A silence followed Overby’s recitation. Wu finally lit his cigar and blew three plump smoke rings at the ceiling. When he spoke, it was more to the rising smoke rings than to Overby.
“That’s a very interesting story and I suspect that much of it is even true.”
“Thirty percent anyway,” Durant said. “Maybe forty.”
Overby looked at Durant indifferently. “Just hum me the parts you don’t like.”
Durant turned to Georgia Blue. “Tell him, Georgia.”
She cocked her head to one side, examined Overby with care, gave her head a small shake of wonder and said, “I talked to the Colonel, Otherguy. What you say doesn’t quite check out.”
“When’d you talk to him?” Overby asked.
“Around midnight.”
“Was he sober?”
“Not very.”
Overby shrugged. “The guy’s on the sauce. He puts away maybe a fifth a day. I can’t help it if he can’t remember what he said or who he talked to.”
“You said you rented a car after you talked to him,” Georgia Blue said.
“I said I rented a car.”
“After you talked to him.”
“Not after. That’d be around eight or so. Avis is closed then. I rented it around three-thirty or four.” Overby dug into a pants pocket, came up with the Toyota key and tossed it to Georgia Blue who caught it easily.
She glanced at the key and said, “This doesn’t say much.”
“The rental agreement’s in the glove compartment. The time’s on the agreement. The car’s a gray Toyota. With the key you can go look.” He turned to glare at Durant. “Anything else?”
“You wouldn’t still have that map the Colonel drew, would you?” Durant said.
Overby put his drink down and used both hands to pat all his pockets, frowning the while. When one of the pats reached a hip pocket, the frown went away, replaced by a smile. Out of the hip pocket came a folded square of hotel stationery, which he handed to Durant.
Durant unfolded the sheet of stationery, glanced at it, and passed it to Artie Wu who studied it carefully. “It does seem to be a map of some kind and very nicely drawn too. Maybe we owe Otherguy an apology.”
“We owe him fuck all,” Durant said.
“I apologize for everyone, Otherguy,” Wu said. “Especially Quincy.”
“Forget it,” Overby said.
Wu nodded agreeably. “Now let’s go back to what you saw up in the hills tonight. Was there anything at all to indicate that the particular spot you drove to might be used as a rendezvous by the NPA?”
Overby grimaced at the ceiling, as if trying to remember. “I got out and walked around,” he said. “There were some cigarette butts. In fact, a lot of them. All in one spot.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really.”
“Suppose you drove back up there tomorrow and simply waited,” Wu said. “What do you think might happen?”
“I think the NPA wouldn’t much like it and they’d take me someplace I didn’t want to go.”
“But that would give you a chance to play Weak Link, wouldn’t it?”
Overby shook his head. “They wouldn’t buy it, Artie. Not if I just pop up out of nowhere.”
“Of course not,” Wu said. “But suppose they knew we thieves had fallen out?”
Overby brightened and smiled his hard, merry smile. “Let’s hear it.”
Wu blew a smoke ring first. “Tomorrow morning downstairs at breakfast, you and Georgia will have a knock-down, drag-out argument. I assume the NPA people will hear it — or about it — and report back to Espiritu. So when you show up in the hills, say tomorrow afternoon, you’ll not be altogether unexpected and your credentials, although limited, will have been established.”
“I’d be kind of a defector,” Overby said.
“A double-crosser,” Durant said. “A part you can really lose yourself in.”
Overby ignored him and stared coldly at Wu. “I can also get myself shot, Artie.”
“This is not exactly a risk-free deal, Otherguy.”
“I don’t mind shared risk,” Overby said. “But up till now it looks like Stallings and me’re the only ones sticking our necks out.”
“Georgia’s goes on the block tomorrow,” Wu said. “Mine and Quincy’s shortly thereafter.”
Overby produced his hardest smile. “Tell me about it.”
“Once you’ve ‘gone over,’ let’s call it, the NPA will naturally wonder if you’re a plant. The obvious person for them to question is Georgia. She’ll have to bear up under that questioning.”
“Okay,” Overby said. “That’s her. What about him?” Him was obviously Durant.
Wu sighed. “The reason Quincy and I hired the plane and flew down early is because a mismatched pair from Langley came calling. They know what we’re up to, more or less, and plan to stop us. We — Quincy and I — can’t let that happen.”
Durant smiled at Overby. “Want to trade risks, Otherguy?”
Overby shook his head. “I think it’s about evened out.”
Artie Wu rose from the bed. “Then I think we should all get some sleep unless someone has something else to say.”
No one did. Georgia Blue was the first to leave. Then Overby. Wu and Durant waited silently for two minutes. Durant then went to the door, opened it, looked up and down the corridor, closed the door softly and turned back to Wu. “We’re slicing it awfully thin,” Durant said.
Wu nodded. “And it’s going to get even thinner.”
Otherguy Overby stood at his room’s window 15 minutes later, staring out into the night’s nothingness, when he heard the soft knock at his door. He opened it, showing no surprise when Artie Wu entered quickly, closing the door behind him.
“A pep talk, Artie?” Overby said.
“A small warning. It’s going to be tricky.”
“Too fucking tricky.”
“We’re going to need luck.”
“You never counted on luck before. You don’t even believe in it.”
Wu moved his lips in what may or may not have been a slight smile. “This time’s different, Otherguy. So if you find your luck running out, cut yourself loose.”
“Every man for himself, right?”
Wu’s answering smile was only slightly larger than his previous one. “Or herself,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The shouting match ended the next morning at 8:49 in the Magellan Hotel’s Zugbu restaurant after Otherguy Overby threw half a cup of lukewarm coffee in Georgia Blue’s face and stalked out.
Breakfast was served buffet style in the Zugbu and Overby made sure he had finished his scrambled eggs, rolls and some tasty sausages before he gave Georgia Blue the signal to begin the performance.
It was a vicious although generic kind of domestic scrap with few specifics and much acrimony. Alleged infidelities were recalled. Long-buried grudges were exhumed. Failed joint ventures of a suspect and possibly criminal nature were alluded to, and through it all ran the recurring theme of money and its lack.
The audience, mostly Filipino, Australian and American — plus a contingent of Japanese — found it all fascinating. The Japanese seemed particularly appreciative, despite the absence of subtitles.
After Overby left, Georgie Blue calmly wiped the thrown coffee from her face with a napkin. She lit a cigarette, smoked it for several moments, ground it out and called for the check. She signed it with a hand that trembled only a little, rose and made a slow dignified exit that drew appreciative murmurs from the Japanese.
She used the house phone in the lobby to call Artie Wu. When he answered, she said, “The son of a bitch threw a cup of coffee in my face.”