The nun shook her head with regret. “I’m afraid I really must insist.”
“No, thanks.”
“Oh, dear,” she said and reached into the shoulder bag, as if for a handkerchief, fumbled briefly and produced a medium-size semiautomatic pistol. She pointed it at Stallings with what he took to be practiced ease. He also noticed it was at least a .38-caliber and that her hand didn’t shake.
“What’s that supposed to do?” he asked.
“Make you come with me.”
“Guns give people funny notions,” he said, trying to make his tone as musing as possible. “If you shoot me, old Al’s going to be out a lot of money. Therefore, you won’t shoot me. Therefore, I won’t come with you.” He smiled. “You’re not really a nun, are you, Sister?”
Instead of replying, the woman quickly backed up two steps and dropped into a pistol shooter’s stance. It was a crouching wide-legged stance that employed a two-handed grip on the semiautomatic. Stallings’ first impression was that the stance made her look both silly and faintly erotic, until he realized she actually might shoot and even kill him.
He tried to think of something conciliatory to say, something soothing and full of sweet reason. But before it came to him, a voice snapped out a one-word command: “Don’t!”
Stallings was between two walls of gold names. The nun with the pistol had backed two steps into the corridor. The voice came from her right flank and there had been absolute authority in its crackling tone. Stallings recognized the voice. The nun glanced quickly in its direction. What she saw made her flinch and slowly lower the pistol until it pointed at the marble floor.
“Kneel,” the same voice ordered.
The nun knelt.
“Put it down.”
The nun gently placed the pistol on the floor.
“On your stomach, hands behind your head.”
It was an awkward position but the nun managed it with a certain amount of decorum. Georgia Blue appeared in the corridor, the Walther in her right hand. She squatted to pick up the nun’s weapon, rose and glanced at Stallings. “How’s it feel to be at death’s front door?”
“Rotten.”
Quincy Durant appeared in the corridor and stood just to the right of Georgia Blue, staring down at the nun. “You can put your hands down,” Durant told her.
The nun removed them from her head and placed them palms-down on the floor. Durant knelt and removed her sunglasses. Her head twisted to the right and her shining brown eyes stared up at him.
“You get around,” Durant said.
“You know her?” Georgia Blue asked.
“We met on the way down from Baguio where she and four other guys had the kilometer sixteen roadblock concession.”
“You’re Durant,” Stallings said.
The still kneeling Durant looked up at Stallings and nodded. “And you’re Booth Stallings.”
“Who’s she?” Georgia Blue said.
Durant looked back down at the nun who had turned her head away from him. “Let’s ask her,” Durant said. “You want to give us a name?”
The prone woman said nothing. Durant picked up her large purse and looked through it, itemizing its contents aloud. “Five hundred pesos, an extra clip, a sanitary napkin, some aspirin and no ID.”
“She knows Espiritu,” Stallings said.
Durant gave him a skeptical look. “Knows him or claims to?”
Stallings took the handwritten letter from his pocket and handed it to Durant. After reading it quickly, Durant passed it up to Georgia Blue who also read it.
“Who’s Hovey Profette?” Durant asked as he rose.
Stallings pointed to Profette’s gold name. Durant looked at it and then back at Stallings. “He was somehow hooked up with you and Espiritu during the war, right?”
Stallings nodded. “She said she wanted to take me to him. Down in Cebu. When I said no thanks, she pulled the gun.”
“Funny,” Georgia Blue said to Durant. “I mean it’s funny how you and she have already met.”
“She also met Artie,” Durant said. “Which makes it hilarious.” He looked at Stallings. “Otherguy claims you’re sole source on this deal.”
“So I’m told.”
“Then why’d she want to kill you?”
“Let’s ask her,” Stallings said.
“She won’t give us a straight answer,” Georgia Blue said.
“Well, what do we do?” Stallings asked, almost beginning to enjoy the improvisation. “Get rid of her?”
There was a silence until Durant said, “If she really is tied to Espiritu, that would send him a message. If she’s not...” He shrugged.
The woman on the floor turned her head and looked up at Durant. “You won’t kill me.”
Durant nodded. “I won’t but she will.” His eyes indicated Georgia Blue.
The woman on the floor sat up quickly. “My name is Carmen Espiritu and I’d like a cigarette, please.”
Stallings looked at Durant. “You smoke?”
“I quit.”
“Georgia?” Stallings asked.
She shook her head. Stallings squatted beside Carmen Espiritu, his knees up in his armpits, his hands dangling, his rear hanging down between his ankles, an interested look on his face. “Nobody smokes,” he said.
The woman said nothing.
“You Al’s daughter?”
“Granddaughter.”
“Why were you going to shoot me, Carmen?”
“I wasn’t.”
“Sure looked like it.”
“We don’t approve of the people you’ve hired and I was trying to convince you to come to Cebu alone.”
“What’s wrong with them — the people I hired?”
“Everything,” Carmen Espiritu said. “You were observed from the time you met Harry Crites in Washington until you arrived in Manila.”
“You mean followed?”
“Observed. Watched.”
“By Al’s folks?”
“In Los Angeles,” she said, “our people talked to that Blondin girl, the drug addict, and paid her to tell us about Overby. That led us to him,” she said, looking at Durant, “and also to the big Chinese.” Her lip curled slightly. “We already had files on them, but we decided to test their competence.” This time she looked at Georgia Blue. “What we saw on the Baguio road was not impressive.”
Durant smiled.
“So you really weren’t going to shoot me?” Stallings said.
“No,” she said. “Of course not.”
“Just wanted to scare me into dumping my associates, huh?”
“Associates,” she said, looking at Georgia Blue. “A cashiered Secret Service agent.” She turned to Durant. “A sociopath adventurer whose Chinese partner suffers from infantile delusions.” She turned back to Stallings. “And then, of course, there’s Overby, the hooligan. They made my grandfather uneasy. Suspicious. So we were instructed to make you come alone.”
Stallings nodded as if it all made perfect sense. He looked up at Durant. “I’ll have to send old Al a message, I guess.”
“She’s already got the message,” Georgia Blue said.
Stallings looked dubious. “Maybe. How’s your memory, Carmen?”
“Quite adequate.”
“I want you to give your granddaddy a personal message from me. You tell Al if he tries to fuck me over again, he’ll never see a dime. Got that?”
“If he tries to fuck you over again, he’ll never see a dime.”
Stallings rose slowly.
“May I leave now?” Carmen Espiritu said.
“Sure,” said Stallings.
Durant took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it and handed it down to her. “I lied about not smoking,” he said.
“How childish,” she said and drew the smoke deep into her lungs.
Chapter Sixteen
As they walked back to his still waiting taxi, Stallings said, “She lied about being Espiritu’s granddaughter.”