Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon

“Good to talk to you,” Blick said. “You’ll be glad to hear that Sandra is doing just fine at Pepperdine. Nothing but A’s.”

Sandra? Sandra Blick? Oh, yes. They’d run a feature about her, with a picture. She’d won some sort of scholarship at the Colorado Science Fair. “I’m not surprised to hear that,” Moon had said, and told him what had happened to Victoria.

“Where is she?” Blick had asked. “In West General in L.A.? I’ll get you a good man on it. Somebody you can trust.”

Within an hour, Blick had called him back.

“I reached the cardiologist you need,” Blick said. “A woman named Serna. Great reputation. She wants to get your mother moved to Cedars-Sinai.”

“I’ve heard of that one,” Moon said.

“You should have,” Dr. Buck said. “It’s one of the four or five best hospitals in the country. Now, let me give you the telephone numbers you’ll need. And I’ll tell you how to make the transfer.”

At West General, Moon found that Dr. Jerrigan was not at the hospital and the doctor who had checked Victoria in was otherwise occupied. His mother was barely awake. He signed the required forms certifying that he was checking her out “against medical advice.” He scheduled the ambulance, collected her medical file, and signed financial forms. At Cedars-Sinai he checked her in and surrendered the file to a nurse at the desk in the cardiac ward. Then he waited thirty-seven minutes. Almost thirty-eight. A chubby woman with short gray hair and a round, serene face appeared, carrying the file he had delivered. She introduced herself as Emily Serna, sat down next to him on the waiting room sofa, and gave him the bad news.

All indications were that his mother had barely survived a severe heart attack. The circumstances suggested she might soon have another one. If she did, the odds were heavily against her living through it. A catheterization test was needed, an angiogram to determine the extent of arterial blockage and the damage already done to the heart muscle. “There’s some risk with an angioplasty,” Dr. Serna said. “Heavier because of your mother’s condition.”

“Angioplasty,” Moon said. “That’s running the fiber optic gadget up the artery to find the blockage?”

Dr. Serna nodded.

“How much risk?”

“Well, I’d say there’s a ninety-five percent chance she’ll have another heart attack-and soon-if we don’t do anything. And I don’t think she’d survive it. We need the angiogram to tell us what to do. Even in her condition the risk of the test being fatal is much, much smaller. If bypass surgery is indicated, then the risk might go as high as fifteen or twenty percent.”

Moon considered. Dr. Serna waited, face sympathetic. She looked to him to be extremely competent.

“Okay,” Moon said. “Is there a form I need to sign?”

“I have it,” Dr. Serna said.

Moon signed it.

“Now I have a question for you,” Dr. Serna said. “We had a call from Miami Beach transferred over from West General.” She checked her notes. “It was from a Dr. Albert Levison. He said he was the physician attending Tom Morick. That’s your stepfather?

He asked to be provided a complete account of your mother’s health. Does that sound reasonable?”

“It does. My mother is married to Tom Morick,” Moon said, aware that his voice sounded stiff. “Morick has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He’s pretty much paralyzed. In fact he’s in an iron lung, dying fast. He’ll want to know everything.”

“We’ll send Dr. Levison all the details, then. He can explain them to Mr. Morick. And your mother is more awake now, if you want to see her.”

Victoria Mathias managed a smile, but just barely. Yes, she was feeling better. Less pain in her chest, but maybe that was the morphine. But what had he found out about the baby? Moon said nothing really definite, and that caused Victoria Mathias to give him a long, silent look.

“Malcolm,” she said, “I’m a big girl. That means the baby hasn’t arrived in Manila, doesn’t it? Does it also mean that Mr. Castenada doesn’t know where she is?”

“That’s what it seems to mean.”

“And that must mean she’s still in Vietnam,” she said.

“Or still en route,” Moon said. “Castenada seemed to believe whoever was supposed to send her off in Saigon was having trouble getting her on a flight.”

His mother studied him. “What did you think of Castenada?”

Moon shrugged. “Hard to tell over the telephone.”

“He doesn’t instill much confidence, I’m afraid.”

“No. He doesn’t.”

She made a feeble effort to move her hand across the sheet toward him. Let it fall. Moon reached out and took it.

“Malcolm,” she said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to go to Manila and take care of this.”

“I will,” Moon said. “But first we have to get you well.”

“I don’t think there’s time for that. I was watching the television news out at the airport before this happened. Things seem to be going to hell in that part of the world.” -

“I can’t just go off and leave you.”

“Son,” she said, “there’s nothing you can do for me here. It’s up to the doctor. You just have to go and get our granddaughter.”

And so Moon went.

SAIGON, South Vietnam, April 16 (AP)- Communist rockets last night detonated an ammunition dump at Bien Hoa thirty miles north of here. The blast shook the capital and reinforced reports that the Bien Hoa air base, largest in Vietnam, had come under artillery fire.

THE JET DESCENDED THROUGH RAIN to the Manila airport. Out the water-streaked window beside his seat, Moon could see nothing but the bleak inside of solid cloud cover, then a lush green landscape blurred by the falling water, then puddled runways lined with weeds. His impression of the terminal was of roaring, clamorous confusion. A prematurely old building with flaking paint, cracks in too many floor tiles, and too much dirt. The air conditioner worked too well, making the humid air unpleasantly sticky.

Moon felt smothered, exhausted, uneasy. His mother’s purse with eighty hundred-dollar bills in it was in his suitcase. What was the rule about bringing cash into the Philippines? Moon had a vague recollection of currency restrictions, but that probably concerned taking money out, not bringing it in.

The immigration agent was a skinny middle-aged man wearing what looked like a military uniform. He glanced at Moon’s passport and at Moon and said, “How long in the Philippines?” in oddly accented English.

“Just a couple of days,” Moon said, “maybe less.” But the agent was already looking past him at the pretty girl next in line.

Customs was equally cursory. Moon handed over the declaration sheet he’d filled out on the plane and stood, shoulders slumping, while the agent read it.

“Nothing to declare?” the agent asked, without looking up.

“Just clothing,” Moon said.

He opened Moon’s dented old American Tourister, glanced in, closed it. Then he patted Victoria Mathias’s briefcase.

“This?”

“Business papers,” Moon said. “Letters, personal correspondence, things like that.”

“Urn,” the clerk said. He motioned Moon to pick up his luggage and move along.

The door marked exit to public transportation was guarded by two teenagers in dark glasses, with the khaki uniforms and caps that Moon assumed were Philippine Army uniforms. Soldiers, surely, because they both held the same model M16 automatic rifles that Moon had trained with at Fort Benning. They lounged against the wall looking sinister in their glasses. He carried his bags past them, wondering if they were watching him. They didn’t seem to be watching anyone.