“I saw a guy do that in a picture once,” Wu said.
“We employ all the latest techniques,” Jordan said, shading away. “Invisible ink. Poison toothpaste. Real state-of-the-art shit.”
He kept on shading the stationery with his pencil for another three or four seconds before he said, “Well, now, by God.” He put the pencil down and bent over the sheet. “Listen to this, Jack, will you: ‘Am bringing A. Espiritu out—’”
Jack Cray cut him off with a sharp, “Goddamnit, Jordan!” He then turned to Wu and said, “You want to stay around for the cops?”
“Not particularly.”
Cray smiled his coldest smile. “Then we’ll tell them you weren’t here.”
“Should it arise.”
Cray nodded. “Should it arise.”
Artie Wu turned and headed for the door, but turned back. “In that picture I saw,” he said to Weaver Jordan. “The guy went to all the trouble of shading the pad with a pencil, but you know what the secret message turned out to be?”
“A fake,” Weaver Jordan said.
“I guess we saw the same picture.”
“I guess we did,” Weaver Jordan said.
Chapter Thirty-two
Convincing Antonio Imperial to hand over Georgia Blue’s black attache case required far less persuasion than either Wu or Durant had anticipated. She had lodged her case with Imperial for safekeeping and they politely looked elsewhere as the hotel manager worked the combination of the large old Mosler safe that dominated his office.
“How is Miss Blue?” he asked, tugging open the safe’s door.
“Comfortable,” Wu said. “Doctor Bello gave her a sedative.”
“She’s sleeping then?”
“Dozing,” Durant said. “But she needs some of the documents in her case.”
“You wouldn’t mind signing for it, would you?” Imperial asked as he handed Wu the attaché case.
“Mr. Durant’ll be happy to,” Artie Wu said.
Up in Durant’s room, Wu watched as Durant used a nail file and a carefully bent paper clip to open the case’s two locks. It took five minutes of fiddling and swearing before both locks succumbed. Durant opened the case lid, revealing approximately $200,000 in what Otherguy Overby had called the “this-and-that money.” About half was in $100 bills, banded in packets of $5,000, 50 bills to the packet. The rest was in unendorsed American Express traveler’s checks.
“How much?” Durant asked.
“Ten thousand for the Colonel?” Wu suggested.
“Better make it fifteen,” Durant said, removing three of the packets.
“And maybe twenty-five thousand for the warlord.”
Durant frowned. “Think he’ll settle for that?”
“Make it thirty thousand then.”
Durant removed another six packets.
“And five thousand for incidentals.”
Durant nodded, removed one last packet, and closed the attache case lid.
“Don’t lock it yet,” Wu said, going to the writing desk where he wrote something on a sheet of hotel stationery and signed his name. He handed the sheet to Durant who read it aloud.
“‘Expense advance in the amount of fifty thousand dollars drawn against miscellaneous gratuities and incidental outlays. A. C. Wu.’”
“Sign your name below mine and date it,” Wu said.
“Somehow,” Durant said, as he signed his name, “I don’t think this’ll stand up in court.”
After they returned the attache case to Antonio Imperial and, at his insistence, watched him replace it in the old safe, Wu and Durant rode the elevator to the fourth floor and entered room 426. Georgia Blue lay on the farther twin bed, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, a sheet drawn up to her chin.
Artie Wu went over to the bed and said her name softly. When she didn’t stir or respond, he whispered to Durant, “How many Percodans did the doctor give her?”
Durant held up two fingers.
“And you?”
Durant held up two fingers of his other hand.
“Let’s go,” Artie Wu said.
After the door closed, Georgia Blue opened her eyes. She slowly sat up in bed and managed to swing her feet to the floor. She began to sway slightly and tucked her head down between her knees, keeping it there for at least a minute. After that, she lifted her head, breathed deeply and stood up. She again swayed slightly, but recovered, walked slowly to the writing desk, picked up the phone and dialed the number of the U.S. Consulate in downtown Cebu City.
Durant knocked on the door of room 512 in the Magellan Hotel. Wu stood just to his left. The door was opened a few seconds later by the straight up-and-down old man with the silky white hair and the rust-red complexion. He stared at them, not saying anything, waiting for their pitch.
“Colonel Crouch?” Durant said.
Vaughn Crouch nodded.
“My name’s Durant and this is my partner, Mr. Wu. We’re associates of Booth Stallings.”
“So?”
“We’d like to make you a proposition.”
Crouch nodded skeptically. “Am I supposed to buy or sell?”
Durant smiled. “Sell.”
Crouch inspected Wu, taking his time, then Durant again. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
The room Wu and Durant entered obviously had been furnished to suit a minimalist’s tastes. There were two chairs, a single bed, a pair of lamps, a table that held two bottles — one of gin, the other of Scotch — and four fishing rods that leaned in a corner. It was a room that could be vacated on ten minutes’ notice, its valuables either abandoned, drunk or poured down the sink.
“Sit or stand, suit yourself,” Crouch said, choosing the bed. Durant leaned against a wall, his arms folded. Wu chose the lone easy chair.
“Drink?” Crouch asked.
“No, thanks,” Wu said.
“Well,” Crouch said, “which one of you’s the spieler?”
Artie Wu smiled and said, “We understand you know Alejandro Espiritu.”
“I know a lot of guys.”
Wu nodded, as if he had met with confirmation rather than evasion. “Booth Stallings is bringing him down from the hills tomorrow.”
Crouch rose, crossed to the gin bottle, poured a measure into a glass, and held up the bottle to Wu and Durant who shook their heads. Crouch tossed the straight gin down, made a face and said, “Al willing to come?”
“That’s right,” Durant said.
“What the fuck for?”
“For the five million dollars somebody’s agreed to pay him if he exiles himself to Hong Kong,” Wu said.
Crouch went back to the bed and sat down. “Somebody’s yanking your chain, gents,” Crouch said. “If Al Espiritu ever got his hands on five million, he’d spend it all on ordnance.” He smiled then. “Unless somebody fucked him out of it first.”
There was a silence until Durant said, “Would that worry you?”
“Yes and no,” Crouch said, after giving the question some thought. “I don’t want to see Al hurt or killed or jailed again. But then I don’t want to see that bunch of his running things either.” He paused. “Maybe a trip to Hong Kong might do him good. He could write his memoirs or something.”
“That’s why we came to you, Colonel,” Wu said. “To keep him from being hurt or killed or jailed.”
“I spotted you for a couple of Christians right off,” Crouch said with a snort. “Who d’you think wants to stop him most?”
“You tell us,” Durant said.
“Well, there’s Manila, of course,” Crouch said. “Because they’re smart enough to know what he’d do with the money once he got his hands on it. Then he’s got that bunch of young Turks who’re itching to nudge him out of the way. They wouldn’t mind five million either. Washington’s probably split right down the middle, not sure which way to crawfish. About the only ones who’d be rooting for Al is the old Marcos crowd because they can’t lose. If he’s gone, good. If he buys guns, even better because that’d provide an excuse for the coup that’s gonna happen sooner or later anyhow.” He looked at Wu and then Durant. “That about how you guys figure it?”