Out on the Rim

by Ross Thomas

  “Okay, Colonel,” Artie Wu said. “Fifteen.”

  “You guys got a plan?”

  “A germ of one,” Durant said.

  “Well, let’s hear it and then I’ll tell you how to make it work.”

  The block-long Chinese-owned department store was on Colon Street, the oldest street in Cebu—or in the Philippines, for that matter. Its executive offices were on the fourth floor and it was there that Artie Wu sat on a couch in the reception area, dressed in his white money suit, both hands clasped over the head of his cane, the Panama hat on the arm of the couch. Next to him sat Durant, wearing a light gray suit, shirt, and tie. On Durant’s knees was a leather zip-around envelope case large enough to hold a legal brief. Inside it was $30,000 in $100 bills.

  The reception area had been done in pale shades of green and yellow. The chairs and the couch looked as if they had been thriftily salvaged from broken suites in the store’s furniture department. On the walls were six mass-produced oil paintings, all seascapes, two of them identical or nearly so. From the ceiling came Muzak with something syrupy from My Fair Lady. Artie Wu was almost sure it was being played for the third time. At last the green carved door opened and the young Chinese who had introduced himself as Mr. Loh came out. “He’ll see you now, gentlemen.”

  The room they entered was large and filled with fine old stuff from Madrid and Seville, Shanghai and Canton. None of the furniture seemed less than three hundred years old and its juxtaposition offered a remarkable study in blends and contrasts.

  Behind a desk that Durant guessed to be eighteenth-century Spanish sat a small Chinese who looked only a little younger than his desk. He had miles of wrinkles and not much hair and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that he wore down on the tip of his nose. Two very black, very young-looking eyes peered over the glasses.

  He waved Durant and Wu into chairs. They sat down and heard the green door close behind them. “I am Chang and you obviously are Wu and you, sir, Durant,” the Chinese said in a firm high voice that ended in an almost adolescent titter. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”

  Wu smiled politely; Durant didn’t.

  Chang tilted his head back so that he could peer down through his glasses at the letter in his left hand. “My dear friend Huang in Manila is well?”

  “Mr. Huang is very well,” Artie Wu said.

  “He writes of you with warm praise.”

  “He flatters me.”

  “He asks me to show you every courtesy.”

  “I would be grateful.”

  “And urges me to do business with you because it will be profitable.”

  “A fair profit is only just,” Wu said.

  Chang put the letter down on his desk, scratched his left ear thoughtfully and said, “Very well. Tell me what you want.”

  “Mercenaries.”

  Chang nodded as if he sold them every day on the mezzanine. “Good ones?”

  “Mediocre ones.”

  “Good ones would be expensive.”

  “And mediocre ones?”

  “Less so—depending on how many you want.”

  “Say, two dozen?”

  “And what would you do with these two dozen mediocre mercenaries?”

  “They will indirectly help Alejandro Espiritu flee to Hong Kong.”

  “Flee?”

  “Flee.”

  “And once there, what will become of him?”

  “He will enjoy a comfortable retirement and exile.”

  “And what, please, will the mercenaries be required to do?”

  “Surrender.”

  Chang smiled and tittered again. He had small uneven teeth that seemed to be his own. “How interesting,” he said.

  “I am pleased you find it so.”

  “Before we discuss details,” Chang said, giving the right ear a scratch this time, “perhaps we should talk of price.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Do you have a price in mind?”

  Wu shook his head. “Price will be determined by our severely limited resources.”

  “Are your resources in dollars?”

  “They are.”

  “Then I can offer a ten percent discount.”

  “Ten percent off how much, may I ask?”

  Chang thought about it, his eyes now fixed on Durant. “Two dozen mediocre at fifteen hundred each, less ten percent for cash, would be thirty-two thousand four hundred.”

  Durant shook his head.

  “Say, thirty thousand even?”

  Durant nodded.

  Chang smiled at Artie Wu. “Your partner drives a hard bargain, Mr. Wu.”

  Wu looked at Durant with pride. “He does something else equally well,” he said, turning back to Chang with a suddenly chill stare. “He makes sure that bargains, once made, are kept.”

  Chang’s wrinkled face went cold and stiff. He’s freeze-dried it, Durant thought. Then it slowly thawed and a smile appeared. “I share Mr. Durant’s concern,” Chang said to Artie Wu.

  Wu relaxed. He relaxed even more when Chang bent forward, his eyes glittering, his tone conspiratorial. “Shall we go into the details now?” he asked. “I’m sure I’ll find them most tasty.”

  CHAPTER 33

  At 3:32 that afternoon, Alejandro Espiritu put down his mug of tea and asked, “What’s the most you ever earned in a year from this terrorism diddle of yours?”

  “Diddle?” Stallings said with a grin.

  “Diddle. A perfectly good word—good enough for Poe, which is where I first ran across it. In one of his short stories.”

  “You’re a treat, Al.”

  They were again seated at the rough board table in the big nipa a hut. Minnie Espiritu had returned a half hour earlier with a sack full of beer for Stallings. She now sat with her ear to the Sony shortwave, listening to a talk program from the BBC.

  “Well, how much?” Espiritu asked.

  “Fifty-eight thousand in eighty-four.”

  “What qualifications must you have before setting yourself up as a terrorism expert?”

  “Well, you should read a couple of books, maybe even three. Spend at least a week in Beirut and maybe one in either San Salvador or Lima. Then you come back to the States, Washington probably, rent an office, get some cards printed and you’re in business.”

  “You’re joking, of course.”

  “Not much.”

  “Isn’t there some kind of professional organization that sets standards—an American Society of Terrorism and Counter-Insurgency Experts?”

  “None that ever asked me to join.”

  Espiritu drank more tea. “You’ve talked to many so-called terrorists, according to your book.”

  Stallings nodded.

  “The Polisarios?”

  “Nice bunch of people for crazies.”

  “The Shining Path?”

  “They’re just crazy.”

  “Why didn’t you ever talk to us, Booth? You gave us just two pages in your book. That’s all.”

  “I only gave the Tupamaros one.”

  “They’re out of business.”

  “Well, to tell the truth, I figured I already knew all I needed to know about the NPA from that time you and I were in the low-intensity insurgency business.”

  “The NPA didn’t even exist then.”

  “But you did, Al.”

  Espiritu started to reply, but before he could the big Filipino who had hammered Georgia Blue unconscious came into the hut followed by his smaller partner. The big man looked at Minnie Espiritu and, with a jerk of his head, ordered her out. She lit a cigarette first, carefully turned off the shortwave set—to conserve batteries, Stallings guessed—and left.

  The big Filipino turned to Stallings and said, “Come.”

  “No, thanks,” Stallings said.

  “Better go with him, Booth,” Espiritu said.

  Stallings rose slowly and followed the smaller of the two Filipinos out of the hut. The big man formed a rear guard. When they reached the bamboo stairs,
the big man indicated that Stallings should go down them first.

  As he started down the thirteen steps, Otherguy Overby started up. Waiting behind Overby on the ground was Carmen Espiritu who looked reasonably cool in her white duck slacks and black T-shirt. Overby, by contrast, appeared hot and tired. His polo shirt and gray slacks were soaked with sweat. He stared up at Stallings silently and backed down the steps.

  Stallings went down the bamboo stairs briskly, his two escorts right behind him. “Hot enough for you, Otherguy?” he said and stopped, as if curious about the answer.

  But Overby had retreated into his sealed-off preserve where nothing could touch him. He merely nodded at Stallings, much as he might nod at some not quite despised neighbor, and said, “Almost.”

  Stallings grinned at Carmen Espiritu. “How you doing, Carmen-honey?”

  “You’re only going to another house, Mr. Stallings,” she said, pointing. “Just over there.”

  Stallings nodded agreeably and started for it, accompanied by his two mismatched escorts. Suddenly, he spun around and called to Overby who was nearing the top of the bamboo stairs.

  “Hey, Otherguy!”

  Overby turned, his expression indifferent.

  “What d’you want me to tell that fucking Durant?”

  “You’ll think of something,” said Otherguy Overby.

  “This is Overby, the one I spoke of,” Carmen Espiritu said to her husband who looked up from his mug of tea.

  They examined each other, neither trying to hide his curiosity. Overby found just about what he had expected—old dynamite, leaking nitroglycerine. One bump, he thought, and it’s big bang time.

  “You look hot and tired from your long walk, Mr. Overby,” Espiritu said, indicating the chair Booth Stallings had just vacated. “Would you like a beer?”

  “Thanks,” Overby said, lowering himself into the bentwood chair.

  “Carmen would get it for you, but she has to leave,” Espiritu said as he rose.

  “No!” she said, obviously shocked. “I stay.”

  Espiritu went to the plastic sack by the Sony shortwave, took out a bottle of beer and brought it back to Overby. “Glass?” Espiritu asked.

  Overby shook his head, twisted off the bottle cap, drank thirstily and leaned back in his chair to watch.

  “I have the right to stay,” Carmen Espiritu said.

  “If you stay,” her husband said, “there will be no discussion.”

  Overby smiled at her. “See you, Carmen.”

  She pointed a trembling finger at him. Anger flushed her face and made her voice vibrate. “This one,” she told her husband, “makes his living off old fools like you.”

  “Could that possibly be true, Mr. Overby?” Espiritu said with obviously feigned shock.

  Overby only smiled.

  Turning to his wife, Espiritu gave her a final look of dismissal. “Mr. Overby and I have much to discuss, Carmen.”

  They watched as she turned and strode from the room. When she was gone, Espiritu tilted his head to one side and studied Overby. “Well, now,” he said, “where shall we begin?”

  “With the five million.”

  “It really exists—this famous five million?”

  “It exists.”

  “And who’s supplying it?”

  “You really care?”

  Espiritu considered the question. “Not really.”

  “But you want it?”

  “Indeed yes.”

  “Well, if you keep fucking around with Booth Stallings and them, the odds’re about five to one you’ll never see a dime. But if you do like I say, you’ve got a good shot at half. It’s up to you. Half or nothing.”

  “Who gets the other half?” Espiritu said.

  “Who d’you think? Me.”

  Espiritu, still examining Overby with curiosity, smiled and said softly, “You really do deal in greed, don’t you?”

  “What else is there?” Overby said.

  At 4:15 P.M., Georgia Blue drove her rented Honda Accord four kilometers up into the Guadalupe Mountains and the virtually deserted country club whose eighteen-hole golf course had once been farmed by dozens of farm families. Only one car was in the clubhouse parking lot—a black American Ford sedan with CD license plates.

  The clubhouse, which had seemed like such a good idea to the Marcos regime and such a bad idea to the farmers it dispossessed, was built out of beams and glass. The beams were mahogany; the glass was dirty. But it was not so dirty Georgia Blue couldn’t see into the clubhouse bar and discover it was empty save for the bartender and two male customers who drank beer at a table. The customers were Weaver P. Jordan and the ever elegant Jack Cray.

  Neither man rose when she came in, pulled out a chair and sat down.

  Instead of saying hello, Weaver Jordan said, “I didn’t tell you about Boy Howdy, did I?”

  “You and I haven’t talked,” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “You just left a message. Or was it a summons?”

  She ignored Jordan and turned to Jack Cray. “I’d like a vodka on the rocks.”

  Cray rose, went to the bar and returned with her drink. After she took a deep swallow, Weaver Jordan leaned toward her and said, “Lemme tell you about Boy.”

  “All right,” she said.

  “Well, the thing about Boy is—he’s dead. Shot. Twice. Up in his room at the Cebu Plaza. Three-nineteen. Buck naked. Except for his socks. He kept his socks on.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Georgia Blue said.

  “That he kept them on?”

  “Ease up, Weaver,” Cray said.

  Weaver Jordan ignored him. “Guess who found him up there dead in his room with only his socks on?”

  “No idea,” she said.

  “Artie-fucking-Wu.”

  “Well,” she said. “You talk to Artie?”

  “Yeah, we talked to him. One of the world’s great cuties, Artie.”

  Jack Cray drank some of his beer and said, “Why don’t we just get to the point, Georgia?”

  “The point’s the same,” Georgia Blue said. “Get Espiritu to Hong Kong, pension him off and make sure he doesn’t come back.” She looked first at Jordan, then at Cray. “Does that still have everybody’s seal of approval? I stress everybody’s.”

  “Yeah, everybody back home’s finally on board,” Jordan said. “Except for one thing. The five million. Nobody wants Alejandro Espiritu buying Uzis and AK-47s and M-79 grenade launchers with that five million.”

  “What five million?” Georgia Blue asked.

  There was a long silence. Finally, Jordan grinned broadly. Jack Cray only smiled and said, “Then there’s no need to mention it again, is there?”

  “None,” she said. “Can we get on with the rest of it?”

  Both men nodded.

  “First, Otherguy Overby. I think he’s running his own private shitty.”

  “Sounds like Otherguy,” Jordan said.

  She nodded her agreement and said, “But we can leave him to Durant.”

  “Okay,” Jordan said. “We leave him to Durant. Who do we leave Durant and Artie to?”

  “I want to read you something,” she said, reached into her shoulder bag and brought out a sheet of paper. “Listen to this: ‘Expense advance in the amount of fifty thousand dollars drawn against miscellaneous gratuities and incidental expenses.’ Signed by A. C. Wu and Quincy Durant.”

  Jack Cray’s lips formed a line of disapproval. “Whose fifty was it?”

  “I had almost two hundred thousand in operational funds in an attaché case locked in the hotel safe. They conned the manager out of the case, lifted fifty and left me their IOU.” She put the receipt back in her purse.

  “They’re going to fuck everybody over, aren’t they?” Jordan said. “You, Otherguy—even Stallings.” He smiled. “I like it.”

  “I thought you might,” she said.

  “What’s the fifty thousand going for?” Cray asked.

  “I’m not
sure, but I think most of it’ll be spent by tomorrow when Booth Stallings brings Espiritu down from the hills.”

  She leaned back to gauge their surprise. But there was none. Jack Cray reached into his pocket, brought out a much-folded sheet of stationery, unfolded it and flattened it in front of Georgia Blue.

  She glanced at the map and up at Cray. “So you already knew about Stallings bringing Espiritu down?”

  Cray nodded.

  “Artie was up in Boy’s room when we got there,” Weaver Jordan said. “He could’ve been there five minutes or fifteen. I toss the room and what do I find? Boy’s wallet. So guess what’s in it?” He tapped the map in front of Georgia Blue. “This. Now what worries me is how come Artie didn’t find it first?”

  Georgia Blue studied the map for a moment. “He did,” she said and looked at Jack Cray. “Got a pen?”

  He handed her a silver ballpoint pen. She used it to alter the rough map. When done, she handed the pen back to Cray and turned the map around so both men could examine it.

  “Now your map is just like Artie’s.”

  Weaver Jordan studied it with interest. “So when Espiritu comes down from the hills to point B here,” he said, jabbing his finger at a point on the map, “Wu and Durant’ll just be in the way, right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And Otherguy?”

  “Him too.”

  Weaver Jordan nodded contentedly. Jack Cray pulled the map over for closer inspection. Still looking at it, he said, “What about Booth Stallings?”

  Georgia Blue hesitated. “What d’you think?”

  Weaver Jordan smiled his small tight smile. “You’re calling it, sugar.”

  This time her hesitation lasted scarcely a second. “Stallings is a keeper.”

  CHAPTER 34

  The nearly empty warehouse was down on the Cebu docks near Pier Two. Painted on its outside walls in huge letters was the name of the Chinese-owned department store on Colon Street. Inside, Wu and Durant watched as the old man with the silky white hair and the rust-red face inspected his two dozen mercenaries, not much caring for what he saw. The time was 10:17 P.M.