned forward as the car got under way, his arms on the back of the front seat.
“I want to talk awhile,” he said. “I want to start straight. I’m not sore and I’m not going to lose my temper and I’m not going into what happened last night, but I’ve got to try once more to make you understand how Ulio felt.”
“All right,” Lynn said indifferently.
“I think Sanchez killed Ulio and you don’t. I say he was there last night and saw Ulio yesterday afternoon and you don’t believe that either. Okay.” He wondered if his voice sounded right and thought it did. “Let’s just take the facts. I’m here because Ulio brought me here.”
“He brought you once before.”
“Sure. That was charity; because he liked me. This time he looked me up purposely and spent eight days at it as Claire Maynard will tell you. He told me some things I didn’t believe either and then proved them to me.”
He glanced at Marie but she was staring straight ahead so he took his time after that and explained carefully what Ulio had said about the mine and how Ulio knew that Sanchez claimed title to it. He said Carlos de Borja was watching in Ulio’s hotel and he gave in detail his brush with the private detective and the call they made on Mr. Estes. He was quiet-voiced when he told about the man who had searched the cabin, produced the knife that had been thrown at him. Then, finished at last, he waited. Ten seconds ticked by
and then, her voice the same as before, Lynn said:
“I’m sorry. I just don’t believe it.”
Rankin hung on, spoke easily. “You think I’m making all this up?”
“Not at all. I merely think that Ulio was mistaken. I don’t say that he wasn’t followed in San Francisco but I can’t believe that Packy had anything to do with it.” And so saying she pulled into the curb in front of a three-story office building with the usual overhang above the first floor.
Marie got out and thanked Lynn. When she hurried across the sidewalk, the car pulled out into the traffic stream, forcing a cartella driver to haul his pony back on his two hind legs to avert a collision. Lynn seemed not to notice and asked where Rankin wanted to go.
“I’m glad you asked for a lift,” she said when he told her. “I wanted to discuss the will. You’re not going to file it or record it, or whatever it is one does with wills, are you?”
Rankin said he did not know, speaking absently because his mind was unable to digress so swiftly. Her casual dismissal of the story he had told so earnestly left him a little bewildered and he sat back, watching the traffic, his attention finally centering on the little bus ahead of him.
It was a vehicle peculiar to Manila, he decided, with a bus body mounted on the chassis of a small, gas-saving model that had never been popular in the States. Five passengers would crowd a sedan body and be a normal load on the springs, and yet in the model ahead there were more than a dozen Filipinos on the two lengthwise benches, and standing hunched over in the aisle, and clinging to the rear step. He found an odd amusement in trying to count the passengers until something Lynn said registered through his preoccupation.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What did you say?”
“I said obviously Ulio would never have drawn any such will if he had known I was alive.”
“Wouldn’t he?”
“Certainly not. He thought we were all dead and he didn’t want to die intestate, or whatever the word is, because then Marie would get nothing. I mean, if he were still alive he would destroy the will he gave you.”
“Probably.”
“Well,” she said, sounding relieved. “We can arrange something for Marie. I don’t mean to sound greedy but under the circumstances it would hardly be right, would it, for you to insist on getting Ulio’s share.”
Rankin leaned back, finding at first a grim amusement in her concern. He felt tired and old and he wondered why she should think he wanted to cash in on the will. Somehow he didn’t care if school kept or not, now that Ulio was gone. He still had a couple of hundred dollars of his own and the thousand pesos Ulio had given him.
His thoughts followed along that line in an orderly procession and he was about to tell her how he stood when something he did not understand gave him pause. He found himself thinking in the past again, of the things he’d done and the jobs he’d had; brawling, drinking, fighting with the boss, and, like Ulio said, not giving a damn. That had always been his trouble and it occurred to him now with something of a shock that he was about to repeat the familiar formula.
Looking back on these moments it seemed to Rankin that it was here, riding sightlessly along some unknown, traffic-filled street that he started to grow up. There was no immediate explanation for the reversal of his attitude except that he was sick to death of what he had done and what was happening to him.
He thought of Ulio and the confidence the little man had placed in him and that may have had something to do with it. Ulio had come to fight a man named Sanchez and he had named Rankin his alternate. Ulio had lost before he was hardly more than started and now he, Rankin, was about to lose by default because he didn’t give a damn. He was going to run out. He was going to forget Ulio and how he had died, knowing who killed him but not caring enough to do anything about it.
It made him think; it made him ashamed. And as he explored this new feeling he found a lot of other reasons to arouse the man in him. What about Ulio’s father—if he was still alive—who had counted on his son’s return? Who was going to battle that one out? Who was going to battle Sanchez? And what about the girl he wanted so much to love and who had scoffed at his story in her obstinate regard for the man her half brother came to fight. Elaborating on this he found the bitterness gnawing at him; thinking of her attitude and patronizing ways made it worse. He was, finally, outraged that she should dare to think that he wanted to cash in on his friend’s death. And so, in his anger and this strange new growth that had started to come, knowing pretty well what she thought of him anyway, he said:
“Why shouldn’t I insist on my share? It was Ulio’s business, wasn’t it?”
“But—” She half turned to look at him in her surprise and the car swerved.
“Look where you’re going,” he said, and to his surprise she did. “He came here to get the mine back and he made me a proxy in case he couldn’t be around to do it. If you think I’m going to fade out and let Sanchez get away with it, you’re crazy.”
She took a long, angry breath but he went on before she could answer.
“That will makes us partners, sister. I’ve got as much to say about things as you have.” He cleared his throat and went the whole way. “Certainly I’m going to cash in on it if I can. And I expect to earn what I get.”
Her hands were white on the steering-wheel and two red spots marked her cheekbones. She took a quick backward look at him, her eyes flaring. “You’re—detestable!” she said furiously. “I should have known that someone like you, who never had anything, would certainly”—she groped for a word and found one—“chisel in whenever he could.”
“That’s me,” Rankin said, half-shouting now and not caring. “Pull over.”
“Where?”
“Here. Anywhere. I want to get out.”
She obeyed and the car stopped. She watched him as he got out, her eyes dark-violet and wide now, not angry so much as bewildered. It made her look young, not haughty or imperious any more, but helpless and a little afraid.
But Rankin was in no mood to appreciate this. He started down the street, a burly, blackly scowling man, tramping sightlessly through sidewalk throngs who made room for him as he passed. He walked two blocks without knowing where he was going and finally had to ask a traffic cop where he was and how he could get to the Lingayen Gulf Café.
He made it ten minutes later, sweating freely and a little out of breath. He took his coat off and sat down, feeling his fury pass and the strength and determination leak out of him. He lit a cigarette. He paced the floor, stopping to scoop up the bottle of Scotch and then replacing it without taking a drink. Finally he went to his bag and took out the will. He had it in his hand, studying it and the note signed by John Kane when he heard steps in the hall. Then someone knocked.
9
WHEN HE HAD PUT THE NOTE AND THE WILL AWAY in his inside coat pocket, Spence Rankin went to the door. The man who stood in the hall wore a cheap gray suit, well worn and artistically stained, a striped shirt of the neckband type and no collar, and a greasy felt hat that he removed when he spoke.
“I’m Charlie Love, Mr. Rankin,” he said. “Could I talk to you about a car?”
“What car?”
“They told me downstairs maybe you could use a car. I’ve got one. I thought maybe you’d want to hire it.”
“Do you go with the car?”
Charlie Love was crowding sixty, a spare, slightly-stooped man, with fine-textured gray hair that had a yellowed tinge around the edges. His grin showed some lower teeth missing but it was a nice grin and there was something about the thin, weathered face that Rankin liked. He thought it might be the eyes, a watered blue that looked right at you and did not ask for favors.
“Generally,” Charlie Love said.
“Come in, Charlie.” Rankin opened the door wider. “Maybe we can make a deal.”
Charlie Love entered, his eyes busy in their inspection of the room. He looked over the bed, the chest, the two chairs, and the table and paid pa
rticular attention to the bottle of Scotch on the table, a glance that Rankin did not miss.
He opened a drawer and unscrewed the cup-cap from his flask. He poured it brimming full and handed it to Charlie. “Try that,” he said, “for size.”
Charlie tried it, making it in a smooth gulp in which his Adam’s apple bobbed approval. “That’s the real thing,” he said. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Rankin.”
He sat down at Rankin’s invitation and they talked about the car and the terms. Charlie Love said the sedan wasn’t anything fancy but it ran right good and besides he knew the town. He said he could be here as early as Rankin liked and he would stay just as late as necessary, all for the same price providing he was hired by the week and the total mileage did not run above a certain figure.
Rankin said it sounded all right to him. “You’re an American, aren’t you, Charlie?” he asked. “Were you here before the war?”
“Mindanao mostly,” Charlie said. “Been up here about a year now. What do you think, Mr. Rankin?” he added quickly as though he wanted to stick to the subject.
“I think you’re hired. For a week anyway. When do you want to start?”
“Whenever you say. The car’s parked right out front. It’s got gas in it and I ain’t busy.”
“I’ll be right out,” Rankin said and then, not knowing why, he said, “Do you know a guy named Pascual Sanchez?”
Charlie Love had stopped with his hand on the door-knob. A muscle in his jaw tightened and was still and an imperceptible movement touched his pale eyes before they steadied.
“I know him,” he said flatly. “He’s a skunk, Mr. Rankin. It ain’t my place to say so maybe but if I was you I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”
Charlie Love’s sedan was a 1936 Ford with rusted, battered fenders, a color long since obscured by dust and weather, and some assorted bullet holes in the back part of the body. The top looked decayed and the upholstery was buried under what looked as if it had once been a bedspread.
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