“Your third choice, Boy,” Wu said, “is to tell me and Durant what really happened. If it was only business, and Ozzie had nothing to do with Mrs. Cariaga’s death, then we can proceed from there.” Wu paused. “You have about ten seconds to decide.”
“How long’ve you and Durant known me, Artie?” Boy Howdy said.
Wu lifted his chin from the fingers that were still wrapped over the head of his cane. He leaned back in the straight chair, stuck out his left leg and thoughtfully tapped his shoe with the cane’s end. “Years, Boy. Too many, really.”
“And we’ve done our fair share of business together — you, Durant, Otherguy and me. And we’ve had our giggles, too, we have.”
“I can’t remember any,” Durant said.
Howdy ignored him. “So a piece of business comes my way. That’s all. A job of work, it was. A certain party needs a frightener. It seems like the Cariaga lady’s been nosing around where she shouldn’t’ve. But the Cariaga lady’s quick enough to know she shouldn’t’ve turned up what she turned up and so she’s leaving town. Going to Spain, they say. Well, the party that needs the frightener wants to make sure the Cariaga lady don’t grass before she gets on the plane. So I rent the party old Ozzie to do nothing — and I swear this — but nervous the Cariaga lady up a bit. And I swear to God it’s just like I said it was from the moment he gets there. She’s already dead. Her and the watchman both. And that’s the sweet Jesus truth.”
“Who hired your frightener, Boy?” Artie Wu asked in a soft voice.
“Why don’t you ask me to cut me own throat, Artie?”
“Either you cut it or I do,” Durant said.
Howdy seemed suddenly bored. He yawned and even stretched. After the stretch his right hand casually drifted down to the back of his neck. He almost had the knife out of the neck sheath when the huge white blur that was Artie Wu smashed the cane against Howdy’s right elbow. He yelled, but by then Durant was around the desk and had the half-drawn knife in his own right hand.
Durant placed the knife point just under the tip of Howdy’s chin, forcing his head up. “Tell it,” Durant said.
Boy Howdy let a small moan escape from between his almost closed lips. “Give us a rest, Durant,” he said.
Durant took the knife point away. Howdy dropped his head, closed his eyes and said, “I’m dead, I am.”
Wu sighed. “Get it over with, Boy.”
“It was that cunt that rented Ozzie, that’s who,” Howdy said, his eyes still closed.
Wu and Durant stared at each other, jumping simultaneously to the same conclusion. “The Espiritu woman, you mean?” Durant said. “Carmen Espiritu.”
Boy Howdy opened his eyes to glare at Durant. “Quit jacking me around, Durant. I don’t know any Carmen whatever the fuck it is.”
“Boy,” Artie Wu said in a soft and patient voice. “Just give us the name.
“It was that killer bitch of yours that rented herself Ozzie,” Howdy said. “Georgia Blue. That’s who.” Despite his pain he smiled at the accidental rhyme and when he noticed Wu’s and Durant’s sudden bleak surprised expressions, his smile grew even broader.
Chapter Twenty
It was 10:33 that night when Georgia Blue arrived by taxi at the Manila Hotel. She slowly entered the vast lobby, sweeping it with practiced eyes as she crossed to the elevators, her right hand down inside the leather bag that hung from her shoulder.
She rode an elevator alone up to the fourth floor. From there she took the stairs to the fifth floor, slipped past the dozing floor porter and hurried down the corridor to suite 542 where she knocked softly. Booth Stallings opened the door a few seconds later.
“I think I’m in a little trouble,” she said in a voice not much louder than a whisper.
Stallings poked his head out and looked up and down the corridor. “Come in,” he said, opening the door wide enough for her to enter. He then closed the door, shot its dead bolt and fastened the chain. Turning, he found Georgia Blue in the center of the suite’s sitting room, her posture awkward, her expression uncertain. Stallings thought she almost looked as if she were missing something, maybe a key part of her body — a foot, or even an arm — until he realized it was her tremendous poise that had vanished. She’s lost it somewhere, he decided. Or somebody took it away from her.
“Sit down,” he said.
For a moment she seemed not to have understood him. Then she smiled, as if it were the kindest invitation ever offered. The smile vanished as she turned to make her choice of where to sit. It was obviously a difficult choice and possibly the most important of her life. Finally, she decided on a green armchair, which she sank into, keeping her right hand deep in the leather shoulder bag.
“Drink?” Stallings said as he moved to the room refrigerator. She shook her head. Stallings took out a can of beer, carried it back to the couch, sat down, popped open the can and said, “What kind of trouble?”
“I need a place to stay tonight,” Georgia Blue said.
“Here, you mean?”
She nodded.
“Wu and Durant are looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“Otherguy, too.”
“Fuck Otherguy.”
Stallings drank some of his beer. “Tell me about it,” he said and leaned back, resting the beer can on the left arm of the couch. He draped his own right arm over the couch’s back, hoping it was the most nonthreatening posture he could assume. It then occurred to him that a smile might help keep her right hand down inside the shoulder bag. So he smiled.
“Why’re they looking for me?” she said.
“They didn’t say and I didn’t think they much wanted me to ask.”
“May I stay here tonight?” she said.
“What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s next year. The future. Tonight’s right now and that’s all I can handle.” She paused and added, almost as an afterthought, “We can do some sex if you’d like.”
“Sounds interesting,” Stallings said and gave her another smile.
“No it doesn’t,” she said, bringing her right hand out of the bag. In it was the Walther semiautomatic. “Is this what’s bothering you?”
He shrugged. “It’s not exactly a turn-on.”
She put the pistol back into the shoulder bag and then placed the bag on the floor beside her chair. “Better?”
“Much.”
Another silence began to build. Stallings let it. The silence collapsed before reaching 30 seconds when Georgia Blue said, “Shit.”
“Go on,” Stallings said.
“It happened between the time we got back from the war memorial and had lunch at the Peninsula. That’s when he called.”
Another silence threatened but Stallings warded it off with: “He being?”
“Harry Crites.”
“Ah.”
“From Washington.”
“I see,” Stallings said. “Must’ve been about midnight yesterday back there, if it was around noon today here. Give or take an hour.”
“We didn’t talk about the time. Or the weather.”
Stallings gave her what he hoped was an encouraging nod. When that failed to produce a response, he said, “What did you talk about?”
“We have a code,” she said. “A kind of silly verbal code. He used it to tell me to call a number exactly ten minutes after he hung up. I was to call for instructions.”
“Local number?”
“A pay phone. It’s always a pay phone.”
“Did you call it?”
“I’m supposed to be working for him, right?”
“Right.”
“So I called it.”
She waited, as if expecting Stallings to prod her along with yet another question. He obliged with, “Who answered?”
“A man.”
“Recognize his voice?”
“He had an accent.”