Finding Moon

by Tony Hillerman

  “If I can,” Moon said. “I’m sorry I had to leave the paper in such a-”

  “I don’t want to hear any of that ‘if I can’ shit,” Shakeshaft said. “if you can’t, I’ll get out the application file tomorrow morning and start interviewing people for your replacement.”

  “I’ll-” Moon began, but Shakeshaft had hung up.

  Moon put the telephone down and rubbed his ear. Osa was looking at him.

  “Everything is good?”

  “Everything is about normal,” Moon said.

  The telephone rang. It was Lum Lee. Mr. Lee hurried through the polite preliminaries. Mr. Lee hoped to confer with Mr. Mathias. Would that be convenient?

  “Come on up,” Moon said. But he hoped Lee wouldn’t hurry. He wanted to think about being fired. If that was what was going to happen, and it sounded like it would, what would he do?

  The payment had been due on his truck April fifteenth. He’d missed that already. Then there was the house payment. He had-let’s see-about eleven hundred in the bank. Enough to cover those. And Rooney owed him about four hundred dollars, which he’d probably never see. He owed maybe a hundred and fifty on the credit card, depending on how heavily Debbie had used it when he loaned it to her. He had about forty-five bucks of his own money left in his billfold, and his mother’s stack of big bills which he hadn’t touched so far. But then he must be a couple of thousand into his mother’s credit card by now: the expensive Hotel Maynila and the plane ticket to Palawan and the money he’d spent buying himself some clothes. That had to be paid back.

  But maybe he’d learn today that Rice hadn’t escaped and there was no practical way to find the child and recover her. There would be nothing to do but call Shakeshaft and tell him he was on his way home. He yearned for that to happen. He did yearn for it, didn’t he?

  He looked at Osa, holding back the dusty curtain, watching for Rice or for the police. He’d miss her.

  Mr. Lee’s tap on the door was so polite that Moon barely heard it. He gave Moon his frail hand to shake, but in the dark eyes of Osa van Winjgaarden Mr. Lee somehow recognized a fellow Asian. To her he bowed over hands prayerfully pressed together. She returned the gesture exactly.

  But otherwise today Mr. Lee made unusually short work of the polite formalities. He sat on the edge of the chair Moon had offered him and got right to the point.

  “At the airport there were police,” he said, his eyes on Moon’s face. “It was said an inmate had left the penal institution without permission. It was said the one who escaped was an American.”

  “Probably George Rice,” Moon said.

  “Yes,” Lum Lee said. “And why do you say that? Could it be only because you understand there are very few Americans in the prison here?” Mr. Lee’s expression suggested he doubted that.

  “He told us he planned to get out.”

  “Ah,” Lee said, nodding. “I am told that getting out is easy. Getting off the island is very hard. Did he suggest you help him accomplish that?”

  “I think he expected a friend to fly in and pick him up.”

  “A friend?”

  “Just a guess,” Moon said, thinking, How much should I tell this little man? Have I already dug us deeper into trouble?

  “Ah, yes,” Lee said. “A guess. And since the police are still at the airport, and the police are still around the port at Puerto Princesa, I would guess that the friend has not yet come.”

  “That sounds logical,” Moon said, wondering how Mr. Lee knew about the police at the port. Hadn’t he come here directly from the airport?

  Mr. Lee, deep in thought, extracted his cigar case, opened it, extracted a slim black cigar, and suddenly became aware of his rudeness. He gave Moon an apologetic look.

  “If Osa doesn’t mind,” Moon said, “go ahead and smoke.”

  “Please do,” Osa said.

  “A bad habit,” Mr. Lee said, lighting it. “But it sometimes seems to help one think. And now one needs to think.”

  “Trouble is, I can’t think of anything helpful,” Moon said.

  “It all seems strange,” Mr. Lee said. “Perhaps the friend of Mr. Rice betrayed him. Or perhaps Mr. Rice did not find a way to notify this friend of his need. Or of his schedule.”

  “Perhaps,” Moon said. “Or-”

  He paused, looked at Osa. Osa shrugged. What the hell, Moon thought. “Or perhaps the friend’s telephone in Manila had been disconnected. Perhaps there was no way the friend could be contacted.”

  Mr. Lee exhaled cigar smoke, careful to aim it away from them.

  “Yes,” he said. “Either way, the problem is the same for Mr. Rice.” He looked at Moon, expression quizzical. “And for others.”

  He considered this, eyes down, hands folded across his waist.

  “I would believe Mr. Rice to be a most shrewd man,” Mr. Lee continued. “Reckless at times, but most intelligent.” He nodded, agreeing with his conclusion. “Yes. He would never think he could simply walk up to the airport buildings in his prison uniform and wait for this friend to arrive. He would need to be certain that the friend was coming, and to know precisely when this friend would arrive. And precisely on what part of the runway he was landing his airplane. I believe that Mr. Rice would wish to conceal himself in the jungle until he saw this aircraft land. Then he would hurry out from the trees and get aboard before being detected.”

  “Exactly,” Moon said.

  “So he was coming here? To learn from you what arrangements had been made by his pilot friend?”

  Moon nodded. “He was supposed to come last night. But he didn’t make it.”

  “So now the police search for him.” Mr. Lee reached for the telephone. Withdrew his hand with an apologetic look at Moon. “May I?-”

  Moon gestured his permission.

  “It will be necessary to speak in Chinese,” Mr. Lee said. “I am afraid neither of you speak that language.” He hesitated a moment, looking at Moon and then at Osa for confirmation. “I will apologize that such impoliteness is necessary, but my friend here at Puerto Princesa does not speak English.”

  It was a long conversation, involving at various times at least three people on the other end of the telephone.

  Moon sat on the edge of the bed, looking away, watching Osa van Winjgaarden, who stood motionless at the window. He tried to read significance into the tone of Mr. Lee’s voice and learned only that Mr. Lee seemed to be in charge. The tone suggested that Mr. Lee was not asking favors. Only once did he raise his voice in anything that might have been irritation. Once he paused and asked Moon if he remembered the name of the prison official who had been in charge of him. Moon didn’t, but Osa provided the name of the lieutenant and Lum Lee repeated it into the telephone.

  Osa had looked away from the window then and watched Lee. Her face registered puzzlement, then surprise, then intense interest. It occurred to Moon that Osa as a child had had a Chinese nanny. She would understand Chinese, or at least a little of it.

  She looked at him and then moved her hands down where they would not be visible to Mr. Lee and made with her fingers the tong signals she had shown.

  Mr. Lee hung up.

  “Thank you very much,” he said. “Now I think we should go into Puerto Princesa and make some arrangements.”

  “I’ll have to wait for Rice,” Moon said. “We can’t-”

  “We go now,” Lum Lee said. “The police are coming.”

  “For us?” Moon said. Not that he hadn’t been expecting it.

  “Yes,” Mr. Lee said. “I think they would have been here much earlier, but your lieutenant had the day off.” He was moving toward the door. “Quickly, now. Quickly.”

  The anxiety in Mr. Lee’s expression spoke as loud as the words. Moon stuffed everything he had into his bag in a matter of seconds. Even so, he found Osa in the hall, bag packed, waiting.

  Mr. Lee was walking, rapidly and silently, down the hallway toward them. “A policeman has just come into the lobby,” he said. “Is there ano
ther stairway down?”

  “There’s a little porch at the end of the building, and a door opens out onto it,” Moon said. “Maybe it’s a fire escape.”

  It was. They scrambled down the ladder.

  “Where are we going?” Moon asked.

  “Where the police won’t find you,” Mr. Lee said. “Until we can collect Mr. Rice.”

  WASHINGTON, April 23 (AP)-A spokesman for President Ford said today that sixty helicopters have been assembled on three aircraft carriers off the coast of Vietnam prepared for speedy evacuation of Americans if it becomes necessary.

  Evening, The Fourteenth Day

  April 26, 1975

  THE PLACE WHERE MR. LEE had arranged to hide them proved to be a ramshackle two-story house on a potholed street of ramshackle two-story houses near the port that gave Puerto Princesa its name. The house was built partly of concrete blocks, partly of planking, and partly of bamboo logs, roofed partly with tile and partly with palm thatching-pretty much in keeping with the low-income urban architecture Moon had been noticing in the Philippines. What was less common, or so Moon presumed, was the section of flooring in the back hall. Mr. Tung, who Moon now presumed was the homeowner as well as their cabdriver, slid away the hallway rug, lifted this section, exposed a steep stairway, and led them down it into a large room with a concrete floor. Three of the walls and about four-fifths of the remaining one were also of concrete.

  The remaining fraction of a wall opened into a screen of bamboo poles. Mr. Tung pulled this back and peered out into what look to Moon like a bamboo forest. Mr. Tung nodded and refastened the cord that held the screen closed. He said, “I hope there will be comfort here,” bowed deeply over tented hands, and hurried up the stairway, where, Moon presumed, Mr. Lee was awaiting him.

  “I think we have been put in cold storage for a while,” Moon said, inspecting the furnishings. They included three small beds, two folding cots, a worn plastic sofa, a fairly new overstuffed chair, and a round wooden table with four wooden chairs. Around the three concrete walls pallets were stacked, the sort on which heavy materials are shipped. Behind the pallets up to about three feet above the floor, the walls were discolored with water stains.

  Moon sat on the sofa, feeling dizzy from lost sleep. And maybe a little bit feverish and headachy besides. He decided not to think about this. He was caught up in the tides of fate. He would discontinue thinking until he had something positive and productive to think about. Maybe he’d get some sleep. The last two nights there’d been damned little of that.

  Osa had untied the cord, pulled back the bamboo an inch or two, and peered out.

  “How clever,” she said.

  Moon yawned. Clever? He’d look later. But it had been clever the way Mr. Lee had gotten them here unseen. Lee had told them to appear at the side entrance of the hotel with whatever they had to take with them. He told them exactly when to be there. And just as they got to the door, the jeepney cab had pulled up with its rain curtains down. They’d slid into the back seat and left. It was the jeepney with the fighting cocks on the hood, but this time the driver was an older fellow wearing a flowered necktie and a seersucker jacket. His hair was short-cropped and gray. Mr. Lee had introduced him as Mr. Tung. Moon guessed he was a Malay, but Tung and Lum Lee were communicating in something that sounded like Chinese.

  “Pretty soon we will get to a house where you will stay for a while,” Mr. Lee had said without turning. “Mr. Tung will park his cab beside the side porch. He and I will get out and go into the house, and all the luggage will be carried in. But you will stay for some time in the cab.”

  “Until all the neighbors get their curiosity satisfied and stop looking out their windows,” Moon said.

  Mr. Lee had laughed. “Most astute,” he said. “I think you must live in a small town.”

  Now Osa was still fiddling with the bamboo screen.

  “You should see this,” she said. “It works like what we Dutch would call a water gate.” She laughed. “I think maybe our good hosts here do some smuggling.”

  “Great,” said Moon, and dozed off.

  He awoke sometime later, aware that Osa was rearranging his foot, which seemed to have fallen off the sofa.

  “Uncomfortable,” he heard her say. “There’s the bed right over there. Not three yards away. Men are so stubborn. Why not sleep on the bed?” And then some muttering in Dutch, or German, or Tagalog, and Moon was asleep again.

  Someone was shaking him. Moon came out of his sleep slowly this time, partly involved in a dream in which Gene Halsey and he were in a bar involved in some sort of disagreement with a military policeman and partly aware that Lum Lee was pushing on his shoulder.

  “What?” Moon said.

  “Sorry,” Mr. Lee said. “Very sorry. But now we must do some business.”

  “Business,” Moon said. Halsey, bar, and MP were gone now. He swung his legs around, sat up, and rubbed his face, trying to stifle a yawn. Osa was standing there watching him. Beside her two men were standing. One was their host, Mr. Tung, the cab owner. The other was George Rice.

  Moon became wide awake. “Well!” he said. “Mr. Rice. Welcome to Puerto Princesa.”

  “Happy to be here,” Rice said, grinning his bright blue-eyed grin. “Comparatively speaking, of course.”

  Rice was still in the striped prison garb, now wet and smeared with mud. A dark brown bruise began near the center of his forehead and ended in his right eyebrow. Below that, a small bandage had been taped over the cheekbone.

  “You all right?” Moon asked.

  “Fine,” Rice said. “Relatively speaking. Getting to the moat wasn’t as easy as it sounded.”

  “Do you know how to reach your pal Gregory? His telephone-”

  Mr. Lee interrupted. “Excuse me, please. We

  have covered all this. Mr. Gregory is not in the picture. We must agree on another solution.”

  “I don’t know of any,” Moon said. “Not a clue.” “Mr. Lee thinks we can sail across,” Osa said. “Sail across? Across the Sulu Sea?” “The South China Sea,” Mr. Lee said, Moon didn’t want to think about that. Across the South China Sea lay Vietnam. And Cambodia. And Pol Pot’s terrible teenage warriors beating people to death. He’d think about that later. Not for a minute or two. Now he had a headache and his stomach felt queasy.

  “How did you get here?” he asked Rice.

  Rice produced a self-deprecatory expression and nodded toward Mr. Tung. “I got a little confused out there. Got turned around. This gentleman had sent out some of his friends looking for me, and they found me.”

  Mr. Tung was smiling. “He had gotten down almost to the beach. My boys found him and then we sent a boat.”

  Mr. Lee wanted to stick to the point. “I think it would take perhaps three days. No more than four.”

  “To where?” Moon asked.

  “To the mouth of the Mekong and then up to Ricky’s repair hangars.”

  “Sailing on what?”

  “The Glory of the Sea,” Mr. Lee said. “A twomaster. A schooner.”

  “A sailboat?” Moon’s headache was right there behind his forehead, just over the eyes, pounding away. Surely they didn’t intend to try to cross the Pacific Ocean in a sailboat. And this still was the Pacific, wasn’t it? No matter what they called it.

  “Two masts,” Mr. Lee said. “But also diesel power.”

  “Oh,” Moon said.

  “Yes,” Mr. Tung said. “It is docked here now to get the diesel running better.”

  “It won’t work? It’s broken down?”

  “Oh, yes. It works,” Mr. Tung said. “But not so very good. Not so very fast.” He made a slow putt-putt-putting sound with his lips.

  In his drinking days Moon had become an authority on headaches. He was thinking that if he had a double shot of bourbon with two aspirins dissolved in it, his headache would go away. But he would never, ever drink again.

  Mr. Lee was staring at him, waiting.

  “When will this Glory
of the Sea have its diesel fixed? Do you know?”

  Mr. Lee looked at Mr. Tung. Mr. Tung shrugged. “In Puerto Princesa things sometimes go slowly,” he said. “Once we had a man here who fixed such things very well. But he moved his shop over to Leyte, where there is more business.”

  Moon looked at Osa. She must have told them he was a mechanic, told them about what he did in the army, about J.D’s pickup engine awaiting his return in Durance, Colorado. Cold, clean, safe, restful Durance, Colorado.

  “I believe you were a mechanic in your military career,” Mr. Lee said. “Somewhat like your brother, but working on the engines of tanks and big vehicles.”

  Moon nodded. But not really like his brother. Moon was the grease monkey. Ricky was the boss. “But this will be a marine diesel. Probably much bigger. Much different.” Which was probably baloney. A diesel was a diesel, much alike and all knuckle-busters to work on.

  “Do you think you could make it run well again?” Mr. Lee asked.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

  “Captain Teele will be able to tell you,” Mr. Lee said. “He is waiting upstairs.”

  Upstairs, for the first time in quite a while, Moon found himself the second largest man in the room. Forced to guess, Moon would have named Teele a Samoan pro football lineman. Certainly not the captain of a schooner named Glory of the Sea. He was dressed in a well-worn pinstriped business suit that had probably fit him well enough when he’d bought it but now bulged where he had added muscle. His hair was long and streaked with gray, and his dark face was marred by scarring and weathered by too many years of strong sun and salty winds.

  He bowed to Osa and smiled. To Moon and George Rice he offered a large square hand and said something in a language that was new to Moon. By the sound of it, the statement seemed to end with a question.

  “He wishes you well,” Mr. Lee said, “and he asks if you can fix his engine so it will run better.”

  “Tell him I need to know what is wrong with it,” Moon said. And thereby began one of those three-sided translated conversations that left Captain Teele looking doubtful and Moon wondering if Teele had even the vaguest notion of what caused ignition inside a diesel engine.