Noble Man

by William Miller

  17

  Noble sat behind the driver’s seat so he could open the shoebox without being observed. Inside he found a compact .45 caliber Armscor pistol with tritium night sights, two extra magazines topped off with hollow-point ammo and a leather holster.

  He grinned. “Thank you, Manny.”

  “Excuse me?” The driver glanced in the rearview.

  “Nothing,” Noble said. He leaned forward and tucked the holstered weapon in his back waistband, pocketed the extra magazines, and crammed the empty shoebox into the floorboard. When he looked up, he recognized the neighborhood. “Drop me here.”

  “You don’t want to get out here.” The driver waved away the idea. “It’s not a very nice part of town.”

  “Stop here,” Noble ordered.

  The driver, after a shrug, put on the brakes.

  Noble paid, opened the door, and slung his carry-on over his left shoulder. He wanted to be sure no one was tailing him, and this was a good place to run a surveillance detection route. More importantly, he wanted to reacquaint himself with the neighborhood. Places are a lot like people; each has its own unique personality. Noble wandered the streets, getting a feel for the maze of rundown apartments and corner stores. Cars clogged the intersections. Kids in cheap plastic sandals chased each other. In the distance, a jackhammer rumbled. Shadows stretched as the sun made its way across the sky.

  A young man dressed in knockoff designer wear approached Noble with a toothy grin. “Hello, my friend. I work at the hotel. Do you remember me? Are you lost? I can help you.”

  It was a regular con the locals ran on unsuspecting tourists. A man would claim he worked at their hotel and that he recognized them. He’d offer to help them find their destination or the best shopping. Instead he would lure them into a dead-end alley where his buddies would relieve them of their money and valuables.

  “Try someone else,” Noble said.

  The young con hurled curses at Noble’s back as he walked away.

  He turned the corner onto K-1 Street and knew right away that his instincts had paid off. It was a good thing he hadn’t let the cab driver drop him in front of the building. He wasn’t the only one interested in the boyfriend. The street was full of people watching Diego’s front door. There was an Asian girl in a white Toyota parked directly across the street. Coffee cups decorated her dashboard. A pair of thugs parked two car lengths behind her in a beat-up minivan with balding tires. And a white guy with a scar across the bridge of his nose sat in a dark sedan at the end of the block. He had parked with his bumper facing away from Diego’s building and used the rearview to watch the front door. He was the closest thing to a professional in this little farce.

  The hard cases in the minivan were hired muscle. The driver had short-cropped hair and a cauliflower ear. He looked like he knew how to handle himself. The fatty in the passenger seat was strictly window dressing. Who sent them and why was the only question.

  The big foreigner in the dark sedan was either international law enforcement sent to investigate Bati’s disappearance or a Company man. It wasn’t unheard of for the CIA to send spies to watch their spies.

  The girl was a big question mark. She had black hair and dark eyes, but her features weren’t Filipino. Spend enough time in Asian cultures, and you begin to recognize the subtle differences. At a guess, Noble would say she was Chinese. She wasn’t a cop. He was sure of that. She might be a reporter.

  He redirected his steps without slowing down. It forced him to cross in front of the dark sedan, but that was unavoidable. To stop and turn around would look suspicious. He passed the front bumper and locked eyes with the driver. Noble nodded at the brutish face behind the steering wheel. The driver returned a sullen stare.

  Noble circled the block in search of a back entrance. A narrow lane between buildings gave him access to a trash-strewn alley full of stray cats and one castoff engine block. He found the back door to Diego’s building and let himself in. The lobby was a sad affair, just a narrow hall with cracked linoleum. A row of mailboxes and stairs led to the second floor. A tabby cat napped on the fourth step. She opened one eye as Noble approached. He stopped long enough to scratch under her chin. She rewarded him with a loud, contented purr.

  Diego lived in number three. A notice from the police was tapped to the door requesting he report to the local precinct for questioning. Noble crumpled the note and shook his head. He took a pair of picks from the lining of his wallet. It took him thirty seconds to scrub the lock. He inserted the tension tool and then raked the tumblers into place. It wasn’t very subtle but would open most doors.

  At first, Noble thought the place had been ransacked, but closer inspection proved the owner was simply a slob. Dirty clothes and crushed soda cans littered every surface. The smell of soiled socks assaulted his nose. Video game wires snared up the floor and a high-definition television hung on one wall. The apartment was a one-room efficiency with a futon and what real estate agents call a kitchenette. Diego could walk away from this pad and only be out the cost of a few game consoles.

  Noble dumped the wastebasket and sorted through the trash with his foot. He found crumpled betting tickets and a matchbook for a popular dog track in Quezon.

  He stuffed the match book in his pocket and then checked out the rest of the apartment. His search failed to turn up anything else of value, not even a photograph. He still had no idea what this guy looked like. Finding one stranger at a dog track full of strangers would be next to impossible, but it was the only lead Noble had to go on.

  He went to the window overlooking the street, bent one of the cheap plastic shades, and peeked out. The girl in the white Toyota held a pair of binoculars up to her eyes. Noble snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said to the empty room.

  They weren’t even a small pair of low-key binoculars. They were the big jobs that tourist from Michigan take on bird-watching expeditions. “Somebody’s seen too many cop movies,” Noble said.

  The hired thugs in the van watched the girl with growing suspicion. The fat one in the passenger seat kept motioning to the white Toyota. Noble didn’t need to hear the conversation. They were trying to figure out how she fit into all this and what to do about it.

  Noble couldn’t see the black sedan from this angle, but he didn’t need to. A guy like that would wait for the other players to show their hand.

  He let go of the blind. The reporter—if that’s what she was—had just stumbled into a world of trouble. If Noble didn’t intervene, there would be two missing girls instead of one. Saving her meant showing himself to the other players. It would put him at a serious disadvantage. Noble chewed the inside of one cheek and weighed his options.

  18

  Noble exited the front of the building, crossed the street, and circled the front bumper of the white Toyota. The heavies in the minivan took notice. The girl lowered her binoculars and watched him walk around to the passenger side. When it was clear he was going for the door, she triggered the locks and then fumbled for the window button. In her panic, she pressed down instead of up. She quickly corrected her mistake. The windows started up with an electric whir. Noble grabbed the glass in both hands and wrenched. There was a loud shriek. The window popped off the track. The pane of glass slipped down inside the doorframe.

  The girl snatched her purse out of the passenger seat and darted a hand inside. “I’ve got pepper spray.”

  “I’ve got a gun,” Noble said. He opened the door from the inside and climbed into the passenger seat. The heavies got out of the minivan and approached the Toyota. Noble pointed to them in the rearview. “You know those guys?”

  Her hand stopped digging through the purse. She glanced into the mirror. “What guys…?” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head. “No.”

  “Hand me that,” Noble said, indicating the binoculars in her lap.

  She hurried to obey.

  The fat one stuck his head in the open passenger window. “You’re in the wrong neighborhood
.”

  Noble swung the binoculars. The heavy aluminum frame broke the fat man’s nose with a hard crack. Blood burst from both nostrils, leaving red raindrops on the side of the white Toyota. He staggered away, clutching a hand to his gushing nose.

  His partner hammered a fist against the driver’s window. “Open this door or I’ll tear it off!”

  “Drive,” Noble ordered.

  The girl twisted the key in the ignition. She threw the car in gear, cramped the steering wheel, and stamped the gas pedal. The Toyota lurched forward. The thug was forced to leap back or have his toes run over. The front bumper clipped the tail end of a Hyundai. Plastic crunched, and the Hyundai’s alarm shrieked in protest. Noble reached over and took the steering wheel, helping to steady the nose of the Toyota.

  “Did I just hit that car?” she asked.

  “Yup.” At the corner, he hauled on the wheel, forcing her to hang a right.

  The Toyota slewed through the turn and missed an oncoming jeepney full of passengers by inches. Horns blared. The driver of the jeepney hurled a curse. The girl spun the wheel, and the car jerked back into the right lane.

  “Calm down,” Noble told her.

  She took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out slowly. Her knuckles turned white against the steering wheel. “Are you going to hurt me?”

  “No.” He stuffed his carry-on in the floorboard and brought the matchbook out of his pocket. “You know this place?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s where we are going.”

  “Who are you?” she asked. Her American accent was perfect. She either went to school in the states or was born there. She wore a simple black tank top over dark denims and ankle boots. Noble bet if he checked the labels they would be American as well. He wanted to know what she was doing in the Philippines and how she was connected to the disappearance of Bati Ramos.

  “Why were you watching Diego’s place?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said.

  “Drop the act. You were watching Diego’s apartment. I want to know why.”

  She looked like she wanted to crawl down into the seat and disappear.

  Noble made an effort to soften his voice. “Okay. Relax. Let’s start with your name.”

  She took her eyes off the road long enough to steal a glance in his direction. “Samantha Gunn.”

  “Gun?” Noble made a gun with his thumb and forefinger.

  “Two Ns,” she said. “My father is from San Diego. My mother is from Hong Kong. Your turn.”

  “My name is Jake,” he told her. He couldn’t say why he used his real name instead of laying down his cover identity. He wanted Samantha to trust him, and the truth has a way of disarming people. “Why were you watching Diego’s apartment, Ms. Gunn?”

  “My friend was kidnapped. I think Diego had something to do with it.” After a moment, she shook her head. “I told Bati he was no good. I told her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Samantha shrugged. “Diego’s a scammer.”

  “He’s a conman?”

  “No. Nothing like that.” She shrugged. “He spent all his time on the Internet trying to make a fast buck on those work-from-home sites. You know the ones I’m talking about? He never had two dimes to rub together. When he did manage to make a little money, he would gamble it away.” She motioned to the matchbook in Noble’s hand. “Is that why we are headed to the dog track?”

  He inclined his head. “How do you know Bati?”

  “We’ve been best friends since our freshman year at Yale. We run a shelter for battered women.” She looked at his carry-on in the floorboard. “You taking a trip?”

  “Just got off a plane in fact.”

  “Why are you looking for Diego?” she asked.

  “I want to find Bati.”

  “Why?”

  Noble ignored that question.

  “Do you really have a gun?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He gave her a hard look.

  “Okay,” she said and took another deep breath. “How do I know you aren’t…”

  “A bad guy?” Noble suggested.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t have to save you from those thugs back at Diego’s place.” He cocked a thumb over his shoulder. “It would have been a lot easier for me if I hadn’t. Now they know I’m here and that I’m looking for Bati. I gave up the element of surprise and lost the initiative.”

  She glanced in the rearview like she expected to see the beat-up minivan on their tail. “Thank you.”

  She was a cool customer. Even a small altercation left people shaking from the adrenaline spike. Her hands didn’t tremble on the wheel, and she hid her nerves better than most. It said a lot about her.

  “You know what Diego looks like?” Noble asked.

  “You know for a guy who doesn’t like answering questions, you sure ask a lot of them.”

  Noble waited.

  Samantha rolled her eyes. “He dated my best friend. Of course I know what he looks like.”

  “Good,” Noble said. “I’ll need your help.”

  “Do I have a choice?” she asked.

  “No.”

  19

  Bati, trapped inside the trunk and breathing petrol fumes, felt like her head would split right down the middle. The car rumbled over unpaved roads and pounded through potholes. Every jolt brought her closer to vomiting. She was afraid to puke with the shorts stuffed in her mouth. She would choke on her own spew. That made her think of Jimi Hendrix. Hadn’t he died choking on his own spew? It was a crazy thought. Here she was, trapped inside a trunk and thinking about dead rock stars. She was losing it. She had to keep it together. That’s what she kept telling herself. Keep it together. Daddy was a diplomat. Someone, somewhere, was looking for her. She just had to stay alive until they found her.

  The car hit another pothole. Bati groaned. She curled up in an effort to minimize the impacts and concentrated on not puking. Bile crawled up her stomach toward her esophagus where it would make that last mad dash to escape.

  Gravel crunched beneath the tires. The car slowed and stopped, and the engine died. Bati heard the doors open and close. The hood latch released. Light blinded her. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  The kidnappers dragged her from the trunk. The rough treatment opened the floodgates. Her stomach convulsed, sending the contents north. She hunched forward and made a chugging noise like someone shaking a jug of expired milk. Her eyes tried to bug right out of her skull. Streamers of hot sluice shot from both nostrils.

  The kidnappers let her go. Gravel skinned her knees. The vomit kept coming, filling up her mouth and pushing out through her nose. She strained at the zip-tie around her wrists in her panic, struggling to free her hands as the bile backed up into her throat.

  One of the men ripped off the duct tape. Bati spit shorts and a mouthful of vomit into the gravel, sucked in a lungful of air, and threw up again. The muscles in her stomach quivered from exertion. Her legs shook. Ropes of snot hung from both nostrils. The taste filled her mouth. Her throat burned. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She crouched in the gravel, trying to spit out the taste and blink away tears.

  It was twilight. The sky had turned hot and red. They had brought her to an abandoned rock quarry. Stone walls, twenty meters high, surrounded them on three sides like a massive horseshoe. A building of corrugated steel hunkered in one corner of the site. The ceiling had collapsed in several places. Abandoned mining equipment lay scattered around the yard, along with a few old metal carts on miniature railroad tracks. One gigantic dump truck, slowly turning to rust, rested on bald rims. A sign advertised the company responsible for the dig, but the sun had bleached out the letters.

  The kidnapper with the missing index finger nudged Bati in her ribs with his boot. “Are you done?”

  In response, she retched up another wave. This one was more of a dry heave. Sh
e coughed, spat, and gulped fresh air. When she felt she could talk without losing any more of her stomach contents, she said, “Please. I need my insulin.”

  “Shut up.”

  They picked her up, dragged her into the building, and deposited her on a dirty concrete floor. Large sacks of crushed gravel were stacked waist high against the walls. A sagging conveyor belt entered the building from the quarry. Smaller conveyors branched out through the processing plant to several pulverizing machines wired to dead motors. A thick layer of grit covered every surface.

  Bati lay with her head on the floor and her knees pulled up to her chest. Growing pressure behind the eyes told her she was in danger of diabetic shock. Being manhandled and bounced around inside a car trunk hadn’t helped any. If she didn’t get a shot, she would fall into a coma and die. The thought sent fresh waves of terror through her body. “I’m going to die unless I have insulin,” she said. “Please. I’m no good to you dead.”

  The uninjured kidnapper studied her with expressionless eyes. Bati had started to think of him as the leader. The other man followed his orders.

  She licked her cracked lips. “Please. I have insulin in my purse. Please.”

  “Go get the purse,” he said.

  The man with the missing finger shot Bati an acid look, but marched outside into the sunlight.

  Bati closed her eyes and put her head down. They had saved the purse. It was a small victory, but she felt like she had just crossed the finish line of a triathlon. A bright spot of hope, like a hot air balloon lifting up into the sky, swelled in her chest. She was going to get her insulin. That was something.