Authors: Ross Thomas

Tags: #Mystery, #Thriller

Out on the Rim (24 page)

BOOK: Out on the Rim

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She lay on the floor by the room's one good chair in that discarded rag doll position that only the dead seem able to manage. Artie Wu thought she certainly looked dead. Antonio Imperial, whose passkey had unlocked the door to room 426, was convinced of it. Only Quincy Durant had any doubt as he quickly crossed the room to kneel beside Georgia Blue.

His hands seemed to know exactly where to go and what to do. He felt first for the big artery in her neck. He then peeled back an eyelid. Next he opened her blouse and put his left ear to her chest. Then he sat back on his heels and studied her for a moment before looking up at Imperial.

“She's alive, but you'd better get a doctor.”

“Shouldn't she go to hospital?” the hotel manager said.

“That's up to the doctor. But if you don't get her one, she could die on you.”

“I'll get one,” Imperial said and hurried out.

After the door closed, Durant said, “Let's put her on the bed.”

Wu frowned. “Should she be moved?”

“You want to talk to her?”

Wu nodded his reply and helped Durant lift her gently onto the nearer twin bed.

“Get a cold wet washcloth or towel,” Durant said.

While Wu was in the bathroom, Durant examined the ugly swelling just above Georgia Blue's left ear. After Wu returned with a wet towel, Durant's practiced hands applied it to the swollen area. Georgia Blue's eyes flickered, opened, closed and opened again. She made a retching noise far down in her throat.

“Get a bucket,” Durant snapped.

Georgia Blue threw up into the metal wastebasket Artie Wu held for her. After lying back down and closing her eyes, she asked Durant, “How bad?”

“You'll live, but you'll have one hell of a headache.”

“A doctor's on his way, Georgia,” Wu said as he came back from the bathroom where he had emptied the wastebasket.

She opened her eyes to look at Wu. “An NPA sparrow team, Artie. One big; one little. The big one was almost as big as you.”

“Tell us about it,” Wu said. “If you can.”

“They wanted to know about me and Otherguy and that stupid fight we put on. And then they wanted to know about the letter from Stallings.”

Wu and Durant looked at each other. “What letter?” Durant said.

In sentence fragments and disjointed phrases she told them about Minnie Espiritu delivering the plain white unaddressed envelope. About checking at the desk to see if Wu and Durant were in. About going up to her room and finding the two men, one big, one little. About kicking the little one and being choked by the big one. About the little one finding the Walther and the big one the letter. But she said nothing about opening Stallings' letter and reading it over the phone to Boy Howdy, and nothing about sending a copy of the map to Howdy by taxi.

“Any idea of what was in Booth's letter?” Wu asked.

“Heâhe read it to me,” she lied.

“The big one?” Durant asked.

“Yes. There was the letter and a map. He read me the letter and showed me the map. They wanted to know how I got them.”

“What'd you tell them?”

“Lies.”

“Can you remember what was in the letter?” Wu said.

She closed her eyes again, as if struggling to recall. “Most of it, I think,” she said, opening her eyes.

“Let me get something to write on,” Wu said, going to the desk and returning with a magazine and several sheets of hotel stationery. “Okay,” he said and clicked his ballpoint pen.

“I â¦ I think,” Georgia Blue said haltingly, “that it went something like, âI'm bringing Espiritu out tomorrow from A on map.'” She paused. “And then there was something about when they'd start. Four, I believe.”

Wu looked up from his notes. “Four P.M. tomorrow?”

“Yes. Then something like, âHave transportation at B on map,' except transportation was abbreviated and I'm fairly sure the time for that was between five-thirty and six.”

“What about the map?” Durant asked. “Did you get a good look at it?”

“Yes.”

Wu leaned forward. “Can you remember where points A and B are?”

“Give me some paper, Artie. Maybe I can draw it.”

It took her ten minutes to draw the map on a sheet of hotel stationery. It took that long because she kept hesitating and changing her mind and discarding wadded-up sheets of stationery. Finally satisfied, she handed what she had drawn to Wu. It was another fair copy of the map Booth Stallings had drawn, except that on this second version points A and B were about a kilometer farther west and east, respectively.

Wu studied the map with care. “Nice,” he said, passing it to Durant. “You have a good memory.”

Durant examined it and looked up. “Some map,” he said.

Georgia Blue wearily closed her eyes. “It could be a little off.”

“How little?” Durant asked. “Twenty yards? Five hundred meters? A mile or two?”

“You want a money-back guarantee?” she said, opening her eyes to glare at him. “That map and what I told you are all I know. Everything. Except, well, except one dumb question they asked that made no sense.”

Wu smiled encouragingly. “And what question was that, Georgia?” “They asked me, or rather the big one did, what Boy Howdy was doing at the Cebu Plaza. I said I didn't know. So the one time I tell the truth the big bastard hits me.” She attempted a smile and nearly made it. “But that's okay, I guess, since the little one wanted to shoot me.”

“Why do you think they asked you what Boy'sâ”

A loud knock at the door kept Wu from completing his question. And before he could get around the twin beds, the door opened and a man in his late thirties strode in, a doctor's bag in his left hand and a worried-looking Antonio Imperial just behind him. The man with the doctor's bag stopped in the middle of the room and glanced around, as if expecting evidence of a riot, revolution or at least a three-day orgy.

He wore an expensive green polo shirt, pale yellow linen slacks and a competent look on a narrow face that featured gentle dark brown eyes and an unforgiving mouth.

“I'm Doctor Bello,” he announced to the room at large. “Who the hell are you two?”

“Friends of the patient,” Durant said.

“Friends of the patient will kindly wait outside.”

Antonio Imperial went away, leaving Wu and Durant waiting in the corridor just outside room 426. He went away somewhat relieved after they both assured him that Georgia Blue had no intention of suing his hotel. When he had gone, Durant unfolded the map and examined it with a sigh. “Some map,” he said again. “It's got a rough scale and everything.” He handed the map to Wu who folded it back up and tucked it away in his right hip pocket.

“I think,” Wu said as he buttoned the pocket, “I think I'd better drop by the Cebu Plaza and have a talk with Boy.”

“Want me to go along?”

“I want him talkative, Quincy. Not terrified. And somebody has to stay with Georgia.”

“Otherguy can stay with her.”

“You're forgetting this is Otherguy's afternoon to defect.”

“Mr. Trustworthy.”

Wu shrugged. “He's what we've got.”

Artie Wu went to his room and telephoned the Cebu Plaza Hotel. He told a room clerk that he had a package for Mr. Howdy and should he send it to room 314 or 514? The room clerk said neitherâthat the package should be addressed to room 319. Wu said he wished certain people would learn to write legibly and the room clerk said that would indeed be a blessing because Wu was the second person that very day to have the wrong number for Mr. Howdy's room.

Downstairs, Wu took a taxi to the Cebu Plaza, which had been built late in the Marcos reign and was not only much newer than the Magellan but also much taller. As Wu paid off his driver, he noticed the green Subaru four-door sedan that waited with engine running outside the Cebu Plaza's entrance. He noticed it mostly because of the big Filipino who stood by the sedan's open rear door. Artie Wu always noticed men who were nearly as large as he. And this one was especially worth a second glance because of his obvious anxiety. Behind
the wheel of the Subaru sat a smaller man wearing a white shirt. Wu couldn't decide whether he was also having an anxiety attack.

Inside the hotel, Wu crossed the lobby to the elevators. Two of them were working and both were on their way down. The first elevator to arrive opened its door with a soft chiming bong and out of it came Carmen Espiritu, wearing an expensive cream silk dress, no brassiere, black pumps, too much makeup and a black matching leather shoulder bag in which her right hand was buried.

At the sight of Artie Wu she stopped short and an unfamiliar left high heel twisted, causing her to stumble. Wu put out a supportive hand that cupped her left elbow. Carmen Espiritu quickly recovered, backing away from him, her right hand bringing up the black leather shoulder bag.

“Don't ever touch me!” she said in a fierce whisper.

Wu smiled. “Buy you a drink, Carmen?”

“You people are such â¦ idiots,” she said, turned and hurried away, the wobbling high heels clacking along the marble floor.

Wu watched her climb into the rear of the green Subaru sedan. The big Filipino, apparently still stricken with either panic or anxiety, closed the rear door with a slam and scrambled into the front seat next to the driver. The Subaru shot away.

Watching the car drive off, Wu wondered what, if anything, he should do about it. He decided his only sensible move would be to go pound on Boy Howdy's door.

He rode the elevator alone up to the third floor, walked down the corridor until he found 319 and the Do Not Disturb sign that hung from its doorknob. Wu pounded on the door. When there was no response, he automatically tried the knob and was surprised when it turned. He glanced quickly up and down the corridor, went through the door and closed it behind him, making sure it locked.

There was the usual short entryway with the bath on the left and a closet on the right. Beyond the entryway was the room itself where Wu discovered Boy Howdy sitting in an easy chair, slumped in it actually, and wearing nothing but the pillow on his lap.

CHAPTER 31

There were two small bullet holes just below Boy Howdy's left nipple. Blood, although not very much, had made some of the reddish gray chest hair even redder. There were also two bullet holes in the thin pillow, which Wu assumed had served as a make-do silencer.

Glancing around the room, he noted the rumpled bed clothing and how Boy Howdy's own clothes formed a kind of trail to the bed. The shirt had been discarded first, then the net undershirt followed by the pants, the Jockey shorts and finally the shoes. Wondering where the socks were, Wu looked back and found a pair of white cotton ones still on the dead man's feet. The socks made him fret a little about his powers of observation.

Wu picked up Boy Howdy's pants and went through the pockets, finding nothing of interest. There was a second thin pillow on the bed, but nothing underneath it. Wu lifted up the mattress and found what he was looking forâBoy Howdy's wallet.

It was a large worn ostrich-skin wallet, very old, very thick, that contained 585 pesos, $800 in American Express traveler's checks, three credit cards, a driver's license, two condoms, some receipts and a sheet of Magellan Hotel stationery, the same sheet on which Georgia Blue had drawn her fair copy of Booth Stallings' map.

Wu put the ostrich-skin wallet back where he'd found it and carried the map to the writing desk. On the desk were a phone, a bottle of Dewar's Scotch whiskey, a bucket of half-melted ice and two glasses, only one of them used. There was also a nine-sheet stack of Cebu Plaza Hotel stationery. Lying diagonally across the stationery was a hotel ballpoint pen.

Wu switched on the desk lamp, took the map Georgia Blue had drawn for him and Durant from his hip pocket, and compared it with the one he had found in Boy Howdy's wallet. The two maps, obviously drawn by the same hand, were virtually identical, except that points A and B on the map drawn for Wu and Durant had been moved a kilometer west and east, respectively.

Wu smiled and nodded his appreciation of the neat deception. He picked up the Scotch bottle and smelled its contents. It smelled like Scotch whiskey so he had two swallows straight from the bottle. As he used his handkerchief to pat his lips, someone knocked at the door. It wasn't a polite tentative maid's knock, but the hard open-up-in-there kind.

Wu's reply was a loud growl to indicate he was coming as soon as he could get some clothes on. He studied the two maps that lay side by side, put one on top of the other and folded a crease into both just below the Magellan Hotel letterhead. He tore the letterheads off along the crease and stuffed them into his pocket.

Crossing quickly to the bed, Wu took Boy Howdy's wallet from beneath the mattress and put the false map Georgia Blue had drawn for him and Durant into it, returning the wallet to its quaint hiding place. The map he had found in Howdy's wallet went down beneath the elastic top of Wu's left calf-length black sock.

There was more hard knocking at the door. Wu glanced around the room and headed for the door, pausing only to switch off the desk lamp. He opened the door to discover the pair with the “Made in the U.S.A.” look. Neither made any attempt to hide his surprise. The older of the pair, Weaver P. Jordan, recovered first, smiled his
tight no-teeth smile and said, “I told you we'd see you in Cebu.”

Wu nodded affably. “So you did.”

The elegant one, Jack Cray, was wearing a different suit but the same suspicious frown. “Where's Howdy?”

Wu shook his head sadly and replied in an appropriately hushed tone. “Shot dead, it would seem.”

Although Wu was already moving back and to one side, Weaver Jordan still said, “Get the fuck out of our way,” as he pushed past him into the hotel room followed by Jack Cray.

Jordan slowly circled the dead Boy Howdy three times as Cray stood a few feet away, his eyes not on the corpse but darting around the room, searchingâArtie Wu presumedâfor the killer. Not finding him he turned to Wu and said, “Who killed him?”

“If you'd asked who wanted him dead, I could give you a long list. Boy had an absolute knack for making life-long enemies.”

“You kill him?” Cray said, obviously not expecting much of an answer.

“No.”

Weaver Jordan stopped circling the dead Boy Howdy long enough to glower at Wu. “What about Durant?”

“He's sitting up with a sick friend, even as we speak.”

“So what're you doing here?” Cray asked in a tone braced for both lies and evasions.

Wu smiled. “Since you have no more official authority than I do, I'll ask the same question.”

Jack Cray turned to stare somberly at the naked dead man. When he spoke it was in a voice usually reserved for graveside eulogies. “He was one of ours.”

“Boy was one of everybody's,” Wu said. “Did he do piecework? Casual labor? Or did you have him on a retainer?”

When Cray only stared at him bleakly, Wu went on in a half-speculative, half-reminiscent voice. “He was on your books for whatâten years? Fifteen? I'd say fifteen.” A thought seemed to strike him.
“You did know he was on Tokyo's books, didn't you? And Taipei's, Canberra's, Kuala Lumpur's and, the last I heard, even Bangkok's, although Bangkok doesn't really pay all that much.”

“Bangkok,” Weaver Jordan said, staring at the dead Howdy with disapproval. “Jesus.”

Cray said nothing. Instead, he gave Wu a slow up-and-down inspection, as if curious about what would come next.

“His best customer, of course,” Wu continued, “was always the old boy in MalacaÃ±ang Palace. Howdy was both his supplier and distributor. But you know that, don't you, because you must've bought Palace stuff from Boy so fresh the ink was still wet.” Wu turned to examine the dead Howdy, as if for the last time. “I expect Boy really missed the old guy.” He paused. “I know he missed the money.”

“You jump to nice conclusions,” Jack Cray said.

Wu nodded and gave the room itself a final quick glance. “Looks just like a typical honey trap, doesn't it? Boy has something he wants to sell or buy. She walks in. There's some talk. Some business. And then some sexâfirst on the bed followed by a variation in the chair. And then bang, bang, Boy's dead.”

“Through the pillow,” Weaver Jordan said. “She was probably kneeling on itâat first anyhow.”

Jack Cray looked at Jordan and made a small gesture. “Toss it,” he said.

It took only two minutes for Jordan to find the ostrich-skin wallet under the mattress. “Well, lookee here,” Jordan said, handing the map to Jack Cray. Wu sidled up behind Cray, as if trying to steal a glimpse over his shoulder. Cray gave him a cold look and walked to the other side of the room where he continued to study the map.

Wu watched Weaver Jordan eye the sheaf of Cebu Plaza Hotel stationery on the writing desk. Jordan first looked at it from above and then squatted so he could look across its surface at eye level. While still squatting and looking, he switched the desk lamp on, off
and on again. He produced a pencil and began shading in a portion of the top sheet of stationery.

“I saw a guy do that in a picture once,” Wu said.

“We employ all the latest techniques,” Jordan said, shading away. “Invisible ink. Poison toothpaste. Real state-of-the-art shit.”

He kept on shading the stationery with his pencil for another three or four seconds before he said, “Well, now, by God.” He put the pencil down and bent over the sheet. “Listen to this, Jack, will you: âAm bringing A. Espiritu outâ'”

Jack Cray cut him off with a sharp, “Goddamnit, Jordan!” He then turned to Wu and said, “You want to stay around for the cops?”

“Not particularly.”

Cray smiled his coldest smile. “Then we'll tell them you weren't here.”

“Should it arise.”

Cray nodded. “Should it arise.”

Artie Wu turned and headed for the door, but turned back. “In that picture I saw,” he said to Weaver Jordan. “The guy went to all the trouble of shading the pad with a pencil, but you know what the secret message turned out to be?”

“A fake,” Weaver Jordan said.

“I guess we saw the same picture.”

“I guess we did,” Weaver Jordan said.

BOOK: Out on the Rim

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