Out on the Rim

by Ross Thomas

  Durant was now on the sidewalk and staring up at the building when Lt. Cruz joined him. “A bank,” Durant said.

  “A bank,” Lt. Cruz agreed and used a nod to indicate they should go inside where they rode an elevator to the fifth floor, walked down a long corridor, went through a door with no name on it and into a receptionist’s office that contained no receptionist. Lt. Cruz crossed the small room to a dark slab door and knocked. A voice behind the door said, “Enter.”

  “That means you,” Lt. Cruz said.

  “I’m still flying to Hong Kong at eight tomorrow.”

  “I’ll talk to you long before then,” Lt. Cruz said and removed the cuffs from Durant’s wrists.

  Durant nodded at the slab door. “Does what you do depend on who’s in there?”

  After a moment, Lt. Cruz answered with a slight nod.

  Durant turned, opened the door and entered a large office whose furniture consisted of two gray metal chairs. One of them had arms; the other didn’t. In the one without arms sat a woman in her middle thirties who wore a dark blue dress that looked like silk.

  Before Durant could say anything the woman said, “We met once at Emily’s.”

  “I remember.”

  She indicated the chair with arms. “Please.”

  Durant sat down, deciding she was easy to remember because of her eyes and mouth. The eyes were far too large and much too sad. Her mouth was too full, too wide and too melancholy. Emily Cariaga had claimed that men made fools of themselves just to see if they could make that wide mouth smile.

  Durant also remembered that before being richly wed, the seated woman had been expensively educated in Switzerland and Dublin. She also had two children, played the piano well, wrote moody quatrains and spent just one hell of a lot of money on clothes. And now, he thought, she’s going to tell you who she really is and why you’re meeting in a room with two chairs and no witnesses.

  “First, let me apologize for what must’ve been the rudeness at the airport,” she said in her low contralto whose slight Filipino accent was flavored with a hint of Gaelic.

  Durant nodded but said nothing.

  “We’ve been receiving reports from Cebu about your dealings with Alejandro Espiritu.”

  “We?”

  “The government.”

  “The Aquino government?”

  Her large eyes grew even larger. “You don’t think that—”

  “I don’t think anything.”

  “The government is anxious to … to neutralize Alejandro Espiritu. It’s our understanding that he’s been offered twenty million U.S. dollars to exile himself to Singapore.”

  She paused as if waiting for Durant’s confirmation or denial. When he offered neither, she said, “You’re making this very difficult, Mr. Durant.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The government would have no objection if Espiritu were to exile himself to wherever he chooses, providing, of course, that he is not supplied with funds to purchase arms.”

  “Like Aguinaldo was.”

  She almost smiled. “Yes, like Aguinaldo.”

  “What you seem to be looking for is another crooked British consul like the one who cheated Aguinaldo out of his money.”

  “You know your Filipino history, Mr. Durant.”

  “Not really.”

  “He need not be British,” she said. “He could also keep the twenty million dollars.”

  “What if I say no thanks.”

  “Oh dear. I do hope you’re not refusing.”

  “I’m exploring the alternatives.”

  “If you refuse, we’ll simply have to charge you with poor Emily’s death.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I didn’t say convict you. I said charge you. It could be terribly … well, inconvenient.”

  Durant smiled sympathetically. “You’re not very good at this yet, are you?”

  She looked away. “Not really.”

  “It takes practice.”

  She looked back at him coldly. “As does everything worthwhile.”

  “Well, to begin with, it’s not twenty million, it’s five million, and the exile’s to Hong Kong, not Singapore.”

  A hard slap couldn’t have surprised her more. “Five million?”

  Durant nodded, thinking that if her next question was what he thought it would be, she might have a future in her new career.

  “Whose money is it?” she said.

  The right question, Durant thought. “What do your intelligence people say?”

  “That it’s being supplied by a consortium of American and Japanese corporations.”

  Durant sighed. “You’d better find yourself some new assets. It’s Marcos money.”

  “Oh dear,” she whispered.

  “And it’s all to be spent on weaponry.”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Which could build up the red menace and speed up the coup. What’s the government’s timetable on the coup?”

  She bit down on her full lower lip, as if trying to decide whether to lie. “Within a year,” she said. “Perhaps nine months. They’ll make an attempt anyhow.”

  Durant rose. “Okay, I can guarantee that Espiritu will never get his hands on the five million.”

  “Guarantee?”

  He nodded. “Guarantee. But you’ll have to give me Lieutenant Cruz.”

  “Give him?”

  “Assign him to me.”

  “For how long?”

  “A couple of days—beginning now.”

  She made her decision quickly. “All right. What else?”

  “How do you want Espiritu? Dead or alive?”

  It was another hard blow, but she absorbed it more easily this time, although Durant thought he could see tears welling up in her enormous eyes. “I can’t—rather, I won’t tell you to—”

  “You do need practice,” he said. “It’s a theoretical question. Would you prefer Espiritu bribed, disgraced and hiding in exile, or dead of natural causes down in Cebu?”

  She took a full minute to decide, staring down at the rugless floor as if the answer might lie there. When she looked up, Durant thought her eyes had gone from sad and teary to cold and implacable.

  “Dead,” she said in a low firm voice.

  “Okay,” Durant said.

  CHAPTER 40

  After Otherguy Overby knocked on the door of Artie Wu’s fifth-floor suite in the Manila Peninsula Hotel, he was told to come in. He entered to find Durant up and leaning against a wall. Wu was seated on a couch, looking freshly barbered and wearing his white silk money suit. Overby would have preferred to find them feet up, shoes off and drinking beer.

  “Sit down, Otherguy,” Wu said. “Like a beer?”

  Overby shook his head as he sat down in a straight chair, folding his arms protectively across his chest and planting his feet firmly on the carpet.

  “Everything set?” Durant asked.

  Overby looked at him. “I called the old Colonel down in Cebu and he got word to Minnie. She’s agreed to meet us in Hong Kong but she wants proof it’s all on the up-and-up. Otherwise, no deal. Okay?”

  Wu said it was fine and Overby continued. “Welcome-Welcome got the telex confirmation on our rooms at the Hong Kong Peninsula and it’ll send a couple of cars to meet us at the airport.” He paused and looked again at Durant. “What about that homicide cop, Lieutenant Cruz?”

  “Manila contacted Hong Kong through a back channel and got him wired into the CID there,” Durant said. “He’s to get full cooperation.”

  “No trouble with the airline, I trust?” Wu said to Overby.

  “None.”

  Wu gave Overby a long look of what seemed to be genuine liking. “I was just trying to tell Quincy about that Rotary Club billboard in Cebu, Otherguy. How’d it go? ‘Will it benefit all concerned?’”

  “‘Be beneficial to all concerned,’” Overby said.

  Wu nodded, as if grateful for the correction. “And it really loo
ks as if it might be beneficial, doesn’t it?” he said. “Except to one of us.” He stared at Overby. “Or possibly two of us.”

  “Get to the point, Artie,” Overby said. “You can shine me on some other time.”

  Wu sighed. “I think I will have a beer, Quincy.”

  “Me, too,” Overby said.

  Durant went to the room’s mini-refrigerator, took out three cans of San Miguel and passed them around. Wu opened his, took several swallows and said, “Who were you, Otherguy, when you called the Secret Service from Cebu?”

  “Reuters,” Overby said and drank some of his beer.

  “Inquiring about?”

  “October, last year.”

  “Any special date?” Durant said.

  Overby shrugged. “October eighteenth, around in there.”

  Wu and Durant looked at each other. Durant shook his head. The date meant nothing.

  “October eighteenth where?” Wu said.

  “New York.”

  “It’s like pulling teeth,” Durant said.

  “Otherguy tells things his own way,” Wu said. “Where in New York, Otherguy?”

  “The United Nations.”

  “Ah!” Wu said.

  “What the fuck does ‘Ah!’ mean?” Durant said.

  Wu ignored him and smiled again at Overby. “You’re doing fine, Otherguy. What happened last year on October eighteenth at the U.N.?”

  “An acting foreign minister made a speech. At a commemorative session of the fortieth anniversary.”

  Durant smiled mockingly at Wu and said, “Ah, so!”

  Wu ignored him and gently asked Overby, “Whose acting foreign minister, Otherguy?”

  Overby had another drink of beer and said, “The acting foreign minister of the Philippines.”

  Durant got there first and said, “Jesus.”

  Artie Wu, scarcely a beat behind, nodded at Overby and said, “Imelda Marcos, right?”

  Overby shrugged again and drank more beer.

  “What was in her speech, Otherguy?” Wu said.

  “How the hell should I know? We live in terrible times. We should all pull together. Stamp out injustice. What they always say at the U.N.”

  “It wasn’t the speech, Artie,” Durant said.

  “No. Of course not,” Wu said, staring at Overby. “It was Georgia, wasn’t it?”

  Overby looked first at Durant, then at Wu. It was an amused, speculative look. “Good thing you guys don’t play this game for money.”

  Artie Wu smiled, as if in complete agreement. “The Secret Service had assigned Georgia to watch Imelda Marcos’ back, right?”

  “That’s it.”

  “How’d you pry it out of them?” Durant asked.

  “I told them Georgia was applying for a job out here with Reuters and I was checking her references and work history. And is it true, I ask, that Miss Blue was once assigned to Mrs. Marcos who’s listed as a reference? And they say yes and give the dates and places. So then I ask if Georgia had quit the Service or been fired or what, and they say she quit. Resigned. Although she tells everybody else, Booth anyway, that she got canned.”

  “You got all this over the phone?” Durant asked with unconcealed skepticism.

  “From their personnel section, which is what it’s there for. Credit checks. References. And if I’ve got to say it myself, Quincy, I’m the best fucking phone man who ever lived.”

  “You are indeed, Otherguy,” Wu said. “But tell me. What exactly made you pick up the phone?”

  “Artie, nobody—and I mean nobody—sends out five million dirty unless they’ve got a trace on it. A trace they can trust. Well, I eliminated me first, of course, then Booth and you two last. That left Georgia. Then I remembered Booth saying Georgia’d told him that Treasury assigned her mostly to the wives of visiting big shots. So I play the hunch, pick up the phone, ask a couple of questions and bingo.”

  “Nice,” Artie Wu said. “Very nice. Almost brilliant.”

  “And that’s when you almost went solo, right?” Durant said.

  Overby looked up with his unassailable, nothing-can-touch-me stare. “Like I said, Quincy, it crossed my mind.” He smiled his hard merry smile. “Just like it would’ve crossed yours.”

  Wu rose, walked over to the seated Overby and put a friendly, almost comforting hand on his left shoulder. Overby looked down at the hand suspiciously.

  “It was thoughtful of you to confide in us, Otherguy,” Wu said. Overby rose and turned to Durant who was still leaning against the wall. “Now that Espiritu’s dead, you guys know what she’ll try to do, don’t you?”

  “We know,” Durant said.

  Overby nodded. “Yeah. I thought you might.”

  After he had gone, Wu turned to face the suite’s open bedroom door. He raised his voice slightly and said, “You can come out now, Lieutenant.”

  Lt. Cruz walked into the suite’s sitting room. “You get all that?” Durant asked.

  The homicide detective nodded. “Fascinating. He has a very good mind, doesn’t he?”

  “Too good sometimes,” Durant said.

  Lt. Cruz smiled, obviously pleased. “Yes, well, I’ll see you in Hong Kong then.”

  The Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel had dispatched two Rolls-Royce sedans to the airport. One of the two uniformed chauffeurs carried a neatly lettered sign that sought “Mr. Wu and Party.” Artie Wu served as tour director, assigning Durant, Overby and Booth Stallings to the lead Rolls. He and Georgia Blue settled into the rear one. As the two-car procession rolled toward Kowloon, Wu pushed the button that raised the glass partition.

  “Been to Hong Kong before, Georgia?”

  “Twice,” she said. “I drew the Secretary of State’s wife the first time; the Vice-President’s the second.”

  Wu smiled. “Fun trip?”

  “Nothing but girlish giggles.”

  “I can imagine.” There was a block-long silence until Wu asked, “What about Harry Crites back in Washington? Think he’ll kick up a fuss?”

  “When Espiritu’s death is announced?”

  Wu nodded.

  “What can Harry say? Espiritu flew to Hong Kong, picked up his five million, changed his mind, flew back home and died of a second stroke. The NPA won’t deny he’s dead. They’ll deny the five million and all, but I don’t think Harry is going to sue.”

  “Then we’re virtually home free, wouldn’t you say?”

  She considered the question. “I think so. It certainly beats trying to throw a switch on a live Espiritu.” She grinned at Wu. “You really were serious about running the pigeon drop on him, weren’t you?”

  Wu smiled almost wistfully, as if at some lost chance. “An elegant variation thereof. It would’ve been beautiful.” He sighed. “And no comeback. None at all.”

  “There won’t be any this way either,” she said.

  “Let’s hope not,” said Artie Wu.

  Booth Stallings decided that royalty wouldn’t have received a much warmer reception than the one the Hong Kong Peninsula gave Wu, Durant and Otherguy Overby. The hotel obviously cherished its trio of free-spending guests and even made a small fuss over Georgia Blue. By virtue of his membership in Mr. Wu’s party, Stallings himself was treated with the deference usually reserved for visiting ministers of sport and culture and fading rock stars.

  After Stallings was shown to his room, he took a shower, had a nap, read, ordered a room service dinner and waited for the phone to ring. It rang at 8 P.M. After he said hello, he heard Durant say, “Let’s take a walk.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I want to,” Durant said.

  They walked a block up Salisbury Road to the Kowloon YMCA, once the residence of Otherguy Overby.

  “Let’s have a cup of tea,” Durant said.

  “Tea?”

  “Tea.”

  “Well, I guess we are in China, sort of.”

  The YMCA restaurant offered Formica tables, plastic chairs that wobbled and the smell of cheap food coo
ked in vast quantities. Durant examined the almost empty room before selecting a table that was occupied by a Filipino in a well-cut suit of tan linen whose jacket sleeves had cuffs that really buttoned. The Filipino nodded coolly at Durant as he sat down. Stallings chose a chair across from the Filipino.

  Durant made the introductions casually. “Lieutenant Cruz, Booth Stallings.”

  Stallings stared at Cruz and said, “At the Manila airport, right?”

  Lt. Cruz nodded.

  “You were a lieutenant of what when you picked up Durant?”

  “Homicide. I still am.”

  Durant asked Cruz, “You talk to the Hong Kong cops?”

  “I called them from Manila and then saw them after I got here. They gave me this.” He picked up a leather attaché case from the floor, opened it on his lap, removed an envelope and handed it to Durant. The empty letter-size envelope bore the name of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Durant carefully put it away in his inside jacket pocket.

  Lt. Cruz used his chin to point at Stallings. “Does he know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Know what?” Stallings said.

  They ignored the question as Lt. Cruz raised an eyebrow at Durant who shrugged. The detective leaned toward Stallings and spoke in a low rapid voice.

  “Listen carefully. The Hong Kong police will arrest Miss Blue when she comes out of the bank tomorrow.”

  “For what?”

  “The murder of Mrs. Emily Cariaga—who was a friend of his.” Lt. Cruz indicated Durant with a nod.

  “So far, it sucks,” Stallings said.

  “We have evidence,” Lt. Cruz said, “that Miss Blue, directly or indirectly, is in the pay of Ferdinand Marcos or his wife, Imelda. Possibly both.”

  Stallings chuckled. It sounded to Durant like glass being ground up. “Their hired gun, huh?” Stallings said.

  “I’m saying only that the late Mrs. Cariaga, apparently through her extensive social or political connections, learned that Miss Blue was in the Marcoses’ pay. The information frightened her. So much so that she decided to leave the country.”

  “Who says she was frightened?” Stallings asked.

  “I do,” Durant said. “She called and told me she was and asked me to drive her to the airport.”