Out on the Rim

Chapter Thirty

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.

“He... he 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... I think,” Georgia Blue said haltingly, “that it went something like, ‘I’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, ‘Have 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’s—”

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 neither — that 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... 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.