“Mr. Boy Howdy,” she said, pronouncing the name with exaggerated care. “Room three-nineteen. The Cebu Plaza. Mr. Boy... Howdy.”
The driver nodded dubiously and drove off, silently mouthing Boy Howdy to himself. Georgia Blue went back into the Magellan, stopping at the front desk to ask if either Mr. Wu or Mr. Durant was back. After being told that they weren’t she took an elevator up to the fourth floor.
She saw the slim young man in the white shirt, blue tie and dark gray pants as soon as she entered her room. He had plastered himself to the wall next to the door. She automatically feinted a left-handed stab, her right hand darting down inside her shoulder bag for the Walther. When the slim young man ducked to his right as expected, she caught him with a kick to the stomach that doubled him over.
It was then that the huge left arm clamped itself around her neck from behind. The bathroom, she thought. This one was in the bathroom.
A hand that felt like a vise caught her right hand down inside the shoulder bag and immobilized it. She smelled the cloves on his breath although he seemed to be breathing effortlessly. She decided he was immensely strong but not all that good, and that she’d better relax before he snapped her neck out of either incompetence or pique.
She made herself relax and go almost limp. The man in the white shirt straightened slowly, pressing both hands to his stomach. He looked not at her, but at something that seemed to be a few inches above her head and to the right. “Take the bag,” the man in the white shirt said.
The enormous left arm stayed clamped around her neck but the other hand released her right wrist and removed the shoulder bag.
“On the bed,” said the slim young man who had drunk juice with Otherguy Overby earlier that morning.
The shoulder bag landed on the nearer of the twin beds. The slim young man crossed slowly to the bag, picked it up and dumped out its contents. He examined the Walther, made sure it was loaded, and sat down on the bed, aiming the pistol at Georgia Blue with his right hand, pressing his stomach with the left.
“Let her go,” he said.
The arm was removed. Georgia Blue massaged her throat. “May I sit down?” she asked.
The man on the bed nodded. She went to the room’s one good chair, turned, sat down and had her first look at the man who had choked her. He wasn’t as tall as she had expected — not much more than six feet. But he had immense arms and a massive chest that strained his white short-sleeved shirt. He also had a large head and a curiously placid face with a sweet mouth and dark brown eyes that, for some reason, looked gullible and even trusting.
Georgia Blue turned to the man with the Walther and asked what she thought he expected her to ask. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Tell us about Overby.”
“He’s a rotten son of a bitch. Anything else?”
“You’re lovers?”
“No. Not now.”
“Yet you fought with him at breakfast. Why?”
“Money.”
“He wouldn’t give you any?”
“Just the opposite.”
“He wanted money from you?”
She nodded.
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand U.S. dollars.”
“A loan?” asked the sweet-mouthed big man as he moved over to the bed and began poking at the shoulder bag’s dumped-out contents with a thick forefinger.
“You don’t lend Overby money,” Georgia Blue said. “You just kiss it goodbye.”
“Why did he want the money?” he asked in a soft and coaxing tone that surprised and bothered Georgia Blue.
“I didn’t ask,” she said.
“Could you have lent him that much money?” he asked almost idly as he picked up her billfold and started going through its compartments.
“No.”
“Then why did he even ask?” the big man said, discarding the billfold and picking up a plain white envelope.
“He thought I could raise it,” she said, watching him rip open the envelope.
The big man obviously forgot about Georgia Blue during the seconds it took to read Booth Stallings’ letter and examine the crude map. The placidity vanished from his face. The sweet mouth turned sour. A scowl plowed up his forehead. Glaring at Georgia Blue, he handed the map and letter to the slim young man with the gun.
When the slim young man was finished with the map and letter, he looked stricken. “Tricked,” he whispered. “We are being tricked.”
The big man reached Georgia Blue in two long strides. “Who gave you these — these things?” he demanded, all coaxing gone from his voice.
“It was slipped under the door,” she said. “I didn’t even open it. I thought it was an advertisement or something.”
“Let’s kill her,” said the slim young man, now using both hands to aim the Walther at Georgia Blue.
“He wants to kill you,” the big man said, his tone reasonable. “If you stop lying, he might not.”
“I don’t know what it is or where it came from,” she said, repeating the lies in a monotone the service had trained her to use. “It was slipped under the door. I didn’t open it. I don’t know what’s in it.”
The dull flat lies succeeded only in removing the last trace of gullibility from the big man’s eyes.
“WHY?” he bellowed, caught up in a sudden rage that threatened to consume him. “Why do you foreign people do these bad things to us?”
Georgia Blue started to ask, “What things?” but there wasn’t time because his locked-together hands came smashing down at her like a hammer. She tried to slip the blow but the huge hands slammed into her head, just missing the temple.
There was the imagined taste of something in her mouth, something from her childhood that she couldn’t identify. But it lasted only the instant before oblivion came and she could no longer taste anything, not even the copper in her collection of old Indian head pennies.
Chapter Thirty
She lay on the floor by the room’s one good chair in that discarded rag doll position that only the dead seem able to manage. Artie Wu thought she certainly looked dead. Antonio Imperial, whose passkey had unlocked the door to room 426, was convinced of it. Only Quincy Durant had any doubt as he quickly crossed the room to kneel beside Georgia Blue.
His hands seemed to know exactly where to go and what to do. He felt first for the big artery in her neck. He then peeled back an eyelid. Next he opened her blouse and put his left ear to her chest. Then he sat back on his heels and studied her for a moment before looking up at Imperial.
“She’s alive, but you’d better get a doctor.”
“Shouldn’t she go to hospital?” the hotel manager said.
“That’s up to the doctor. But if you don’t get her one, she could die on you.”
“I’ll get one,” Imperial said and hurried out.
After the door closed, Durant said, “Let’s put her on the bed.”
Wu frowned. “Should she be moved?”
“You want to talk to her?”
Wu nodded his reply and helped Durant lift her gently onto the nearer twin bed.
“Get a cold wet washcloth or towel,” Durant said.
While Wu was in the bathroom, Durant examined the ugly swelling just above Georgia Blue’s left ear. After Wu returned with a wet towel, Durant’s practiced hands applied it to the swollen area. Georgia Blue’s eyes flickered, opened, closed and opened again. She made a retching noise far down in her throat.
“Get a bucket,” Durant snapped.
Georgia Blue threw up into the metal wastebasket Artie Wu held for her. After lying back down and closing her eyes, she asked Durant, “How bad?”
“You’ll live, but you’ll have one hell of a headache.”