Out on the Rim

Chapter Twenty-five

It was the Magellan Hotel’s general manager, Antonio Imperial himself, who registered Booth Stallings at 5:41 P.M. on April Fools’ Day, 1986. Noting that Stallings was not burdened with luggage of any kind, Imperial smiled and said, “Airline lose your bag, Mr. Stallings? They’re very good at that.”

“A mix-up in Manila,” Stallings said, as he filled out the registration form. “Some friends are bringing it down.”

“Mr. Wu and Mr. Durant?” When he saw Stallings look up with the beginning of a frown, Imperial hurried on. “Otherguy — I mean, Mr. Overby — checked on all your reservations and, since Miss Blue’s already here, I assumed Wu and Durant would be bringing your luggage down tomorrow.”

The frown was canceled and Stallings smiled slightly. “Known Otherguy long?”

“More than twenty years.”

“He changed much?”

“An interesting question. I’d have to say no, not really. He’s — well, timeless, I suppose.” Imperial turned, took Stallings’ room key from its slot, turned back, reached under the counter, and came up with a small sealed clear plastic bag that contained a throwaway razor, a toothbrush, miniature tubes of shaving cream and toothpaste, and a small bottle of shampoo.

“Our compliments,” Imperial said, placing the key and the plastic bag on the counter.

“Thanks very much,” Stallings said. “What room’s Miss Blue in?”

“She’s just next door to you, four twenty-six.” Imperial snapped his fingers, as if remembering something. He turned again, picked up a small stack of mail, thumbed through it, selected a letter and handed it to Stallings. “This arrived just before you did,” he said.

Stallings examined the envelope which was square, white and cheap. His name was printed in ink. Down in the lower left-hand corner, someone had written: “Hold for arrival.” Stallings shoved the letter down into a hip pocket, gathered up his room key and plastic bag, and started for the elevator.

“Like a bellman to show you up, Mr. Stallings?” Imperial asked.

Stallings turned back. “No, but you might send up a couple of cold beers.”

It was only after the beer came, and he had drunk half of one bottle, that Booth Stallings took the letter from his hip pocket, held it up to the light, sniffed it, smelled nothing and finally tore it open.

On a single, once-folded sheet of cheap white paper, a precise hand had written:

Still holding the letter, Stallings crossed to the room’s window and raised the venetian blind. He reread the letter and then stared out at a red sun setting behind the Guadalupe Mountains, the same mountains in which Stallings and Alejandro Espiritu, the boy terrorists, had done much of their killing. Neither of you, he thought, ever really rid yourself of its fascination. The only difference is that you examined it and poked at it and wrote about it and made a living from it while Al, well, Al just kept on doing it.

Stallings watched what looked like a large Cessna come in for a landing at the old Cebu airport that was now used only by private planes. When his commercial flight from Manila had started its approach to Mactan Airport, Stallings at first thought he had boarded the wrong plane. But Mactan was Cebu’s new airport. The one just down the road from the Magellan Hotel was the old one that he and Espiritu, from their vantage point in the mountains, had watched the Japanese military fly in and out of.

Just as the Cessna disappeared behind some trees, there was a knock at the door. Assuming it was either Georgia Blue or Overby, Stallings said, “Come in,” and continued to stare out at what was left of the brief tropical sunset. When the door opened and a gruff voice said, “Stallings?” — making it an accusatory question — he turned quickly and found himself staring at a tall old man in his mid-to-late sixties who wore a short-sleeved tan safari jacket with a great many pockets, all of them bulging, and a matching pair of slacks.

The old man had plumb-line posture, silky white hair, a rusted complexion, small blue eyes that needed trifocals and a mouth that obviously liked giving orders. Only the thin-lipped mouth with its pronounced overbite seemed vaguely familiar to Stallings.

“Don’t remember me, do you?” the old man said in the gruff baritone that could have belonged to a 30-year-old.

“No,” Stallings said. “Should I?”

“Name’s Crouch. Vaughn Crouch. Except it was Major Crouch when you knew me.”

“Good Lord.”

“Finally got to be Colonel Crouch.”

“You sent us in.”

Crouch nodded. “You and Al Espiritu. I’m the guy.”

“What’re you—”

Crouch interrupted, as if he didn’t have enough patience for fool questions. “I live here.”

“In Cebu.”

“Here in the goddamn Magellan. Put my thirty in and retired back in seventy-two. Been here ever since. It’s cheap and if I need some part fixed, like the prostate, I can fly up to Clark or even back to Schofield in Hawaii and let the quacks there patch me up for free.” He raised his head slightly to study Stallings through the bottom lens of the trifocals. “You’ve changed some. Wouldn’t’ve known you if I’d passed you on the street. You ready?”

“For what?”

“I remember you being kind of quick, Stallings. A little snotty maybe, but quick.” Crouch shook his head. “Can’t stand dumb. I can put up with goddamn near anything but dumb.”

“Espiritu sent you.”

“He didn’t send me,” Crouch said. “He asked. Can’t say much for old Al’s politics, but he’s got a good tactical mind and always did. His fucked-up politics are his business.” Crouch paused. “Well, you ready or not?”

“Let’s go,” Stallings said.

The retired Colonel’s car was a well-maintained ten-year-old yellow Volkswagen convertible that he drove, top down, with what Stallings quickly decided was far too much dash. The highway up into the mountains started off well enough, but soon disintegrated into broken pavement, patchy gravel, and finally into a twisting red dirt road that was not much more than a trail.

“Why retire here?” Stallings asked. “Why not Fort Sam in San Antonio?”

“With the rest of the old farts?” Crouch said, shaking his head and gearing the VW down for a curve. “I had three wars. Two bad and one good. I sure as shit wouldn’t retire to Seoul or Saigon — even if I could — so with the wife dead and both kids either married or divorced, I figured what the hell, you like the Filipinos and always did, so you might as well go live there and see what the fuck happens.” He gave his head another shake, this time a satisfied one, and said, “It’s sure been interesting.”

They drove on without speaking for minutes until Crouch said, “Al lent me that book you wrote.”

Stallings’ reply was a noncommittal, “Oh.”

“I didn’t agree with everything you claimed, but you sure got most of it right. So I don’t guess I have to tell you that if you’re doing a deal with Al, watch him. He’s tricky.” Crouch glanced at Stallings. “But I expect you must’ve figured that out by now.”

“A long time ago,” Stallings said.

They drove on in more silence for what Stallings estimated to be three miles. That made the trip thus far about twelve miles — or not quite halfway across the island. Crouch came to a curve. In the VW’s headlights it looked just like any other curve, but he slowed down to fifteen miles per hour, then to ten, and finally stopped.

“End of the line,” he said.

“What happens now?”

“You get out, stand around and admire the Southern Cross, if you’ve a mind to. Somebody’ll come fetch you. It won’t be long. They’re out there somewhere, just waiting to make sure nobody followed us.”

“How do I get back?” Stallings said.

“Beats me.”

Stallings opened the door, stepped out of the Volkswagen, and looked down at Crouch. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Maybe someday you or Al might tell me what the fuck this is all about.”

Stallings only nodded.

“And maybe not,” Crouch said as he put the car into reverse, backed around and shot off down the rough mountain trail.

Stallings watched until the Volkswagen convertible disappeared around the curve. He decided that once again the grown-ups had sent him out on his own, just as if he had good sense. On the drive up he had remembered more vague details about his elderly chauffeur. In 1945, Crouch had been a 26- or 27-year-old major, a war lover, and somebody who, before the war, had done more than just go to high school. He had either held down a job, or joined the CCC, or bummed around the country, or graduated from Michigan State or Texas A&M. Something anyway.

In 1945 that seven- or eight-year experience gap had seemed unbridgeable to Stallings. In 1986 it still seemed just as wide and just as deep. You’d better grow up fast, sonny, Stallings decided, or you’ll slip from acute chronic adolescence into senility with nothing in between. He turned and looked up at the Southern Cross, only to discover — with a trace of surprise — that it, like himself, hadn’t changed at all in 41 years.

Stallings wasn’t sure how long he stared up at the constellation before he heard them. It was at least five minutes, maybe ten, possibly fifteen. They came down the hill, stumbling and muttering in the dark, indifferent to the noise they made.

Stallings turned to watch their bobbing flashlights approach. He jumped when something hard was jammed into the small of his back by the one who had slipped up silently from behind.

“Please don’t move, Mr. Stallings,” she said and he recognized the voice of the woman who called herself Carmen Espiritu.

“How’ve you been, Carmen?”

“Please don’t talk either,” she said.

The ones who had muttered and stumbled their way down the hill turned out to be three in number. All were men, none more than 30. While Carmen Espiritu kept the muzzle of her gun in Stallings’ back, one of the men searched him with quick, expert hands.

“Nothing,” the man said.

She moved around in front of Stallings. With the help of the three flashlights he saw that she wore yet another semiautomatic pistol, a dark T-shirt, jeans and running shoes. The T-shirt advertised a cantina called Hussong’s in Baja California.

“How’s your health, Mr. Stallings?” she asked.

“Well, I sometimes get a mild touch of sciatica, but it comes and goes.”

“I mean can you walk three kilometers into the hills without us carrying you?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Let’s go.”

In Booth Stallings’ opinion, there was far too much up hill and not nearly enough down dale. But he was pleased by how well he kept up and surprised by how vividly he remembered the way he and Espiritu had once bounded up and down such trails like a couple of goats. Young goats.

They climbed for an hour and 15 minutes before they stopped. One of the men imitated the cry of a bird whose species Stallings didn’t even try to identify. After an answering bird cry, they crossed through a cornfield whose rustling stalks provided an effective early-warning alarm system.

Just beyond the cornfield was a large nipa hut of at least three or four rooms. It rested on poles that were the usual five or six feet high. Soft kerosene lamp light came from the hut’s open windows and also from those of the three or four smaller nipa huts that made up the compound.

A man who wasn’t very tall came through the large hut’s main door and stood, staring down at Stallings as he emerged from the cornfield with Carmen Espiritu at his side.

“How’ve you been, Booth?” Alejandro Espiritu asked.

“Fine, Al,” Stallings said. “And you?”