Out on the Rim

Chapter Twenty seven

At 1:43 A.M. Otherguy Overby returned to the Magellan Hotel, parked the gray Toyota and entered the lobby to discover Artie Wu seated on one of the low couches, hands clasped across his belly, eyes fixed on the entrance.

“Artie,” Overby said, his eyes darting first to the right where Durant leaned on the counter of the closed cigar stand, and then to the left where Georgia Blue stood in front of the closed cashier’s cage, her right hand down inside her shoulder bag. It was then that Overby resolved never again to have anything to do with women who wore shoulder bags.

He also decided to preempt Wu. “I think they’ve got Booth Stallings,” he said, watching carefully for Wu’s reaction, which turned out to be only a polite nod of limited interest.

“They?” said Durant who somehow was now only a foot or so away from Overby. “Who the fuck’re they?”

Overby wasn’t surprised by Durant’s ability to transport himself, as if by magic, but he didn’t have to like it. “Christ, you’re sneaky,” Overby told him and turned back to Wu.

“When’d you guys get here, Artie?” Overby asked. “You weren’t due till tomorrow.” He remembered the time then and amended his statement. “Or today, I guess it is now.”

“Something came up and we chartered a plane,” Wu said. “A Cessna, wasn’t it?” The question went to Durant.

“A Cessna,” Durant agreed.

“We came in at sundown,” Wu said, again staring at Overby. “Landed at the old airport up the road. The flight down was quite interesting. We flew at about six thousand and were able to see a lot. The islands all looked very lush, Otherguy, very prosperous.” He paused. “Very deceptive.”

“Ask him who’s got Stallings,” Georgia Blue said, crossing from the cashier’s cage to stand behind Wu’s couch.

“Never hurry Otherguy,” Wu said. “He’ll tell us after he decides what he wants us to know.”

“You want me to tell it down here?” Overby said. “Or up in the room of somebody who’s got a bottle because I don’t.”

“I’ve got Scotch,” Durant said.

Wu rose from the low couch without any help from his hands. “Then let’s use your room, Quincy.”

Durant leaned against the wall as usual. Overby sat in the room’s one armchair. Georgia Blue was at the small writing table. Wu sat on the bed, leaning against its headboard. Durant had mixed and served the drinks of Scotch and not very cool tap water after Wu went next door to his room and returned with two more glasses.

After a long swallow of his drink, Artie Wu put it down and took out a cigar. While inspecting it carefully, possibly for hidden flaws, he said, “So who has Booth Stallings, Otherguy?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Espiritu,” Overby said, flicking his eyes from Wu to Durant to Georgia Blue, trying to gauge the effect of his revelation. He was neither surprised nor alarmed when there was none. Overby drank some of his Scotch and water, leaned back in the armchair and waited to see what course Wu would take.

“Mrs. Espiritu?” Wu said, raising a mildly perplexed eyebrow.

Overby let himself relax although he didn’t let it show. “Carmen Espiritu,” he said. “I think everybody’s met her at one time or another. Everybody but me.”

“She told us she was his granddaughter,” Georgia Blue said. “Although Booth didn’t believe her.”

“From what I hear, she lies a lot,” Overby said.

“You hear that where exactly?” Durant asked.

“I’ll tell you where,” Overby said. “I went looking for Stallings this evening — yesterday evening, I guess — to see if he’d like a drink. I called his room, banged on his door — nothing. Well, the hotel manager’s a friend of mine. Tony Imperial. When I first knew Tony twenty years ago he was a bellhop. So I asked him if he’d seen Stallings and he says he saw him with a retired U.S. Army colonel who lives here in the hotel. A guy called Crouch. Vaughn Crouch, like Vaughn Monroe — remember him? And Tony says Crouch and Stallings left in the Colonel’s car. An old yellow VW. Okay?”

Wu nodded for Overby to continue. “Well, I hang around and the Colonel comes back alone. So I make a small move on him in the bar, nothing special, and after a couple of drinks he tells me how back in World War II he sent Stallings and Espiritu and six other guys into Cebu on an I and R patrol that only those two came back from. Stallings and Espiritu. So when he retires here in, I think, seventy-two, the Colonel looks up Espiritu and keeps in touch, even after Espiritu goes underground. Well, the Colonel claims it was Espiritu who asked him to drive Stallings up into the hills there. And that’s what he did. So I ask him where in the hills did he drop Stallings off and he draws me a map. Well, I got in the car that I rented from Avis next door and drove up to take a look.”

“At night?” Wu asked.

“Sure at night. When else was there? You can see things at night, Artie. For all I knew they’d have signs up: This way to the NPA Camp. Except they didn’t. So I came back. Oh, yeah. It was the Colonel who told me about Carmen and how much she lies. The Colonel doesn’t much like Carmen.”

A silence followed Overby’s recitation. Wu finally lit his cigar and blew three plump smoke rings at the ceiling. When he spoke, it was more to the rising smoke rings than to Overby.

“That’s a very interesting story and I suspect that much of it is even true.”

“Thirty percent anyway,” Durant said. “Maybe forty.”

Overby looked at Durant indifferently. “Just hum me the parts you don’t like.”

Durant turned to Georgia Blue. “Tell him, Georgia.”

She cocked her head to one side, examined Overby with care, gave her head a small shake of wonder and said, “I talked to the Colonel, Otherguy. What you say doesn’t quite check out.”

“When’d you talk to him?” Overby asked.

“Around midnight.”

“Was he sober?”

“Not very.”

Overby shrugged. “The guy’s on the sauce. He puts away maybe a fifth a day. I can’t help it if he can’t remember what he said or who he talked to.”

“You said you rented a car after you talked to him,” Georgia Blue said.

“I said I rented a car.”

“After you talked to him.”

“Not after. That’d be around eight or so. Avis is closed then. I rented it around three-thirty or four.” Overby dug into a pants pocket, came up with the Toyota key and tossed it to Georgia Blue who caught it easily.

She glanced at the key and said, “This doesn’t say much.”

“The rental agreement’s in the glove compartment. The time’s on the agreement. The car’s a gray Toyota. With the key you can go look.” He turned to glare at Durant. “Anything else?”

“You wouldn’t still have that map the Colonel drew, would you?” Durant said.

Overby put his drink down and used both hands to pat all his pockets, frowning the while. When one of the pats reached a hip pocket, the frown went away, replaced by a smile. Out of the hip pocket came a folded square of hotel stationery, which he handed to Durant.

Durant unfolded the sheet of stationery, glanced at it, and passed it to Artie Wu who studied it carefully. “It does seem to be a map of some kind and very nicely drawn too. Maybe we owe Otherguy an apology.”

“We owe him fuck all,” Durant said.

“I apologize for everyone, Otherguy,” Wu said. “Especially Quincy.”

“Forget it,” Overby said.

Wu nodded agreeably. “Now let’s go back to what you saw up in the hills tonight. Was there anything at all to indicate that the particular spot you drove to might be used as a rendezvous by the NPA?”

Overby grimaced at the ceiling, as if trying to remember. “I got out and walked around,” he said. “There were some cigarette butts. In fact, a lot of them. All in one spot.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

“Suppose you drove back up there tomorrow and simply waited,” Wu said. “What do you think might happen?”

“I think the NPA wouldn’t much like it and they’d take me someplace I didn’t want to go.”

“But that would give you a chance to play Weak Link, wouldn’t it?”

Overby shook his head. “They wouldn’t buy it, Artie. Not if I just pop up out of nowhere.”

“Of course not,” Wu said. “But suppose they knew we thieves had fallen out?”

Overby brightened and smiled his hard, merry smile. “Let’s hear it.”

Wu blew a smoke ring first. “Tomorrow morning downstairs at breakfast, you and Georgia will have a knock-down, drag-out argument. I assume the NPA people will hear it — or about it — and report back to Espiritu. So when you show up in the hills, say tomorrow afternoon, you’ll not be altogether unexpected and your credentials, although limited, will have been established.”

“I’d be kind of a defector,” Overby said.

“A double-crosser,” Durant said. “A part you can really lose yourself in.”

Overby ignored him and stared coldly at Wu. “I can also get myself shot, Artie.”

“This is not exactly a risk-free deal, Otherguy.”

“I don’t mind shared risk,” Overby said. “But up till now it looks like Stallings and me’re the only ones sticking our necks out.”

“Georgia’s goes on the block tomorrow,” Wu said. “Mine and Quincy’s shortly thereafter.”

Overby produced his hardest smile. “Tell me about it.”

“Once you’ve ‘gone over,’ let’s call it, the NPA will naturally wonder if you’re a plant. The obvious person for them to question is Georgia. She’ll have to bear up under that questioning.”

“Okay,” Overby said. “That’s her. What about him?” Him was obviously Durant.

Wu sighed. “The reason Quincy and I hired the plane and flew down early is because a mismatched pair from Langley came calling. They know what we’re up to, more or less, and plan to stop us. We — Quincy and I — can’t let that happen.”

Durant smiled at Overby. “Want to trade risks, Otherguy?”

Overby shook his head. “I think it’s about evened out.”

Artie Wu rose from the bed. “Then I think we should all get some sleep unless someone has something else to say.”

No one did. Georgia Blue was the first to leave. Then Overby. Wu and Durant waited silently for two minutes. Durant then went to the door, opened it, looked up and down the corridor, closed the door softly and turned back to Wu. “We’re slicing it awfully thin,” Durant said.

Wu nodded. “And it’s going to get even thinner.”

Otherguy Overby stood at his room’s window 15 minutes later, staring out into the night’s nothingness, when he heard the soft knock at his door. He opened it, showing no surprise when Artie Wu entered quickly, closing the door behind him.

“A pep talk, Artie?” Overby said.

“A small warning. It’s going to be tricky.”

“Too fucking tricky.”

“We’re going to need luck.”

“You never counted on luck before. You don’t even believe in it.”

Wu moved his lips in what may or may not have been a slight smile. “This time’s different, Otherguy. So if you find your luck running out, cut yourself loose.”

“Every man for himself, right?”

Wu’s answering smile was only slightly larger than his previous one. “Or herself,” he said.