Finding Moon

effort to stir the humid air. Even the lieutenant, wearing knee-length shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, was wilted. He was also a bit confused. His stare made his suspicious dislike of Moon apparent. But somehow Mrs. van Winjgaarden had charmed him.

“You know the rules,” he said, glowering at Moon and then smiling shyly at Osa. “Visits are limited to twenty minutes for colonists during the first month of their incarceration. Colonist Rice has not been here long enough to qualify for a longer visit. Nothing can be passed to the inmate. Nothing can be received from the inmate. The rules require that a guard will be present at all times.”

This recitation completed, the lieutenant gave Moon a final warning stare and backed out, bowed to Osa, and closed the door behind him.

They sat in straight-backed wooden chairs behind a long wooden table. And waited.

“Here we are, then,” Osa said. “I think this will be it. I think Mr. Rice will tell us what we have to know. I have prayed for that.”

Moon nodded. “Maybe so,” he said. And maybe this would be an appropriate time for prayer. He closed his eyes. Lord, he thought, let this Rice guy be the end of it. Let me just go home. Let this man tell us he doesn’t know where the kid is, and he doesn’t know how to get to this crazy preacher’s mission, and he doesn’t know a damned thing useful. He opened his eyes. Closed them again. Arid, Lord, let my mother be well again. And let her forgive me if I disappoint her again. Let her know it just wasn’t possible. That I really did- The door opened and a small man walked through it. George Rice. He wore a loose cotton blouse with broad horizontal stripes in black and white. And under the blouse, loose pants with the same stripes. Exactly like the costumes cartoonists put on convicts, Moon thought. But the man didn’t look like a convict even in that uniform. He had bright blue eyes, and a broad grin showed perfect white teeth. He had a well-trimmed white beard and mustache. Moon thought of Santa Claus.

A guard walked in behind him, even smaller. The guard looked about seventeen, and nervous.

“Well, howdy do!” George Rice said, beaming at Osa. “It is so good to see you agin, darlin’. So very, very good.”

The guard pointed to the chair on the other side of the table and said, “Sit, please.”

Rice sat.

“Mr. Rice,” Osa said, “this is Ricky’s brother. We hope you can give us some information.”

“Moon Mathias,” Rice said, extending a hand.

“I’ll be damned. You finally got here. Ricky thought you were the greatest thing since sliced bread.”

The guard stepped forward. “No touch,” he said.

His expression said he was embarrassed by this rudeness. He looked at Moon, his eyes asking forgiveness.

“I’m glad to meet you,” Moon said. “Ricky told me a lot about you too. I guess you were his right-hand man.” A small white lie, but harmless as it was, Moon regretted it, just as he regretted the small ones he told Debbie. All Moon remembered hearing about Rice was a couple of anecdotes about his escapades.

“Don’t believe all you hear,” Rice said, grinning. And then, to Osa, “Damn’, did you come like the prince came to the tower where the princess was”-he searched for the proper word-“was incarcerated against her will? I trust that is your motive.”

“It would be nice if we could,” Osa said. “But we-”

Rice interrupted her. He turned to the guard. “This is my friend Mr. Preda. Mr. Preda, these are my good old friends, Mrs. van Winjgaarden and Mr. Moon Mathias. Good people. Good friends of President Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda.”

“How do you do,” Moon said. Osa said something that sounded like it might be in Tagalog, and Mr. Preda smiled shyly and nodded.

“Mr. Preda speaks English,” Rice said. “But when it comes to La lengua of Shakespeare, to the multiple-syllable latinate vocabulary, then it’s a different ball game. You two will understand without any explanation from me the advantage this linguistic situation will have for us.” He looked back at Preda, who smiled and nodded.

Rice smiled back.

“I understand,” Moon said glumly.

“You don’t have to be a Houdini for the first step,” Rice said. “I guess you noticed that coming in. A low hurdler could do the palm log. This isn’t Sing Sing. That’s not the problem. The problem is getting a drawbridge across the moat.”

“The Sulu Sea,” Moon said. He wasn’t happy about the direction this conversation was taking.

“Exactly,” Rice said. “Or, in our case, it would be the South China Sea.”

“Mr. Rice,” Osa said, “to tell the truth, we don’t have any way to build bridges over moats. We are trying to find the baby. Eleth’s baby. And Ricky’s. She was supposed to be brought out to Manila, but she didn’t get there. And we want to get my brother out of his mission too. Mr. Brock told us that you might-”

“Little Lila didn’t get to Manila?” Rice said, frowning. “Well, now, she should have.”

“And I would also like you to tell me some way I can reach my brother.”

“Oh,” Rice said. He leaned his elbows on the table, hands folded, lip caught between his teeth, thinking. He looked at Moon, blue eyes bright under bushy white eyebrows. And then at Osa. And then down at his hands.

Young Mr. Preda took a small step backward, leaned against the wall, looked out the window, exhaled a great sigh. Moon became conscious of the perspiration running down his cheekbone, down the back of his neck. The smell of mildew reached him, reminding him of something he couldn’t quite place.

“Where would she be?” Rice asked himself. He glanced up at Moon. “I take it you’re telling me they didn’t get her onto the flight to Manila,” he said.

“Apparently not,” Moon said.

Rice sighed. “The way it was supposed to work, we’d handle it at the Nam end and that lawyer- Castenada, I think his name is, the one that Ricky retained for R. M. Air-was supposed to meet the plane and get the kid sent along to the grandmother in the States.” Rice paused, lip between teeth again, remembering.

“I flew her up to Saigon,” Rice said. “Lo Tho Dem was there at the airport. He had his wife with him. They took the little girl. Dem said he thought everything was going to be okay but he might need a little more cash”-he glanced up at Moon as he rubbed his fingers together, making sure he understood such things-“because things were getting tense in Saigon already. The rich folks wanting out. People standing in line at the embassy for papers and visas. There was already a big run on the airlines for tickets. But Dem-”

Moon interrupted. “Who is Lo Tho Dem?”

Rice laughed. “I never was quite sure who the hell he was,” he said. “Anyway, he was Ricky’s man in Saigon. Your brother had a talent for finding useful people. I’m pretty sure Mr. Dem sometimes did a little work for the CIA. That must have been where Ricky got acquainted with him: when Dem was working on one of those little jobs for the Company.”

“Oh,” Moon said. “And Ricky sometimes did a little work for them too?”

“And that’s why Dem figured he could get the paperwork through in a hurry. And get the airline ticket. All that. From what little I know about it, the Company owed your brother a few favors.”

“You think that was the problem?” Moon asked. “Dem couldn’t get a visa?”

“Well, now,” Rice said, “when you get right down to it I gotta admit the real problem was me being stupid. The problem was, Ricky was dead. To make it worse, the Company knew he was dead. No more favors expected from Ricky Mathias. And the CIA don’t have a reputation for paying off favors to people who can’t do ’em any more good.”

Rice was biting his lip again. He gave Moon an apologetic look and slammed his fist into his palm.

“Son of a bitch! I should have thought of that.”

Mr. Preda shifted his weight against the wall, looked at his watch, sighed.

“So how can we find the child now?” Moon asked. “Did you have some sort of backup plan? Would this Dem guy keep her, or what?”

“I don’t know,” Rice said.

“How can I find Dem, then?”

“He lived in Saigon. Ricky had his address and telephone number in his file.”