Artie Wu smiled, as if in complete agreement. “The Secret Service had assigned Georgia to watch Imelda Marcos’ back, right?”
“That’s it.”
“How’d you pry it out of them?” Durant asked.
“I told them Georgia was applying for a job out here with Reuters and I was checking her references and work history. And is it true, I ask, that Miss Blue was once assigned to Mrs. Marcos who’s listed as a reference? And they say yes and give the dates and places. So then I ask if Georgia had quit the Service or been fired or what, and they say she quit. Resigned. Although she tells everybody else, Booth anyway, that she got canned.”
“You got all this over the phone?” Durant asked with unconcealed skepticism.
“From their personnel section, which is what it’s there for. Credit checks. References. And if I’ve got to say it myself, Quincy, I’m the best fucking phone man who ever lived.”
“You are indeed, Otherguy,” Wu said. “But tell me. What exactly made you pick up the phone?”
“Artie, nobody — and I mean nobody — sends out five million dirty unless they’ve got a trace on it. A trace they can trust. Well, I eliminated me first, of course, then Booth and you two last. That left Georgia. Then I remembered Booth saying Georgia’d told him that Treasury assigned her mostly to the wives of visiting big shots. So I play the hunch, pick up the phone, ask a couple of questions and bingo.”
“Nice,” Artie Wu said. “Very nice. Almost brilliant.”
“And that’s when you almost went solo, right?” Durant said.
Overby looked up with his unassailable, nothing-can-touch-me stare. “Like I said, Quincy, it crossed my mind.” He smiled his hard merry smile. “Just like it would’ve crossed yours.”
Wu rose, walked over to the seated Overby and put a friendly, almost comforting hand on his left shoulder. Overby looked down at the hand suspiciously.
“It was thoughtful of you to confide in us, Otherguy,” Wu said. Overby rose and turned to Durant who was still leaning against the wall. “Now that Espiritu’s dead, you guys know what she’ll try to do, don’t you?”
“We know,” Durant said.
Overby nodded. “Yeah. I thought you might.”
After he had gone, Wu turned to face the suite’s open bedroom door. He raised his voice slightly and said, “You can come out now, Lieutenant.”
Lt. Cruz walked into the suite’s sitting room. “You get all that?” Durant asked.
The homicide detective nodded. “Fascinating. He has a very good mind, doesn’t he?”
“Too good sometimes,” Durant said.
Lt. Cruz smiled, obviously pleased. “Yes, well, I’ll see you in Hong Kong then.”
The Hong Kong Peninsula Hotel had dispatched two Rolls-Royce sedans to the airport. One of the two uniformed chauffeurs carried a neatly lettered sign that sought “Mr. Wu and Party.” Artie Wu served as tour director, assigning Durant, Overby and Booth Stallings to the lead Rolls. He and Georgia Blue settled into the rear one. As the two-car procession rolled toward Kowloon, Wu pushed the button that raised the glass partition.
“Been to Hong Kong before, Georgia?”
“Twice,” she said. “I drew the Secretary of State’s wife the first time; the Vice-President’s the second.”
Wu smiled. “Fun trip?”
“Nothing but girlish giggles.”
“I can imagine.” There was a block-long silence until Wu asked, “What about Harry Crites back in Washington? Think he’ll kick up a fuss?”
“When Espiritu’s death is announced?”
Wu nodded.
“What can Harry say? Espiritu flew to Hong Kong, picked up his five million, changed his mind, flew back home and died of a second stroke. The NPA won’t deny he’s dead. They’ll deny the five million and all, but I don’t think Harry is going to sue.”
“Then we’re virtually home free, wouldn’t you say?”
She considered the question. “I think so. It certainly beats trying to throw a switch on a live Espiritu.” She grinned at Wu. “You really were serious about running the pigeon drop on him, weren’t you?”
Wu smiled almost wistfully, as if at some lost chance. “An elegant variation thereof. It would’ve been beautiful.” He sighed. “And no comeback. None at all.”
“There won’t be any this way either,” she said.
“Let’s hope not,” said Artie Wu.
Booth Stallings decided that royalty wouldn’t have received a much warmer reception than the one the Hong Kong Peninsula gave Wu, Durant and Otherguy Overby. The hotel obviously cherished its trio of free-spending guests and even made a small fuss over Georgia Blue. By virtue of his membership in Mr. Wu’s party, Stallings himself was treated with the deference usually reserved for visiting ministers of sport and culture and fading rock stars.
After Stallings was shown to his room, he took a shower, had a nap, read, ordered a room service dinner and waited for the phone to ring. It rang at 8 P.M. After he said hello, he heard Durant say, “Let’s take a walk.”
“What for?”
“Because I want to,” Durant said.
They walked a block up Salisbury Road to the Kowloon YMCA, once the residence of Otherguy Overby.
“Let’s have a cup of tea,” Durant said.
“Tea?”
“Tea.”
“Well, I guess we are in China, sort of.”
The YMCA restaurant offered Formica tables, plastic chairs that wobbled and the smell of cheap food cooked in vast quantities. Durant examined the almost empty room before selecting a table that was occupied by a Filipino in a well-cut suit of tan linen whose jacket sleeves had cuffs that really buttoned. The Filipino nodded coolly at Durant as he sat down. Stallings chose a chair across from the Filipino.
Durant made the introductions casually. “Lieutenant Cruz, Booth Stallings.”
Stallings stared at Cruz and said, “At the Manila airport, right?”
Lt. Cruz nodded.
“You were a lieutenant of what when you picked up Durant?”
“Homicide. I still am.”
Durant asked Cruz, “You talk to the Hong Kong cops?”
“I called them from Manila and then saw them after I got here. They gave me this.” He picked up a leather attaché case from the floor, opened it on his lap, removed an envelope and handed it to Durant. The empty letter-size envelope bore the name of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Durant carefully put it away in his inside jacket pocket.
Lt. Cruz used his chin to point at Stallings. “Does he know?”
“Not yet.”
“Know what?” Stallings said.
They ignored the question as Lt. Cruz raised an eyebrow at Durant who shrugged. The detective leaned toward Stallings and spoke in a low rapid voice.
“Listen carefully. The Hong Kong police will arrest Miss Blue when she comes out of the bank tomorrow.”
“For what?”
“The murder of Mrs. Emily Cariaga — who was a friend of his.” Lt. Cruz indicated Durant with a nod.
“So far, it sucks,” Stallings said.
“We have evidence,” Lt. Cruz said, “that Miss Blue, directly or indirectly, is in the pay of Ferdinand Marcos or his wife, Imelda. Possibly both.”
Stallings chuckled. It sounded to Durant like glass being ground up. “Their hired gun, huh?” Stallings said.
“I’m saying only that the late Mrs. Cariaga, apparently through her extensive social or political connections, learned that Miss Blue was in the Marcoses’ pay. The information frightened her. So much so that she decided to leave the country.”
“Who says she was frightened?” Stallings asked.
“I do,” Durant said. “She called and told me she was and asked me to drive her to the airport.”
“She tell you about Georgia and the Marcoses?”
“No.”