“No, ma’am.”
With a small gesture that took in the palace, Agnes Wu said, “Well?”
Rodolfo Caday frowned, then shrugged. “Much foolishness.”
In the bedroom of Imelda Marcos one of the volunteer Filipina docents was commenting in a not quite bored voice on several of the room’s more interesting items, particularly the huge red satin bed. Some ten thousand Filipinos were trooping through the palace each day and the handful now in the bedroom made no effort to disguise their voyeurism. Some of the men nudged each other. Some of the women giggled. Others kept handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths as if to strain out any of the remaining bad-luck germs that had infected Imelda Marcos.
Artie Wu’s younger daughter looked up at him. “How come they bought so much — well, muchness?”
“It may have been a way to keep score.”
“You mean the lady with the most shoes wins?”
“Maybe.”
“But she didn’t.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” Artie Wu said.
Standing in the center of the bedlam that was the Manila International Airport, Wu peeled off 50-peso notes and handed them to sons and daughters, porters and self-proclaimed expediters, and to the driver, Rodolfo Caday, dispatching them all on real and imagined errands that would give Wu a few minutes alone with his wife.
Almost everyone liked to stare at Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Case Wu. They especially liked to gape at the tall woman with the pale yellow hair, the big smart gray eyes, and the not quite perfect features that seemed almost regal until she grinned. When she grinned she looked just a bit wacky.
The gapers also liked to dart quick and, they hoped, undetected glances at the big Chinese in his white silk suit and Panama hat who carried an ebony cane — a walking stick, really — that they all knew concealed a sword, although it didn’t. Agnes Wu always referred to the white silk suit as the “get out of here and get me some money suit” because Wu almost never put it on unless they were broke or nearly so.
Agnes Wu ran a hand down the suit’s immaculate lapel, smoothing out an imaginary wrinkle. “So riddle me this,” she said. “When you get up to Baguio, what if you and Durant still can’t find the Cousin?”
“We’ll find him,” Artie Wu said.
“You’re going to have to face it sooner or later, Artie. The Cousin took you and Durant.”
Wu nodded. “That’s why we have to find him. After all, Quincy and I have our reputations to think of.” Then he smiled — the great white Wu smile behind which laughter bubbled, threatening to erupt. The smile told Agnes Wu she could disregard everything her husband had just said.
She grinned back at him, again making herself look just a few charming bubbles off level. “So when you don’t find the Cousin and your reputations are in shreds, then what?”
“Then we come back down here and take the next plane to London and the fast train up to Edinburgh. Durant likes trains.”
“Bring money, Artie.”
“Don’t I always?”
“Bring bagsful this time.”
“Bagsful,” he promised.
“Take care of yourself.”
He nodded.
“And look after Durant.”
“Or vice versa,” Artie Wu said.
The Peninsula Hotel in the Makati section of Manila was owned and operated by the same organization that operated the Hong Kong Peninsula. About the only difference Artie Wu could detect was that the Hong Kong Peninsula sent a Rolls-Royce to pick you up at the airport whereas the Manila Peninsula made do with a Mercedes.
As Wu entered the many-sided lobby he saw that most of its tables were filled as usual by well-dressed Manileños who had gathered to gossip and drink coffee or maybe something with ice in it. And, as usual, many of them stared at him when, swinging his cane, he strode across the lobby toward the concierge. Wu looked left once and right once, checking to see if there were any faces out of his past.
The only familiar one belonged to the Graf von Lahusen whose ancestral estates lay unfortunately on the wrong side of the Elbe. The 37-year-old count had dropped out of the Sorbonne at 19 to take the hippie trail to Southeast Asia where he soon discovered that his title, looks and four languages could earn him a decent if questionable living.
Wu was remembering the time the count and Otherguy Overby had run the ancient Omaha Banker wheeze, Overby playing the role of the remorse-stricken banker to perfection, when the Graf von Lahusen looked up, saw Wu, rose and bowed gravely. Artie Wu stopped and bowed gravely back. The count’s mark, a middle-aged Japanese, twisted around in his chair to see who was doing all the bowing and scraping. He seemed visibly impressed by the Chinese gentleman in the splendid white silk suit and Panama hat who carried what obviously was a sword cane.
Wu continued to the concierge’s desk, pleased to see that Mr. Welcome-Welcome was on duty. The assistant concierge’s name was really Bernard Naldo but Wu always thought of him as Mr. Welcome-Welcome because that’s what he always said to Wu, even when they had seen each other only minutes before.
“Welcome, welcome, Mr. Wu,” the assistant concierge said as Wu reached the counter and leaned on it, noting that Naldo still looked like a genial brown frog, all dressed up in a black coat, white shirt and striped pants, who would turn back into a prince once he had answered the millionth tourist’s millionth dumb question.
“Got my bill ready, Bernie?” Wu said.
Naldo reached beneath the counter and came up with a thick sheaf of computer-printed billings. “As requested,” he said. “The total is, let’s see, sixty thousand two hundred and nineteen pesos.”
“Settle for three thousand U.S., cash money?”
“Of course.”
Wu took out a fat roll of $100 bills and started counting them onto the counter.
“Wife and kiddies get off safely?” Naldo asked.
Wu nodded and kept on counting.
“You had a visitor.”
Wu stopped counting and glanced up. “Who?”
Naldo sniffed his disapproval. “Boy Howdy. He was looking for either you or Durant.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“That you were out sight-seeing and that Durant was touring somewhere down south. Mindanao, I told him, around Zamboanga.”
“He believe you?”
“No.”
“When he comes back tell him I checked out and Durant’s down on Negros, dickering for a sugar plantation.”
“He won’t believe that either.”
“I don’t want him to believe it; I just want him to feel unwanted.”
Naldo sniffed again. “Terrible man. But I suppose he really can’t help it, being Australian.”
“Three thousand,” said Wu, sliding the money toward Naldo who picked it up and counted it with amazing speed. “Three thousand two hundred,” he said.
“I know.”
“Oh,” Naldo said, pocketing two of the $100 bills. “How can I be of service?”
“I need one of the hotel Mercedes for a few days.”
“Of course. Would you like Roddy to drive again?”
“No driver.”
Naldo was instantly dismayed. “You want to drive yourself? The hotel can’t be responsible.”
“It’s my kind of traffic, Bernie. I’m like a fish back in water.”
“No, I’m sorry, but we can’t permit it.”
“Bernie, let me ask you something. How much money have Durant and I spent with you guys the last three or four months?”
“You’re both highly valued guests, but—”
“I want the car outside at seven tomorrow morning, all gassed up and ready to go.”
Naldo sighed. “Do you mind if it’s our oldest Mercedes?”
“As long as it has wheels.”
“And your suite?”
“Run a tab on it.”