“Did Overby tell you this?” she said, her voice now cold and angry.
Durant shook his head. “It’s just a variation of an old turn called the Omaha Banker.”
“A confidence trick?”
“Sure. That’s what Overby does. It’s his profession.”
She stared at the floor. “He’s very good, isn’t he?”
“Not bad.” Durant took a package of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered it to Carmen Espiritu. After lighting hers, he said, “Is Booth Stallings all right?”
She blew out the smoke and said, “Yes.”
“Why did your husband insist on him?”
“Because he remembers Stallings as a fool.”
Mistake number one, Durant thought, smiled slightly and said, “What else?”
Carmen Espiritu looked away. “My husband thought if he insisted on an old American comrade-in-arms as the intermediary, it would demonstrate sincerity. My husband’s sincerity.”
“And the real reason?”
She looked straight at Durant. “If things went wrong, my husband would have an American hostage.”
“That sounds about right,” Durant said. “Maybe you can tell me something else. Where’s the five million coming from?”
“I have no idea.”
Durant made himself look faintly surprised. “Didn’t poor old Ernie Pineda tell you up in Baguio before you cut off his balls and slit his throat?”
“You make no sense.”
“Sure I do, Carmen. Ernie worked for you — for the NPA anyhow — as well as for the Palace. He knew everything and everybody. So whose five million did Ernie say it was?”
She shook her head, almost as if she pitied Durant. “You don’t understand anything, do you?”
“I’m trying. It’d help if you’d tell me what happened between you and Boy Howdy. I mean, what’d Boy do to make you kill him?”
Carmen Espiritu put her cigarette out and rose. “You should ask the Blue woman.”
“Think she’d know?”
Carmen Espiritu shrugged. “Are you her lover?”
Durant smiled and shook his head. She slowly walked over to where he still leaned against the wall. “Just good friends?” she said.
“Not even that.”
She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed her body against his. “I haven’t taken a lover in months,” she said, demonstrating her frustration with small rhythmic thrusts of her pelvis.
Durant kissed her then. He kissed her out of curiosity and because there really wasn’t all that much choice. It was a long kiss with much lip nibbling and teeth clicking and a great deal of tongue work. Durant thought she seemed to enjoy it. He knew he did. When it was over, he said, “Let me get the lights.”
“I like them on,” Carmen Espiritu said in a breathy voice as she gently tugged him toward the nearer of the twin beds.
“Indulge me,” Durant said and went to the door. His left hand turned off the lights and the room went dark. His right hand removed the five-shot Smith & Wesson revolver, the one supplied by Vaughn Crouch, from his right hip pocket. With his left hand he opened the door.
Two Filipinos stood there, one large and one small. The large one, who had beaten Georgia Blue unconscious, held a hotel room key in his right hand. His small partner’s right hand was darting toward something stuck down beneath his shirttails in the waistband of his pants. Durant slashed the darting hand with the revolver. The small man gasped and raised the hand to his mouth where he kissed and stroked it tenderly.
“She’s just leaving,” Durant said. “Aren’t you, Carmen?”
Durant turned sideways, parallel with the open door, not taking his eyes or his revolver off the two men. Carmen Espiritu stopped in front of him. He didn’t look at her when she said, “You still don’t understand anything, do you?”
“Such as?” Durant said, still watching the two Filipino men.
“That I win, regardless of what happens.”
After Carmen Espiritu and her two chaperones left, Durant closed the door, shot the dead bolt and fastened the chain. He also went to the phone, picked it up and called Artie Wu’s room.
When Wu answered, Durant said, “I just heard from Otherguy. Sort of.”
“Indirectly, I take it.”
“Directly is a path he seldom takes.”
“Well, is he still on track or not?” Wu asked.
“Let’s put it this way, Artie. Otherguy’s either right on track or he’s gone completely off the rails.”
Chapter Thirty-five
At dawn, Booth Stallings rose naked from his cot in the smallest room of the large nipa hut and dressed in his freshly laundered and ironed clothes. The night before, Minnie Espiritu — not quite by force — had confiscated his shirt, pants, socks, and shorts.
“They stink,” she had said, “so take ‘em off and give ’em here.”
After Stallings had removed his shirt, pants and socks, she said, “Shorts, too.”
When he had hesitated, she grinned. “Old guys don’t flick my Bic. They still say that in the States — flick my Bic?”
“I don’t think so,” Stallings had said, handing her his shorts. After giving his naked body a frankly curious appraisal, Minnie Espiritu had said, “Not bad. Considering.”
Stallings entered the nipa hut’s main room to find Alejandro Espiritu seated at the rough board table, drinking a cup of tea. He smiled up at Stallings. “What would you say to a pre-breakfast stroll?”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“‘Fine’ would do. So would ‘Let’s go.’”
“Fine,” Stalling said. “Let’s go.”
“You might take this along,” Espiritu said, indicating a plastic shopping bag that had been placed on a nearby chair.
“What’s in it?”
“Comestibles,” Espiritu said with a smile. “And I do believe it’s the first time I ever used the word.”
Stallings picked up the shopping bag and followed Espiritu out of the hut and down the bamboo stairs. The smaller man wore a blue tails-out shirt, tan cotton pants and a pair of gray Nike running shoes that looked new.
“I like dawn, don’t you?” said Espiritu as they strolled across the hard-packed dirt of the compound.
“Not much.”
“I like to hold meetings at dawn when everyone else is groggy and I’m wide awake.”
“I notice you still like to chatter in the morning.”
“Better that you notice the guards,” Espiritu said.
“Hard not to.”
“They have new orders,” Espiritu said. “From Carmen.”
“Oh?”
“They’ve been ordered not to let me leave the compound.”
“That’s some marriage you’ve got, Al.”
“A marriage of convenience, which is now inconvenient.”
They had just walked past the last hut in the compound when Espiritu stopped and turned to face Stallings. “Over my right shoulder. See him?”
“The guard?” Stallings said.
“His name is Orestes. A most conscientious lad who actually stays awake during his shift. He’s been on since midnight and he’ll be relieved in about ten minutes. Let’s go talk to him.”
Stallings nodded thoughtfully as he swung the shopping bag back and forth in a small arc. “So we’re going now, huh? I mean, really going.”
“Yes. We really are.”