Out on the Rim

Chapter Thirty-seven

It was 10:29 that morning and already sweltering hot when Artie Wu ran out of road. He had driven the rented Avis van as close as possible to point B on Booth Stallings’ map, but the point still remained some four kilometers away. The mountain road Wu had followed out of Cebu City had disintegrated into a rutted trail two kilometers back. He stopped the van when the trail suddenly narrowed into a trace just wide enough for two small goats or one fairly large human.

He turned to Georgia Blue who sat beside him, studying the crude map. “This it?” Wu asked.

She nodded. “This is it.”

Without turning his head, Wu spoke to Durant who sat on the floor in the van’s seatless rear. “What d’you think, Quincy?”

“I think we should eat.”

“I think you’re right,” Wu said.

After they finished the box lunches provided by the Magellan Hotel, Artie Wu reached into the cardboard carton Durant had loaded into the van that morning and removed a three-inch stack of Filipino 50-peso notes that was bound with a rubber band. He also took out a 35mm Minolta camera.

“Here,” Wu said, handing the camera to Georgia Blue who gave it a brief inspection before placing it in her shoulder bag.

Wu divided the stack of 50-peso notes into guessed-at halves, giving one half to Durant who folded the currency and stuck it down into a hip pocket where it created a noticeable bulge. Wu slipped his own unfolded half into his right pants pocket.

“Okay,” Artie Wu said, “we’ll take it slow and easy and try not to hurt anybody.”

“These guys are pros, Artie,” Georgia Blue said.

“Then we’ll try not to kill anybody.” He looked at Durant. “You going to flank from right or left?”

“From the right, I think,” Durant said, moved ten feet off the trace and began inspecting what seemed to be an impenetrable barrier of green and black tropical rain forest. Georgia Blue used two seconds to give the contents of her shoulder bag a final check. When she looked up, Durant had disappeared.

“Still the show-off, I see,” she said to Artie Wu.

Wu smiled. “Why hide hidden talent?” He nodded at the trace that led into the rain forest. “Point or drag?”

“You giving me a choice?”

Wu nodded.

“Then I’ll take drag.”

Wu took out and inspected the five-shot revolver provided by Vaughn Crouch, shoved it back down into his right hip pocket, hitched his pants up over his big belly and strolled off down the trace, as if beginning his regular morning constitutional.

Georgia Blue slipped her right hand down into her shoulder bag and waited until Wu was 20 feet away. She followed after him then, walking with an athletic stride so smooth and effortless that her heels seemed to make almost no contact with the ground.

They walked like that for 21 minutes, Artie Wu in the lead, Georgia Blue 20 feet or so behind him, both moving at an unhurried but steady 105 paces a minute, both listening in vain for Durant on their right flank, but hearing only the fuck-you geckos and the scolding of angry birds.

Wu was wondering for the third or fourth time how such deep cool-looking shade could produce such insufferable heat when he heard the man’s voice shout the order.

“Freeze, Wu!”

Wu stopped but didn’t freeze. Instead, he raised his hands and turned slowly around. Ten feet away Weaver P. Jordan was in what Artie Wu always thought of as the TV Crouch: wide stance, knees bent, both hands holding the weapon — in this case a revolver with a three- or four-inch barrel.

“Morning,” Wu said just as Georgia Blue slipped out of the tropical rain forest and struck Jordan from the rear with a left-handed chopping blow that immobilized his left arm. Despite the pain, Jordan tried to swing his right arm around and bring the revolver into play. It seemed to be exactly what Georgia Blue expected. She grabbed his right wrist and brought it down and then up behind him, giving it a twist that dislocated the elbow. Jordan went to his knees, dropping the revolver. Georgia Blue kicked it away and then stamped on his left hand which he was using for support. Jordan collapsed, howling.

Just as the howl died away, Wu heard something metallic off to his right that sounded like the slide being pulled back on some kind of automatic weapon. With his hands still raised, Wu turned left just in time to see Durant use a stick to knock a machine pistol out of the hands of a man who wore what appeared to be designer jungle fatigues. The man wearing the camouflage fatigues was the elegant Jack Cray.

Although disarmed, Jack Cray was undismayed. He dropped into a slight crouch, both hands extended and weaving around in some kind of martial arts stance that apparently puzzled Durant who dropped his stick and backed up. With an odd wordless cry, Jack Cray leaped at Durant, trying for a knuckled jab to the throat. Durant slipped it easily and gave Cray a hard open-palm slap to the right ear.

“Fuckhead,” Cray said, abandoning his martial arts stance to put a soothing palm to the boxed ear.

“I’ll look after Mr. Cray, Quincy,” Artie Wu said with a solicitous smile. “You go tend to Mr. Jordan.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Durant asked.

“Georgia dislocated his elbow,” Wu said. “At least, I hope that’s all she did.”

Weaver P. Jordan looked up at Durant and said, “Will it hurt?”

“For a second.”

“Then fix it.”

With Wu, Georgia Blue and Cray looking on, Durant placed both hands on Jordan’s right arm — one on the bicep, the other on the forearm. “Look away, if you want to,” he told Jordan.

Jordan looked away just as Durant pulled so quickly his audience wasn’t even sure it heard the soft pop as the elbow was snapped back into place. Jordan howled again.

When he was through howling he glared at Jack Cray and said, “Trust her, you said. She’s practically one of us, you said.”

“I was obviously wrong,” Cray said and turned to Wu. “So where does all this leave us?”

“At a point of mutual distrust,” Wu said with a beaming smile.

Weaver Jordan got to his feet, glaring now at Georgia Blue. “You worked us pretty slick, Georgia.”

“Assholes are always easy,” she said.

“Everything is not lost, gentlemen,” Wu said, turning to Durant. “Wouldn’t you agree, Quincy?”

“Plenty of glory to go around.”

Jack Cray raised an elegant eyebrow. “What form does this glory take?”

“Human form,” Durant said. “Alejandro Espiritu.”

The raised eyebrow dropped back into place as Cray narrowed his eyes, giving his face an almost crafty look. The expression made Durant reflect that the only thing worse than being half-dumb was being half-smart.

“You want to sell us Espiritu?” Cray said.

Artie Wu looked almost hurt. “Sell him? Good Lord, no. He’s a gift — from all of us to all of you.”

“A gift?” Jordan said. “For free, you mean?”

“If it’s not for free, Weaver,” said Durant, “it’s not a gift.”

Jordan worried over Durant’s clarification as if it were a particularly abstruse concept. “I guess I don’t hang out enough with swifties like you.”

“Just why,” Jack Cray asked, “are you giving us Espiritu if, in fact, you are?”

“Bullshit aside?” Wu said.

Cray nodded.

“Because we’d like to spend our money without the Federales peering over our shoulders.”

Jack Cray nodded approvingly. “At last, a half-sensible answer.”

Which is all, Durant thought, a half-smart question deserves.