Out on the Rim

by Ross Thomas

  The mercenaries, none of them over twenty-two or twenty-three, were lined up in two wavering rows of twelve each. Most were armed with M-16s, but a few carried shotguns. Some had regulation canteens and the rest had plastic bottles suspended from their necks by cords. Spare shotgun shells and ammunition clips were jammed into the pockets of pants that were either dark brown or black. All wore very dark green T-shirts, compliments of the old Chinese merchant who had sent somebody out to buy them from a rival store.

  Vaughn Crouch made his inspection, looking very much the competent, if somewhat superannuated, mercenary in his short-sleeved bush jacket and dark blue gimme cap. He also wore a webbing belt that supported two canteens and a .45 Colt automatic pistol—or semiautomatic, as he insisted on calling it.

  Prior to the inspection Crouch had addressed the mercenaries for five minutes in a mixture of English and Cebuano. When finished he had asked for questions. There had been only one from a very thin man who asked if there would be anything to eat. Crouch replied that there would be plenty.

  The inspection over, Crouch told the mercenaries to climb into the two large Toyota vans parked nearby. As they moved to the vans he walked over to Wu and Durant, pausing to pick up a small plastic shopping bag.

  Crouch handed the shopping bag to Durant. “Two Smith & Wesson five-shot belly guns,” he said. “Also ten extra rounds. If you guys find you need any more’n that, I suggest you take out a white handkerchief and wave it around.”

  “Sounds sensible,” Durant said.

  Artie Wu nodded toward the mercenaries. “What d’you think?”

  Crouch shrugged. “Average. By the time I get through walking ‘em all night, they’ll be dog meat.” He turned to give the young men a glum look. “I guess I’ll let ’em sleep in shifts tomorrow once we get to point B.” He turned back to examine Wu carefully, then Durant. “You gents still planning to put in an appearance tomorrow evening?”

  “We’ll be there,” Artie Wu said.

  “Yeah, I guess you will at that,” Crouch said and turned to go, but again turned back. “What do you think of those Hondas?” he asked Durant.

  Durant smiled. “Nice car. But what happened to Swarthmore?”

  “If that granddaughter of mine wants to go to college, let her borrow from the government like everybody else.”

  After they returned to the Magellan Hotel, Wu called Otherguy Overby’s room from a house phone in the lobby. When there was no answer he and Durant crossed to the reception desk where Wu asked the room clerk if he had seen Overby.

  The room clerk’s eyebrows shot up and down twice in the Cebu salute, this time signaling surprise mingled with apprehension. “Mr. Overby checked out.”

  “When?” Durant said.

  “An hour ago. He said we should put his bill on Mr. Wu’s.” The clerk looked up at Wu, expecting the worst. “Have I made a mistake, sir?”

  “No, that’s fine,” Wu said and gave the counter a reassuring slap with his palm. “It’s just that we didn’t expect him to check out so soon.” Forcing an all’s well smile, Wu asked, “What about Miss Blue? Has she checked out yet?”

  “No, sir. She came in a few minutes ago and went up to her room.” The clerk smiled. “She seems to be feeling much better.”

  “That’s splendid,” Artie Wu said, started to turn away, but seemed to remember something. “I wonder if I could have Mr. Overby’s bill?”

  “Yes, sir,” the clerk said.

  Up in Durant’s room, the only item of interest on Otherguy Overby’s hotel bill was the final charge, which was a long-distance phone call made at 9:14 P.M. to a 202 area code number in the United States. Wu looked at Durant. “Two-oh-two’s Washington, right?”

  Durant nodded, picked up the phone and placed an international call to (202) 634-5100. While they waited for it to be completed, Durant mixed two drinks of Scotch whiskey and tap water. Artie Wu took a sip of his and asked, “What time is it in Washington?”

  Durant looked at his watch. “It’s about eleven-thirty here so there it’d be about ten-thirty yesterday morning.”

  They waited in silence until the telephone rang fifteen minutes later and the Manila operator told Durant his call was going through. Durant held the phone away from his ear so Wu could listen to it ring. It rang three times before a man’s voice answered with, “Good morning, Secret Service.”

  “Sorry, I have the wrong number,” Durant said and hung up.

  Artie Wu went back to his chair with a broad grin. “Otherguy and the Secret Service,” he said.

  Durant wasn’t smiling. “I wonder who that dipshit told them he was?”

  “You ever hear him do Overby of Reuters? Very plummy. Or he might’ve been the Embassy’s first secretary calling at the Ambassador’s behest. For that he’d’ve used some Yale gargle.” Wu’s smile went away and he sighed. “You know who he was calling Washington about, of course.

  Durant nodded. “Let’s go talk to Georgia.”

  Wu rose. “See how she’s feeling.”

  It was always Otherguy Overby’s theory that if you wanted to lose yourself, you should head for the last place they would ever look. That was why, after checking out of the Magellan Hotel, he had checked into the Cebu YMCA at 61 Jones Avenue. Using his YMCA membership card, Overby had been given a five percent discount off the forty-peso price of his single room with electric fan.

  Overby had carefully kept his YMCA membership up to date ever since 1965 when he first had checked into the Christian hostelry on Jones Avenue. From time to time, he had either hidden out or economized in YMCAs from New York to Hong Kong. The one in Kowloon, located just down the street from the Peninsula Hotel, was his particular favorite. It offered the same view as the Peninsula for a tenth of the price. In the early seventies Overby had lived in the Kowloon YMCA for two months while operating out of the Peninsula’s splendid next-door lobby. After scoring US$60,000 off a Taipei industrialist, Overby checked out of the YMCA and into a suite at the Peninsula. But first he made sure it offered exactly the same harbor view as did his room at the YMCA.

  He sat now in a wooden straight chair in his small one-window room, his shirt off, arms folded across his chest, feet firmly on the floor, a can of cold beer handy. The YMCA’s electric fan blew muggy air at him. He was thinking about his phone call to Washington. He had made it because it was a loose end and his finicky nature demanded that loose ends be either tied up or snipped off.

  The phone call to the Secret Service had done neither. Instead, it had proved to be a hard tug at a thread that could unravel the entire skein and—if he worked it right—turn into the sweetest no-comeback deal of all time with the chance of retribution so slight as to be almost nonexistent. Except for that fucking Durant. Overby decided he would have to think some more about Durant.

  When Wu and Durant came into her room, Georgia Blue waved the $50,000 receipt under Wu’s nose. “Just what the hell is this, Artie?” she demanded.

  “Precisely what it says. You were asleep. We needed the money. So we helped ourselves and left the marker. If you need a detailed accounting, you can have it when it’s over.”

  “I have a right to know what you blew fifty thousand on—and don’t give me any of that ‘need to know’ crap either.”

  Artie Wu looked around the room. “I seem to remember a bottle of Scotch somewhere.”

  “What’d you blow it on, Artie?” she said.

  “Where’s the bottle?” Durant said.

  “In there,” she said, pointing to the closet. “Top shelf.” She turned back to Wu. “Well?”

  “Everything’s reached that delicate stage, Georgia, where compartmentalization is best. You don’t know what the fifty thousand went for. We don’t know what Otherguy’s up to. Or you, for that matter. We have to assume that each of us is working along the general outline agreed to in Manila. With individual improvisation and variations, of course.”

  “Tell her about Otherguy’s variation,” Durant said as he came back with
a bottle of Scotch in one hand and three small glasses in the other. He poured whiskey into the glasses, offering them to Georgia Blue and Artie Wu.

  “What about Otherguy?” she asked after a sip of the whiskey.

  “He made a phone call and checked out,” Wu said. “No forwarding, as the skiptracers put it.”

  “Who’d he call?”

  “A number in Washington.” Wu looked at Durant. “You happen to remember it, Quincy?”

  Durant looked up at the ceiling and rattled off (202) 634-5100 as if it were printed there.

  Wu kept his gaze on Georgia Blue. She was wearing only a thin white silk robe, not quite transparent, but so sheer that Artie Wu almost thought he could see the flush race up her body and pinken her cheeks.

  “You fucks,” she said. “You called it, didn’t you?”

  “Recognize the number, Georgia?” Durant asked.

  “The Service’s number. The Connecticut Avenue office.”

  “Wonder why Otherguy would call the Secret Service?” Durant said.

  “To find out if I’m still working for them. That’s how that rat’s nest he uses for a mind works.”

  “And are you, Georgia?” Wu asked softly. “Still working for them?”

  “Sure I am, Artie.”

  Wu smiled. “I didn’t think so.”

  “But you weren’t certain, were you?”

  Still smiling, Wu shrugged.

  “Did you check my calls today?” she asked.

  “Just Otherguy’s,” Wu said.

  “If you’d checked mine, you’d’ve found I called Harry Crites.”

  “The man with the money,” Durant said.

  She nodded. “The man with the money. I asked him to transfer it all to Hong Kong. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.”

  “Which branch?” Wu asked. “That new headquarters they’ve built on Des Voeux Road?”

  “That’s the one. I asked Crites to make it a joint account, Artie. Booth Stallings’ name and mine. Five million dollars. It’ll take both of us to draw it out.”

  “Then I very much hope that nothing happens to you,” Wu said.

  “Or to Stallings,” she said, turning to Durant. “But you’ll make sure of that, won’t you, Quincy?”

  “Bet on it,” Durant said.

  Artie Wu and Georgia Blue were talking about Otherguy Overby again when Durant left them and went to his room. He opened the door, switched on a light and found Carmen Espiritu seated in the chair by the window air-conditioning unit. She wore a light tan dress. Both hands were in her lap. They were also wrapped around a semiautomatic pistol that was aimed at Durant. He thought it looked like a small Browning.

  “How’re you, Carmen?” Durant said, went to the closet door, opened it, looked inside and moved to the bathroom, which he also inspected. He then crossed to Carmen Espiritu, took the pistol from her, noting that it was a .38-caliber Browning, and shoved it down into his left hip pocket under the squared-off tails of his sports shirt.

  “How did you know I wouldn’t shoot?” she asked, as if not really interested in an answer.

  “Because if you were going to, you’d’ve done it when I turned to switch on the light. What’s on your mind?”

  “Overby.”

  “What about him?” Durant asked as he went to a wall and leaned against it.

  “He says you and the woman and Wu are going to cheat my husband out of the money. The five million.”

  “Overby told you that?”

  She nodded.

  “What else?”

  “He said that if I’d arrange for him to see my husband, he’d present a plan that would let Alejandro keep at least half of the five million.”

  “And Overby’d get the other half.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you set up the meeting and they froze you out.”

  “I—I don’t quite understand what you’re—”

  Durant interrupted. “Come on, Carmen. You approach Overby—or he approaches you. He warns you that the people he works with are crooks and swears that if you’ll work with him, you two’ll split the five million. But to make his plan work, he has to talk to the mark—your husband. Alejandro Espiritu. Himself. So you arrange the meeting and they cut you out because you’re no longer needed. Overby’s going for the whole five million, of course—not just half.” Durant paused. “And I’d say so is your husband.” He grinned at her. “Some trio.”

  “Did Overby tell you this?” she said, her voice now cold and angry.

  Durant shook his head. “It’s just a variation of an old turn called the Omaha Banker.”

  “A confidence trick?”

  “Sure. That’s what Overby does. It’s his profession.”

  She stared at the floor. “He’s very good, isn’t he?”

  “Not bad.” Durant took a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered it to Carmen Espiritu. After lighting hers, he said, “Is Booth Stallings all right?”

  She blew out the smoke and said, “Yes.”

  “Why did your husband insist on him?”

  “Because he remembers Stallings as a fool.”

  Mistake number one, Durant thought, smiled slightly and said, “What else?”

  Carmen Espiritu looked away. “My husband thought if he insisted on an old American comrade-in-arms as the intermediary, it would demonstrate sincerity. My husband’s sincerity.”

  “And the real reason?”

  She looked straight at Durant. “If things went wrong, my husband would have an American hostage.”

  “That sounds about right,” Durant said. “Maybe you can tell me something else. Where’s the five million coming from?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Durant made himself look faintly surprised. “Didn’t poor old Ernie Pineda tell you up in Baguio before you cut off his balls and slit his throat?”

  “You make no sense.”

  “Sure I do, Carmen. Ernie worked for you—for the NPA anyhow—as well as for the Palace. He knew everything and everybody. So whose five million did Ernie say it was?”

  She shook her head, almost as if she pitied Durant. “You don’t understand anything, do you?”

  “I’m trying. It’d help if you’d tell me what happened between you and Boy Howdy. I mean, what’d Boy do to make you kill him?”

  Carmen Espiritu put her cigarette out and rose. “You should ask the Blue woman.”

  “Think she’d know?”

  Carmen Espiritu shrugged. “Are you her lover?”

  Durant smiled and shook his head. She slowly walked over to where he still leaned against the wall. “Just good friends?” she said.

  “Not even that.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed her body against his. “I haven’t taken a lover in months,” she said, demonstrating her frustration with small rhythmic thrusts of her pelvis.

  Durant kissed her then. He kissed her out of curiosity and because there really wasn’t all that much choice. It was a long kiss with much lip nibbling and teeth clicking and a great deal of tongue work. Durant thought she seemed to enjoy it. He knew he did. When it was over, he said, “Let me get the lights.”

  “I like them on,” Carmen Espiritu said in a breathy voice as she gently tugged him toward the nearer of the twin beds.

  “Indulge me,” Durant said and went to the door. His left hand turned off the lights and the room went dark. His right hand removed the five-shot Smith & Wesson revolver, the one supplied by Vaughn Crouch, from his right hip pocket. With his left hand he opened the door.

  Two Filipinos stood there, one large and one small. The large one, who had beaten Georgia Blue unconscious, held a hotel room key in his right hand. His small partner’s right hand was darting toward something stuck down beneath his shirttails in the waistband of his pants. Durant slashed the darting hand with the revolver. The small man gasped and raised the hand to his mouth where he kissed and stroked it tenderly.

  “She’s just leaving,” Durant
said. “Aren’t you, Carmen?”

  Durant turned sideways, parallel with the open door, not taking his eyes or his revolver off the two men. Carmen Espiritu stopped in front of him. He didn’t look at her when she said, “You still don’t understand anything, do you?”

  “Such as?” Durant said, still watching the two Filipino men.

  “That I win, regardless of what happens.”

  After Carmen Espiritu and her two chaperones left, Durant closed the door, shot the dead bolt and fastened the chain. He also went to the phone, picked it up and called Artie Wu’s room.

  When Wu answered, Durant said, “I just heard from Otherguy. Sort of.”

  “Indirectly, I take it.”

  “Directly is a path he seldom takes.”

  “Well, is he still on track or not?” Wu asked.

  “Let’s put it this way, Artie. Otherguy’s either right on track or he’s gone completely off the rails.”

  CHAPTER 35

  At dawn, Booth Stallings rose naked from his cot in the smallest room of the large nipa hut and dressed in his freshly laundered and ironed clothes. The night before, Minnie Espiritu—not quite by force—had confiscated his shirt, pants, socks, and shorts.

  “They stink,” she had said, “so take ‘em off and give ’em here.”

  After Stallings had removed his shirt, pants and socks, she said, “Shorts, too.”

  When he had hesitated, she grinned. “Old guys don’t flick my Bic. They still say that in the States—flick my Bic?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stallings had said, handing her his shorts. After giving his naked body a frankly curious appraisal, Minnie Espiritu had said, “Not bad. Considering.”

  Stallings entered the nipa hut’s main room to find Alejandro Espiritu seated at the rough board table, drinking a cup of tea. He smiled up at Stallings. “What would you say to a pre-breakfast stroll?”