you calling?”
Moon told her the number, and waited, trying not to think about how dreadful this was going to be if- “I’m sorry, sir. That number is no longer in service.
“What?” Moon said. “You mean it’s out of order?”
“No, sir. That number has been disconnected.”
“Could you try again? Could you check? Maybe he just left the receiver off the-”
“Of course.”
Moon waited, listening to the sounds telephones make during this sort of operation, thinking there would be no one named Gregory flying in to make George Rice disappear.
“I’m sorry, sir. That number has been disconnected.”
“When?”
“I’m sorry, sir. You will have to check with our business office for that information. Shall I transfer your call?”
“No. Thanks. Just let it go,” Moon said. He put down the phone.
“He wasn’t there,” Osa said.
“The telephone has been disconnected,” Moon said. Osa would say maybe he just wasn’t in. Osa would say maybe he left the telephone off the hook. Osa would ask- Osa raised her eyebrows, made a wry face, said,
“I don’t think Mr. Rice gave us the wrong number. I think Mr. Gregory moved away.” She paused, staring past him, deep in thought. She grimaced. “Now, what to do with Mr. Rice? The prison people, I think they will come looking for him.” She paused. “And looking for us.”
“How about we kill him and bury him?” Moon said.
“He won’t want to go back,” she said. “I don’t think so. He’ll want us to hide him somewhere.” She shook her head, gave Moon a wry smile, tapped her purse. “I can’t fit him in here.”
They sat side by side on Moon’s bed. The sound of the lobby television drifted up through the floor. Canned laughter, then drums, then music, then what seemed to be a life insurance commercial.
Osa put her hand on his knee.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Mathias. You’ve had too much to worry about. Your mother. Your poor little niece. And back home there must be the job you had to leave so quickly. Too much to worry about. Don’t worry about this.”
Surprised, he looked at her. He saw nothing but total sympathy. Her eyes glistened with it. She was ready to cry for him.
Moon wasn’t sure what emotion this provoked in him. Whatever it was, it caused him to give a shout of laughter, thrust his arm around her shoulder, and hug her to him. “Mrs. van Winjgaarden,” he said. “Osa, you are absolutely something else.” He laughed again. “What do you mean, don’t worry about this? We’re standing here on the edge of the cliff, and it’s crumbling under our feet, and Osa van Winjgaarden is advising me not to worry.”
“Ooh,” Osa said. “Too tight. You hug too strongly.”
“We have a magazine in the States,” Moon said. He eased his grip.
Osa was free now. “Well,” she said. “The Italians have a useful phrase.
“It’s the same in Spanish,” he said. “And I guess they’re both right.”
And so he had picked up the telephone again and repeated the process with the number Rice had given them. The operator was different but the results were the same: disconnected.
“I think you should be calling me Osa,” she said. “Mrs. van Winjgaarden is too long. And you never get it quite right.”
“And everybody calls me Moon.”
Then he called information and got the number of the Pasag Imperial Hotel in Manila.
Mr. Lum Lee was in.
“Ah, Mr. Lee,” Moon said. “I think I know now the location of your urn of bones.”
He heard the sudden sound of Mr. Lee sucking in his breath.
“We found a man named George Rice. He
worked closely with my brother. Rice told us that the day Ricky was killed he called in on his radio and said he had picked up the urn someplace up north in Cambodia. He said he was leaving it off at the home of Eleth Vinh’s parents. The name is Vin Ba and it’s a tiny little village in Cambodia near the Vietnam border.”
“Ah,” Lum Lee said. “Mr. Mathias, this is very kind of you. Very generous. It is difficult for a Westerner- for anyone who is not a Buddhist-to understand how important these bones are for our family.”
“I’ve read about it,” Moon said. “But I’m afraid this information will be too late. I hear the Khmer Rouge are taking over everything. We may not be able to get there. And it may be gone if we do.”
“But this is most generous of you, this kindness to a stranger.”
“It is a family responsibility,” Moon said. “You contracted with my brother-”
Mr. Lee gave him a moment, decided the sentence wouldn’t be finished, said, “But that was an accident,” cleared his throat, and went on. “I myself was not able to reach Mr. Rice. I was informed he was in prison. In the south.”
“He’s in the Federal Correction Unit on Palawan Island,” Moon said. “Our embassy arranged for me to talk to him.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Lee, and Moon heard a wry chuckle. “I think the Taiwan embassy would not know me, and the mainland China embassy would not find favor in the present Philippine foreign office. You are there now? On Palawan?”
“At Puerto Princesa,” Moon said. “At the Puerto Princesa Filipina hotel.”
“And from there you are going over to Vietnam? Or you come back to Manila?”
“I don’t know,” Moon said. “I have no plans made. But if I can find the urn I will bring it to you. Where? At your hotel in Manila?”
“Yes,” Lee said. “They know me here. And where will you be?”
Probably in prison, but no use getting into all those details. “I’ll be here for a day or two.” Or however many years it takes to serve out a criminal conspiracy term.
And that had been more or less that. A few more expressions of gratitude on Mr. Lee’s part, and disclaimers by Moon.
The next call had been to the cardiac ward in Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles. He’d asked the nurse who answered how his mother was doing.
“Morick,” the nurse said. “Oh, yes. Dr. Serna has been trying to reach you in Manila. Just a moment while I page her.”
Moon waited, uneasy. Dr. Serna calling him in Manila couldn’t be good. It wasn’t.
“Ah, Mr. Mathias,” she said. “I haven’t been able to reach you. The hotel number you gave us in Manila -”
“Is she worse?”
“We couldn’t wait,” Dr. Serna said. “We tried an angioplasty. Usually they’re effective. This one wasn’t. So we-”
“Is she dead?”
“She’s alive. Her condition is stabilizing. But we must do bypass surgery right away. How soon can you get to Los Angeles?”
“Ah,” Moon said. “I don’t know. I’m at Puerto Princesa. Little place way down at the wrong end of the Philippines. I’ll have to find a way to get back to Manila and then-”
He stopped, thinking of George Rice in the jungle, of the police surely watching the airport. He’d never get to Manila. And if he did, the police there would grab him the minute he showed his passport.
“Look,” he said. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Do the surgery. You have my permission. Do whatever you have to do to save her life.”
“We can declare it a medical emergency,” Dr. Serna said. “Because it is.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“She’s sedated.”
