“That little mama done been raped once or twice already, I bet,” Norris said as they entered the elevator, Egidio punched the 6 button and nodded, not speaking. Many times he didn’t bother to reply to Norris, who usually had some totally unfounded observation to make about almost everything. Sometimes, Egidio thought, the nigger just talks too much.
On the sixth floor they walked down the uncarpeted hall until they reached number 611. It was toward the front of the building, near the beach. Egidio knocked.
A man’s voice called, “What?”
“It’s us,” Egidio said, “me and Icky.” He raised his voice to make it go through the door.
The door opened and Eddie McBride stood there, dressed only in white boxer shorts. He looked at both men and then frowned.
“Saturday, you said.” McBride frowned some more. “Saturday, noon.”
“Saturday, Friday, it don’t make no difference now,” Norris said. “Shit man, you in clover.”
“The deal still on?” McBride said.
“Sure it’s on,” Egidio said, “We just came by because Solly wants to see you.”
McBride stepped back, and Norris and Egidio entered the room. It was a typical cheap hotel room, but far neater than most. The bed was almost primly made; the chair in front of the small, scarred writing desk was exactly in place; a comb and brush were precisely centered on the dresser Eddy McBride felt better when things were neat. The Corps had taught him that, and he had learned that when the Corps teaches you something it dies hard.
“Why’s he wanta see me tonight?” McBride said. “Why not tomorrow?”
“He’s going outa town tomorrow,” Egidio said. “Up to Big Bear for the weekend. We got his brother-in-law’s camper outside. We’ll run it over to Solly’s place, you can talk to him, and then we’ll bring you back in his car.”
McBride thought about it. He didn’t much like the way it sounded, but when he thought it over it sort of made sense, especially if Solly was going out of town. At least they couldn’t stiff him out of any money. Solly’s first offer for the map had been the $5,000 that McBride owed him. That was already gone, of course — long spent. McBride had then held out for the interest that he owed, and after some bickering over the phone, with Egidio serving as intermediary, Solly had agreed to cancel that too. That had bothered McBride a little. Solly had given in too easily.
“Well,” McBride said, still hesitating, “I guess I better get dressed.”
He pulled on a pair of white duck pants and was slipping a dark blue T-shirt over his head when Egidio took a small piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it.
“Those two names you gave me over the phone this afternoon,” he said.
“What about ’em?”
“I don’t know if I got ’em spelled right.”
“Durant,” McBride said and then spelled it. “Quincy.” He spelled that too.
“And the Chinaman’s?”
“W-u.”
“Shit, I spelled it W-o-o.” Egidio borrowed a ball-point pen from Norris and corrected his spelling. “And you said his first name’s Artie?”
“Yeah.”
“Real name’s Arthur probably, huh?”
“Arthur Case,” McBride said as he pulled on a pair of socks and slipped his feet into carefully burnished loafers.
“Funny fuckin’ name for a Chinaman,” Icky Norris said. “Arthur Case Wu. He half Chinese or what?”
“He’s all Chinese, but I don’t think he talks any. At least, I never heard him talk any.”
“Well, you ready to go?” Egidio said.
McBride patted his pockets to make sure he had everything.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Got the map?”
McBride reached behind the mirror on the dresser and withdrew a No. 10 envelope that had been Scotch Taped to the mirror’s rear.
“That ain’t too slick a hidin’ place,” Norris said.
“Yeah, well, my wall safe’s busted.”
Egidio held out his hand for the envelope containing the map that had the X where $2 million had been hidden somewhere in the U.S. Embassy complex in Saigon.
McBride stared at him. “I think I’ll give it to Solly,” he said. He pulled up his shirt, stuck the envelope halfway down his shorts, and then used the still sticky Scotch Tape to fasten it to his lean, flat stomach. Once the envelope was in place McBride pulled his shirt back down, but not before Egidio noticed that McBride still wore his Marine Corps belt with the big, heavy buckle.
Egidio shrugged. “Okay by me,” he said.
McBride led the way out of the room. Icky Norris was the last to leave. He paused and examined the room with his eyes as though to make sure that nothing incriminating had been left behind. Then he closed the self-locking door and grinned at McBride. “You got a real nice little place here.”
“It stinks,” McBride said.
“Well, least you keep it nice.”
They took the elevator down to the empty lobby and then walked along the side of the Seashore Hotel until they reached the parking lot. The camper was still the lot’s only customer, although its superintendent was now atop his derelict Ford, seated cross-legged, the spikes of his hairy crown waving gently in the sea breeze as he stared raptly out over the ocean south and west toward Bora Bora.
“Shit, he’s out of it, ain’t he?” Icky Norris said.
“He always is,” McBride said.
Norris unlocked the Winnebago and waited for McBride to climb in first. Then Norris got in and slipped behind the wheel, followed by Egidio. McBride, now halfway to the rear of the camper, stood looking around.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever been in one of these things,” he said. “They’re sorta neat, aren’t they?”
“If I was your age and single, this is sure what I’d have,” Icky Norris said as he headed out of the parking lot. “I’d live in it. Got plenty of room for one. Got plenty even for two.”
“Mind if I sort of look around?” McBride said.
“Help yourself,” Egidio said.
McBride inspected the three-burner stove and opened the small refrigerator, which seemed to be fully stocked. He then opened the cabinet doors and read the labels of some canned goods, took a look at the head, turned the taps in the sink on and off, and even looked underneath it where somebody kept the Spic and Span, the 409, the Clorox, the Windex, the Dove, and a glass bottle of blue ammonia and another one of white gasoline.
“Jesus,” he said, his tone full of admiration, “you wouldn’t need anything but this. It’s kind of like a boat.”
“Don’t cost as much as a boat, though,” Norris said. He had stopped the Winnebago at a red light and was waiting to turn left on to Lincoln Boulevard, which he would stay on until he reached Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica.
“How much they cost?” McBride said.
“You almost bought one, didn’t you, Tony?” Norris said.
“Yeah, I was thinking about it,” Egidio said. “You can get a new one, maybe not quite as big as this, for fifteen, twenty thousand. Get a used one, though, a lot cheaper’n that.”
“What kind of mileage they get?” McBride said.
“Terrible,” Norris said. “Four, five, sometimes not even that much.”
McBride had sat down on one of the upholstered benches that could be made into a bed. He reached over and turned one of the taps in the sink on and off again as though fascinated by the fact that it worked.
Egidio turned his swivel seat around so that he could face him. “Hows your thumb?”
McBride glanced down at his left hand. The bandage was becoming soiled. “It’s okay.”
“It wasn’t nothing personal, you understand?” Egidio said.
“Sure.”
“Just business.”
“Sure.”