“Bad?”
“You tell me,” Hubbell said. Papers rustled. Hubbell read three of yesterday’s headlines and started a fourth one.
“Lordy,” Moon said. “Did they go to press like that?”
“Those were the ones I didn’t catch.”
“Let me talk to him.”
“He just left,” Hubbell said.
“Tell the son of a bitch to stay sober until I get back or I won’t just fire him, I’ll whip his butt right there in the office.”
“All right,” Hubbell said.
“What else? Any good news?”
“J.D.’s been asking about his truck,” Hubbell said. “Said he wanted to go to Denver.”
“Tell J.D. it was the fuel injection pump. I fixed it, and all he needs to do is put in new glow plugs. He can put it back together himself. Or ask one of the guys down at the truck stop if he has troubles.”
Hubbell laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “Can you imagine that happening? Getting his hands greasy?”
Moon couldn’t, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He told Hubbell he’d be home as soon as he could. Then he just sat on the bed awhile staring at the telephone, mood somewhere between dismal, disgruntlement, and sleepy stupor. He fell back against the pillow, yawned hugely, and went to sleep.
The phone awoke him. Nine-ten. Who would be calling?
It rang again.
He picked it up and said, “Mathias.”
“Hello. Is this Mr. Mathias?” The voice was hesitant, accented, and feminine.
“Yes. Yes,” Moon said, “this is Mr. Mathias.”
Brief silence. “This is then the room of Moon Mathias? Am I correct?” The voice was small, tone abashed. Moon had a vision of Shirley’s spaniel when Debbie yelled at it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sound-so grouchy. But, yes, this is Moon Mathias talking.”
“I am Mrs. Osa van Winjgaarden. I had written you a letter. I hope I can talk to you.”
“Of course,” Moon said. What was the accent? Probably Dutch, from the sound of the name. “What can I do for you?”
Silence again. Moon waited. “It is too complicated for the telephone,” she said. “I had hoped we could sit down and talk.”
“Probably,” Moon said. “Where are you calling from? And what will we be talking about?”
“I am at the airport. The Manila airport. I called Mr. Castenada, and he told me you were here. He told me he had given you my letter instead of mailing it on to America. And we would be talking about getting my brother out of Cambodia.”
Good God, Moon thought. What next?
“Look,” Moon said. “I don’t know anything about Cambodia. Or getting people out. What makes you think-”
“I thought you would be taking charge of Ricky’s company. And you are getting Ricky’s daughter out,” she said. “From what Mr. Castenada told me, I understand you are doing that.”
Now the silence was on Moon’s end. Was he doing that? He guessed he would if he could. He didn’t have much choice. But, of course, he couldn’t.
“I would if I could.”
“It won’t be much out of your way,” she said. “And I could be of some help.”
“How?” And what did she mean, out of your way? Did that mean she thought she knew where he was going? Did she know where the child might be?
“If you don’t speak the Cambodian version of French, I could be useful there,” she said. “And I speak one or two of the mountain dialects. A little, anyway.”
“Hey,” Moon said, “what did you mean, getting your brother wouldn’t be much out of my way? Where is your brother? What’s the-”
But now Moon was hearing Osa van Winjgaarden saying something to someone away from the telephone mouthpiece. She sounded angry and tired.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t hear you.”
“You’re calling from the airport?” He was thinking, The woman has just got in from Timor, wherever the hell that is, and probably on some little prop-driven airline. She sounded exhausted.
“Yes. A coin telephone box here by the doorway. I am trying to hold a taxi. I’m-”
“Look,” Moon said. “You go ahead. Check into your hotel. The Del Mar, isn’t it? Take a shower. Get some rest. Then call me, and we’ll get together tomorrow morning. Maybe you could come over here and have breakfast and we’ll talk.”
“Oh, yes!” she said. “Thank you!”
He paused. “But I think you are wasting your time. There’s nothing I can do for anybody in Cambodia.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Mathias,” she said. “I don’t think so. Ricky told me about you.”
Special to the New York Times
WASHINGTON, April 16-Secretary of State Kissinger said today that the United States Embassy in Saigon had been ordered to reduce the number of Americans remaining in South Vietnam to “a minimum level needed for essential duties.”
Evening The Fifth Day
MOON WALKED DOWN THE dark streets, emerged into the lights of Quezon Boulevard and the busy noise of traffic, and stopped to get his bearings. He loved to walk. It restored the spirit, cured him of whatever ailed him. But tonight it wasn’t working.
This new task was one he could do absolutely nothing about until tomorrow. Only tomorrow would bring the information he had to have before he could decide what to do. Thus there should be no pressure until then. But the pressure was there. He’d watched the evening news on the TV in his room. Mostly Philippine stuff, but enough videotape of refugees flooding into Saigon to remind him that time was running out. So he went through it all again.
Tomorrow he would meet the woman from Timor. He’d asked the hotel desk clerk the location of that island. The clerk had revealed ignorance even deeper than Moon’s.
“It is somewhere way down on the south coast of Leyte,” the man had said, after thinking about it a moment. “Dirty little port town, I think. Nothing much to see there.” He had wrinkled his nose, made a motion of dismissal. “Smells bad. You don’t want to go to Timor.”
The woman with the Dutch name and the Dutch accent could clear up the geography question for him at breakfast. Beyond that, she’d either tell him something useful or she wouldn’t. If she didn’t, he would begin hunting Ricky’s friends. Perhaps they would justify the optimism of Castenada. Until then there was nothing to do except walk. Carefree hours in a place new to him and exotic. He should be luxuriating in that. Why wasn’t he?
He was nervous, that was why. He was nervous about Mr. Lum Lee for one thing. It was a rare feeling for. Moon, and he tried to deduce the reason. Perhaps it was the Chinese-looking man in the lobby who seemed to be watching him. More likely the man had seemed to be watching him only because Moon was already nervous. He was an Oriental wearing a blue turtleneck shirt. Chinese, Moon guessed, but that was probably because Chinese had been his generic label for all Orientals who were not clearly Japanese. And why had Mr. Lum Lee followed him to Manila? He’d called the number Lum Lee had left for him. No one had answered.
“Who’s the man sitting over there by the fountain?” he’d asked the clerk. “Wearing the blue shirt? Is he one of the guests?” And the clerk had looked, shook his head, and said, “Maybe. I think not so.” And then when Moon had walked away from the hotel, past the line of waiting taxis, he’d seen Blue Turtleneck standing in the doorway looking after him. Or possibly just looking at the weather.
The weather was mild, dead calm, more humid than he’d ever experienced. Prestorm weather, he thought. Certainly far different from the high dryness of the Colorado Plateau. The surface of Manila Bay reflected city lights, the lights of traffic along Quezon Boulevard. Moon walked briskly, at the three-miles-in-fifty-minutes pace the U.S. Army had taught him, past dark warehouses and the twinkling mast lights of a thousand boats docked in the Manila yacht basin. He smelled fish, oil, flowers, salty ocean air, decayed fruit, a strange animal aroma. The perfume of the tropics, he guessed. Strange, exciting country. He should have been enjoying it.